Prime Time TV in India

With more than 400 of the 900 or so TV channels being News and Current Affairs, prime-time entertainment on television in India is provided by the News channels and not the entertainment channels. The format for prime-time programming for a 60-minute slot is uniform (indicating commoditization) across all these channels and comprises of less than 5 minutes of News (mostly obtained from syndication agencies) and 40-50 minutes of “high pitched, abusing and slugging matches between the political adversaries and the balance for commercial breaks depending on the fancy of the illiterate media-planners.

The party-spokespersons of the NDA and the UPA appearing on such TV debates each evening are more similar than they might like to think. All of them exploit grievances, distort the truth, and undermine the values that hold India together; and they don't hesitate to learn lessons from each other. Few of them can become the real show-stealers and then expect to be rewarded with Ministerial berths in the future Governments.

These debates have a brash and burly moderator, who rather than ensuring decorum, sanity or civility keeps fanning the profanity for maintaining the tempo of the show. Some of these moderators look forward to receiving the ‘Padma Awards’ over time. These shows lack substantive-content, depend on TRPs driven by sensationalism of the trivia and consequently lack audience engagement. These shows also fail to attract female audience. They are crass-entertainment with zilch day-after-recall.

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