TRP - Traumatic Rating Points!

I thought TRP is a scale which measures the viewership base for specific programmes on air. But after seeing the Indian regional channels, it is nothing but a measure of the Indian publics’ ability to handle trauma! The past few weeks I have been trying to follow what each category of programmes in various channels has in store for an average viewer. The result is utter shock and disbelief. Let us examine them one category after the other, so that we can get a grasp of things.

Mega Serials
The duration of a normal mega serial is twice the average life span of a human being! You can count upto infinity with ease, but you cannot count the number of episodes of these mega serials! This being the fact, the craze for this category of programmes is literally unimaginable.
I have seen cases where people pray to live a bit longer to see the end of a serial. But little do these people know that, it is in fact, the turning points in these serials which cause sudden death of people… These serials have consumed more than one life with their absurd plots… I mean, these are SERIAL killers!

I would like to recall a certain tamil mega serial where the hero-ine was in the process of alighting a flight of stairs and was thinking what to sacrifice next for the sake of her family. You would not believe... not less than 15 episodes passed by before she successfully climbed the entire flight of stairs. This then became a famous CAT problem:
In a particular mega serial, “Kahani Dar Dar Ki", The hero-ine climbs a flight of stairs as she thinks about her husband and her cruel in-laws. Each episode she climbs up 3 steps and climbs down 2. The staircase sequence forms 83.243 per cent of the entire story of the serial. If the director intends to stretch the serial for 100234587 episodes, how many steps should there be in the flight of stairs?

In my opinion mega serials are bad, and the worst of its kind can be seen in Sony TV. I think the syllables of the name of this TV should be slightly interchanged… Instead of “Sony TV” it should be named “No See TV”! And “Star Plus” is really a “Minus” to the array of channels from Star TV network. The latest addition to this band of boring channels, with new serials like "veeranwali, Dahej, Neelanjana and Rasame Rasoi", is 9X! Anyways, I feel that, any day one third of this channel is a much better watch (1/3 of 9X!)

Hindi News Channels
Breaking News:
· Ek Suhaag raat mein Teen log… Ladki ke hui bahut na insaafi!
· Shaadi ke baad Sanju baba pehentha hai Jockey. Chali Manyatha ki magic. Ab VIP ko kya hoga!
· Ramgopal Varma ki ”Aag” dhekh khar, Logon ne Dhilli ki Theatre mein lagi Aag!
These are the kind of ‘Breaking News’ that you can see daily in our Hindi news channels. Wonder why are these BREAKING NEWS? After in-depth analysis, I have found out the answer. They are heart- BREAKING to see as a news item. That is why they are called BREAKING News!

I don’t want to elaborate any further on this Farce!

Stand up Comedy Shows
Star One started this genre of programmes and the other channels have caught up fast. In India stupidity spreads like an epidemic!
It all began with “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge”… True to its name, it challenges you to laugh! I mean… “Laugh-at-this- if-you-can types”! Now the same channel has started the “The Funjabi… Chak De”, where the level of insanity and childishness is immeasurable. It is crazy how can people take money to laugh. These shows thrive just because of a glamorous judge and an exposing compere!

NDTV Imagine
This channel is heights! There is this fat lady who comes once every half an hour in the pretext of teaching dance moves. She herself, well past her prime, must be weighing not less than 95 Kgs (She must have gained all the weight that Adnan Sami has lost!).
If you thought that the way she teaches dancing is the most irritating sights…. You are mistaken. Wait for her to dance, and your opinion will change instantaneously! All in all, NDTV Imagine is Unimaginable!

Advertisements
The creativity levels of Indian Ad makers have gone sky high that it is nowhere to be seen! Though I must agree that some ads are really funny and catchy, some of them really produce a “Negative top of the mind recall”! Let us see some of them…

Ads for Loans and Financial Advisory Services
With the kind of rapport it struck with me… I am extremely doubtful whether these ads can make any impact on the bottom line of the company.
There is this ad where a couple dress up like in Switzerland and take photographs in a studio. The caption says, “If you have a personal desire to travel, we have personal loans to help you”. Who will help me repay it?????
And there is another ad where a young girl buys a Jean which is torn at all wrong places and her mother repairs it. If I were the mother, I would repair my daughter rather than the jean!
There is yet another ad where there is a lawyer who reads out the will of a dead man which ultimately says, who should pay which bill… I mean..er… it is more of a BILL than a WILL!

Sprite
This ad has portrayed a guy who is honestly disloyal (Paradox!). This guy, with a straight face tells that he is scr*wing around with more than one girl! If they come to know, he will be called a CHEATERC*CK, literally... . and beaten so badly that he cannot scr*w anyone else in life!

Nokia + Airtel
This ad probably tried to touch the emotional Chord. It indeed made me emotional… and violent! The ad says, “Jab Nokia aur Airtel ek saath ho, phir garv se bolo… Hello”.
Mere pass LG phone ke saath Reliance connection hai… Mujhe “Hello” bolne mein sharam aani chahiye kya?????

Too much! ;-)

So people… if at all you have free time and want to watch TV, think twice. You are much better of counting from 2500. That is a much better time pass!