Reality shows ruling prime time television

Reality shows are ruling prime-time television gone are the days of the saas-bahu. Time has changed and so has the psyche of the audience. Today they want to see common people like one of them in the silver screen..


THE GAME of TRP is on. You just need to click the remote and there it is in front of your eyes; reality shows ruling the prime time, even in the so called news channels. Talent hunts in various spheres of art like singing, dancing, stand-up comedy and even monitoring personal lives of some celebrities in the Indian version of Hollywood’s Big Brother; Big Boss. Controversies are in and the never ending saas-bahu soaps are definitely out.

But why are these shows getting so popular?

A few years back common audience had never heard of reality show. They were happy and content with the saas-bahu serials and family dramas. Suddenly in a very short span of time reality shows seems to rule the television. Human mind works unpredictably and may be that’s the answer to the above question. The taste of the audience changes according to the social, economical and emotional changes.

There was an era when Indian audience wanted to escape from reality so film and television producers catered to their needs by making films and serials based on fiction and fantasies. That was the time when serials like ‘Chandrakanta’, ‘Alif Laila’, were instant hits and used to rule the weekend television. Now a days weekend television is packed with shows like ‘Indian Idol’, ‘Star Voice of India ’, Zee TV Sa re ga ma pa’, ‘Big Boss’ and the list just goes on.

Time changes and so does the psyche of the audience. Today’s audience wants to see the common people like one of them in the silver screen. They want to see the famous people fight, cry, laugh like the common man.

As a member of today’s audience I would definitely say that we love to watch real people with real emotions. But there may be another angle to look at things as well.

We are turning into very curious cats and here the risk of getting killed by curiosity is absent. We want to see what’s happening in other’s lives no matter how personal that might be. And the directors and producers do get the message. That gave birth to publicity stunts. They make their judges as well as contestants fight with each other and get nasty on camera When we watch this our eyebrows get arched and we say, ‘how disgusting people can be?’

But we just love it. We never forget to watch those shows, specially the controversies and later try to analyze their behaviors and talk as if they were our old neighbors. How Anu Mallik dictates terms in Indian Idol and doesn’t let the other judges speak, how Rahul Mahajan is flirting with girls and Raja shedding tears over the memory of his wife Shweta and not to forget how the item girl Sambhawana is going the Rakhi Sawant way to grab attention in Big Boss-2.

One of us becomes popular, famous people exhibit real emotions, entangled in controversies alias reality shows...more