Is selling news as entertainment the only way left?

In 1987, the movie Broadcast News was reviewed by the master critic Roger Ebert.

It is a highly recommended read. Google it now. To quote from it, “… Broadcast News is not about details, but about the larger question of whether news is becoming show business….”

Wow. This was 28 years ago. It’s a question we have only just started asking ourselves here in India. It is such a relief to know we are not the only media that gets criticsed by puritans for being too "entertaining". Night after prime time night.

The tragedy of weekend news, however, is that the channels just lose it.

At the back of someone’s editorial mind and poorly measured audience share history is the fallacy that people don’t watch news over the weekend. And the even bigger misplaced conviction that apart from politics, nothing else really makes news, unless there is a unsolved murder at hand, of course. Even something as serious as a healthcare crisis becomes a tepid debate. The snore value is spectacular.

So on weekends, the news experience goes like this: ad ad ad ad ad newsbreak (but it doesn’t break), so more ad ad ad ad… then finally, minor newsbreak, then ad ad ad, followed closely by boring show, and more ad… ad nauseum.

Channels often have a whoosh of TV commercials that need to be played out to cover the week’s pending ad inventory for a client. And the channel is literally forced to air "anchor led" special shows, many of them plodding along in super-dull formats that encourage you to switch rapidly to the movie channel instead. Of late, we see a fascinating new fad of "recreating" news events in what I can only term "soapumentaries". We have never stopped to think if the producers in the newsroom are in fact qualified to create long format stories. Their lack of skill shows. But "budget kam hai" so why bring in an expert? Hum hain na?

But wait! Here’s what we are very good at. Crime shows. High noise value that equals high ratings.

When "Sansani" launched on Star News, I thought the choice of anchor was perfect. Here was a character straight out of the streets with a voice that could shatter glass. Shrieking himself to fame and turning the show into a superhit channel driver, both never came as a surprise to the likes of me. As an audience, we love screaming. And we adore suffering.

This was a Magic Combo deal. (Media planner thrilled).

So when I watch intelligent and important shows that don’t yell and hype, I admit I feel tempted to surf. Noble attempts at shows about the 1965 war on the Hindi channels make me want to weep. For all the wrong reasons. Boring narrators and hamming actors don't exactly create good television.

It's Saturday night. An English channel has a show on air right now at 11pm that makes me want to pass out. The graphics have a sound effect that’s borrowed from a soap. The show is pitched so low, I am nodding off. News anchors on the late news in India often look like they need a holiday. They sound bored with their own voices because they genuinely believe no one is watching. This news show needs a scheming sister–in-law to host it. And a mother-in-law to slap her while she’s at it. I am delighted when the channel promos come on. I am now awake again. Good dhin chak music, you see.

Good Lord! We now have the Hindi Anupam Kher show on an English news channel. It’s a great format for a weekend show. But not excellent for brand credibility. What it is reinforcing here is that news needs to entertain.

Every single English news channel today has allowed amazingly poor diction on air. What is the word they keep using that sounds like "er per thetik"?

Something to do with apathy? Or was that "pathetic"?