For TRPs sex, or whatever sells! (With Videos)

For TRPs sex, or whatever sells!

Anuradha Varma, TNN Aug 30, 2009, 10.45am IST

Dibankar Banerjee wants sex... uh, it's sex in the title of his movie that we're talking about. But, we caught your attention, didn't we? That's the way the cookie crumbles today... While headlines screaming 'bikinis' and 'kisses' (even better if they involve popular celebs) get hits on the Internet, television TRPs dictate that after Shweta Tiwari left Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao, Nigar Khan was quickly brought in to bathe under the contentious waterfall!

And the viewers? Even as they discuss the "cheap antics" on soaps and reality shows, they go back for more dope to discuss the next day... of course, sending TRPs soaring once again! So, do the audience and creators of content deserve each other, or should someone be crying "enough"?

Sandip Sickand, freelance creative director, Balaji Telefilms, believes that creative heads have to keep pace with an audience that's still to grow up. He justifies the twists on the longest running soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi..., which bumped off characters and brought them back to life on 'popular demand' , "It worked and viewers tuned in. But, the show ended when it had run its course."

On Bigg Boss contestants claiming that only certain aspects of their personality were highlighted to net TRPs, he accepts that a lot of the spicing up happens on the editing table, with certain quotable quotes being retained and highlighted.

He adds though, "The public ultimately knows what's true... you can't fool them. And unless there's a connect, things don't work."

Says Nikhil Madhok , VP Marketing and Communications , NDTV Imagine, which recently hit a homerun with Rakhi ka Swayamvar, "We crunch the best moments out of 24 hours of programming ." Rakhi's quotable quotes, for instance, "Mujhe uske choone se kuch nahin hota hai (" I feel nothing when he touches me" ) made the final swayamvar night the most watched for any nonfiction programme since November, 2007.

However, he points out, "Rakhi also connected with viewers on various levels. Some young girls, who had never been out on a date and were alien to the concept of meeting a guy before marriage , wrote in to say they were now aware of how to approach such situations."

But, sometimes, some business decisions are hard to make. Madhok recalls, "When we launched the channel, we wanted to try something different. We started with offbeat social themes in Radha ki Betiyaan Kuch Kar Dikhayengi and Ek Packet Ummeed, but they didn't work. Urban themes often don't click. Women watching the serial have more immediate concerns, like finding a man to marry."

Filmmakers too battle market demands. Even Bollywood's feted filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj went "commercial" with Kaminey, adding club number Dhan Te Nan for the masses. He said in an interview, "We've to admit people want catchphrases. ...Audiences are no longer sensitive to tender thoughts like 'Hai tere saath meri wafaa' and other Madan Mohan ghazals."

Director Madhur Bhandarkar, who made the critically-acclaimed Chandni Bar, Page 3 and Fashion, accepts stars prop up a film and help get a producer's backing. However, he realised early on that the audience can be fickle. "For my first film Trishakti , I listened to everybody and it sank without a trace anyway. So, I decided I might as well make films I believe in and if things go wrong, I have only myself to blame." He asks, "And, I don't understand it when people say the audience wants a certain thing... the audience liked Taare Zameen Par and it also liked Welcome."

Music director Shamir Tandon, who has worked with Bhandarkar on Corporate and Page 3, as well as on Rohan Sippy's Bluffmaster, says, "We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreamers, as the song goes... if the audience wants drugs or bad music, we're not going to provide it, are we? We have to protect and take forward the 'sanskriti' of our country. When composing music, I keep in mind my own needs as a creator and whether the music fits into the film it's meant for."

For Jail, he says, "We have used Lata Mangeshkar's voice for an early morning prayer as her voice has a certain 'sanctity' , even though people told us to think 'young'."

Tandon adds that though sticking to convictions may make the going slower, it pays off in the long run, "Look at Himesh Reshammiya , his nasal voice went against reigning trends, so did AR Rahman's music."

Sickand, currently working on two shows, one which involves farmers, believes that with shows like Sach ka Saamna on air, we may be ready to probe deeper. He's also a fan of Balika Vadhu, which "has excellent storytelling."

Ultimately, content counts. Says Dhananjay Varma, who runs the website Tech Goss, "Most media groups in the world are forced to juggle three roles these days — public watchdog, entertainment (apart from news) and being a successful business entity. People want news about everything — they want to know about the BJP conference in Himachal Pradesh as well as when Katrina will marry Salman."

Varma points out that while the world's leading social networking sites Facebook and the micro-blogging tool Twitter have yet to make profits, "despite the recession, America's No. 1 technology blog Techcrunch and No. 1 blogging group Gawker are hugely profitable. So, it is possible to be only driven by creative decisions."

So, while content across mediums may face business pressures, things will continue to click only if there's some heart — and substance — involved!