It won’t perhaps be unfair to comment that sometimes a few enforced-upon ideas on a Bangladeshi TV audience evoke quite a lot of laughter. Some programs don’t at all seem very well thought-out shows – shows which could convince the audience to watch that particular channel again.
This became obvious in the evening of World Cup 2014 kick-off, when two news presenters of a TV channel showed up wearing football jerseys of Argentina and Brazil. Maybe the planners of that day’s bulletins and programs had the World Cup craze and emotions in their minds, but to the common audience, it was unexpected. It seemed like a gimmick.
The planners surely thought this would grab quite a lot of attention from the audience. But ultimately, it didn’t seem to work out as the TV channel wanted. The channel was criticised for this.
This showed the lack of good ideas among the program planners of our TV channels. I remember watching a show on an Eid evening with four celebrities of different ages. The presenter was asking them about how they had spent Eid festivals when they were children and how they celebrate it as adults.
Fine, we don’t have any problem with that. We would love to know about how our celebrities used to have fun on Eid days. But when the presenter asked one celebrity about her children’s whereabouts during the Eid, it became truly irritating. The celeb replied that one daughter was spending her Eid in Japan and another was in Canada. Now, the question is: Why on Earth did the program planners think the audience would want to know about that particular celeb’s daughters? Quite difficult to answer.
Then, I switched on to another channel. I saw two lady presenters talking to two well-known musicians. First, it bit my wits to see two presenters on a show. And then, I heard the two musicians explaining what good friends they were and the presenters were grinning. It seemed the presenters were enjoying the show a lot. Now the question is: Do we, the audience, want to know about their (two musicians) friendship? Again, quite difficult to answer.
When any program is planned, most TV channels think in the same manner. If one channel starts a new program with some new ideas, almost every channel tends to emulate that particular show with a slight difference. Almost all TV programs in this country look the same, all talk shows look the same, all bulletins look the same. There’s hardly any difference between one and the other.
The reasons for this, perhaps, could be the lack of professional program committees in these TV channels and their unwillingness to spend for making a good program. Most of the programs are designed by the program departments where the decisions of the heads of the program get the priority. I haven’t seen any TV channel (maybe there is) hiring a firm for running a real survey on the expectations of the audience.
Research of that kind would have made their task much easier and more interesting. However, at the moment, there’s no evidence to work on. Day in and day out, the TV channels are churning out programs which they think are interesting.
I spoke to a few people in the industry and they replied that most of the times the channels are compelled to follow the instructions of the sponsors and advertisers. If that’s true, the advertisers might also rethink their strategies. The sponsors also need to do real research work before they prescribe any program for the TV channels.
Now, coming back to what TV channels are doing, the talk shows are a good case to think about. These shows occupy quite a lot of on-air chunks, especially during the evenings and nights. We all take it for granted that the people are watching these talk shows, but do we have any real evidence of how many among the audience are actually watching them?
Not really. The discussants at these talk shows are all the same people. Sometimes, we watch a single person talking on three different TV channels. By now, we can also assume what the discussants would talk about, and which political line they would be taking.
Perhaps, the time has come for a change in our TV media. Otherwise, our TV channels will continue to remain cocooned inside a box – they will continue to be criticised, and they might continue to lose their audience.
