fresh faces find many takers, good old ta

No matter what the nature of the programme, at the end of the day, it all boils down to TRPs when it comes to television. And in the race to gain maximum eyeballs, channel heads are always on the lookout for new success strategies. And sadly, it's not always a good script or power-packed performances that impress audiences today.

Going by the trend of the last couple of years it seems that quality of the content is less important. What sells a show would be a weird plot and fresh new faces (they may or may not be good actors) who merely go with the flow of characters. Take for instance Viruddh. It has good story, strong plot, high-pitched drama and several good actors whose performances are a sheer delight. But the show is not getting decent TRPs. On the other hand, some Balaji shows which keep zooming into the future with 20-year-leaps with a new set of characters and some shows on Zee which follow the Balaji pattern, are all doing fairly well. So, is good content and acting pass on TV?

Veteran screenplay and dialogue writer Kamlesh Pandey who is writing Viruddh blames viewers for not supporting good shows. "Viewers are hypocrites. They prefer watching the same old regressive saas-bahu stuff with multiple marriages and mistresses instead of sampling and supporting a good serial like Viruddh. I think a large parts of the Indian audiences still live in regressive times. If they get a government that they deserve, they also get entertainment they deserve," he says.

Nivedita Basu, chief creative director of Balaji who has several successful shows to her credit is of the view that Viruddh is a classy show. And clearly, something of that kind will not appeal to the masses. She says, "It is a show that caters to a niche audience and they do not deliver good TRPs," says Nivedita. mass entertainment television is watched by middle and lower middle classes of audiences and it is they who make or break TRP graphs. "There is no family element in Viruddh that this class of viewers can relate to," add Nivedita who says mass entertainment is all about stories, issues and characters the common man can relate to. And that is why family dramas work so well.

If content went for a toss, so did acting. Good television actors of the 80s and 90s got sidelined and young heroes and heroines took their place. So much so, Ekta Kapoor once said that she doesn't need good actors to support her shows because she can make even a monkey act convincingly! Actors feel that even they are good, there's not much they can do. Achint Kaur says, "Since the last seven years, barring a few actors, it's mostly the camera that has been doing the acting with all those zoom, pan and bullet shots. I can do a scene in three different ways but I am asked to be static and the camera does the job because there is a need to hide others' shortcomings." Nivedita however, is of the view that television does not require great actors. "It requires actors who can carry out the characters convincingly because ultimately it's the character that makes more impact than the actor." And if the newbies are willing to learn, why not? Kritika Sehghal who plays the young Prerna in Kasauti says, "I definitely work harder on my performance when compared to the seniors but that doesn't mean I am a bad actor. We all learn with time and improve gradually."