Most general entertainment channels have at least one such show on air. It is their way of standing out amid clutter. But reality TV shows are facing a harsh new reality-overkill. BrandWagon requested two experts from either side of the table – Deepak Dhar, country head, Endemol India, and Albert Almeida, executive Vice-President & Business Head, Sony Entertainment Television – to put down their points of view
Deepak Dhar
Nothing beats reality
Reality television broke the monotony to create interesting scripts and out-of-the-box ideas that made them stand out from the run-of-the-mill shows. Although drama-lovers are still glued to their television sets at prime time, reality shows are hogging the limelight.
Besides giving the audience the thrill and excitement of live unedited action, reality television allows the audience to be a part of the show through engaging media. Basically, it’s like scripted shows are running a marathon and reality shows are running a 100- meter dash.
Reality in India has been given out only in small doses primarily packaged around song and dance ideas. In India, viewers have now started demanding and consuming distinctive genres thus pushing the envelop within the Indian context. Absolute reality is the next big wave in our prime-time viewing. Content producers need to look for opportunities to push fresh ideas and newer approaches in order to spread the reality bug across air primetime.
Take the second season of Bigg Boss that opened with healthy ratings (TRP) of 2.4 on the newly launched general entertainment channel (GEC), Colors. The show brings together newsmakers in their own right and from different walks of life, thus catering to a wide audience.
The first season of Bigg Boss is again telecast as a re-run on television depicting the success of the format and its capability to bring back and hook on audiences.
Internationally, reality shows are shown back-to-back and the same trend has been replicated in India with reality shows hogging the prime time during the weekdays against the former weekend slots. Fear Factor was capsulated to a month-long back-to-back of 16 enthralling episodes. Being the driver show for Colors it substantially contributed to the overall GRPs of the channel.
The show became the No. 1 non-fiction programme on Indian television with a TRP of 2.7 in week 32 and ended with a spectacular rating of 3.26 in week 33 (the grand finale on August 14). Content producers must look for ideas that would grab mass attention with made-in-India formats in the manner of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, Jo Jeeta Wohi Super Star (JJWS), Mission Ustaad etc. These shows are about people’s participation, journey to fame and a lot of passion and emotion. JJWS on STAR Plus topped the talent shows across GECs during the period by delivering an average TRP of 2.67 in 13 weeks. The JJWS finale touched a rating of 5.82, which was higher than the finale of a popular show previously on the same slot.
Another example is The Great Indian Laughter Challenge on STAR One. In its fourth year, the show has garnered an average TRP of 1.72 and catapulted to the top-rated show for the channel.
In sum, the market is getting interesting for content creator as audiences get fragmented and emerging multiple networks battle for eyeballs. Investments are directly proportional to the ideas being produced.
The edge for content producers would lie in their commitment to story-telling, production and viewer-engagement values.
Albert Almeida
Is reality stranger than fiction?
“Is there not an overdose of reality shows on Indian television?” is the question I am often asked by many a journalist friend. At first I was defensive in answering this question and was often guilty of being short and abrupt with my response. I think it is partly because one felt the question came almost like a personal assault of sorts because one happens to represent the network that truly pioneered the advent of this genre in the country with the path breaking reality format Indian Idol (which is now in its fourth successful season).
It was not just this but many other innovative ones that followed on the back of this successful show like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, Naya Roop Nayi Zindagi (Extreme Makeover), Comedy Circus and even the premier’s of Bigg Boss and Fear Factor on Indian television that strengthened this perception.
Having been, in a way, accused of being party to driving the reality juggernaut or as some say the “overkill” of reality shows on Indian television let me first share my personal belief and unabashed support for the genre. I believe reality shows make for truly great entertainment especially if they stay true to the core of their existence and that is for being real. If they do so, they have the unmatched quality of being pure, of being not scripted, of not being manipulated -all of which makes for a great journey of unpredictable twists, turns and what gets thrown out is great content that is rich in a myriad of emotions making for great entertainment.
Further, for the viewer, there is a clear destination and journey to follow.
Having seen this on show after show that we have produced, and having understood this essence I have rid myself of the guilt of feeling persecuted for having had a hand in bringing this genre to our viewers here in India. On the contrary one takes pride in giving Indian viewers something new and clutter-breaking!
I think there are two issues we need to understand and debate here.
One, what does this label, reality show, that we keep attaching to our shows really mean to a viewer? And two, how much is too much?
My view on the first issue is that viewers do not attach labels the way we in the industry do to shows. They recognise shows as brands and they stick with those brands that mean something to them and provide them with entertainment they see value in — pretty much like any conventional brand that would either satisfy a functional or emotional need or both. It’s when viewers start rejecting me-too brands or brands that do not fulfill a need that we start reading it as overkill. If this were the issue you would not have viewers waiting for and giving a thumbs-up to successive seasons of shows like Indian Idol.
As far as the second issue is concerned, while I have partly addressed it already, I want to lean on some statistics to make my point. If we look across channels in the general entertainment category, all channels without exception have nearly a 70:30 skew in favour of fiction or scripted shows. How come we never seem to ask the question — is there an overkill of fiction shows, or an overkill of a certain kind of fiction show even though there are a large number of them struggling to cut through and garner a share of the viewers’ time?
The truth is that you cannot hold the number of shows as being the reason for the lack of traction-be it fiction or reality. You do not have to look to deep but rather think of it simply – Are all reality or scripted shows fulfilling the needs of our viewers? The answer is a clear ‘No’.
If there is a successful music reality show, we believe we can all create a me-too that will succeed and the same for dance and so on and so forth. What can be confidently said in favour of great reality shows is that they are clutter breakers, audience builders and revenue drivers. So rather than treat them as stranger than fiction and blame the quantum of shows as the issue, we need to follow the simple principle of not dishing out more of the same. But dish out more differently.
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