TRP - a friend and a foe - Page 3

Originally posted by: arshicritic

From Kaadal

@hotdogg, a thorough analysis of the show in response with the TRP. When a story is tried to be taken in a different way, that too a love story the crowd doesn't seem to connect with it so quickly, I have seen the same happening with IPKKND and by changing the story mid way and with hurried shooting back to back, the essence of the story got lost in middle. The actors got tired of the long shoot timings and the lead quit. SLB seems to have started the same, trying to revive the TRP's for the show but only good thing is hasn't compromised the uniqueness of the show still. I don't know if you had seen IPK, the episodes were mostly dependant on the leads and the other characters side lined to keep up with the TRP game. This week's episodes made me think, history is repeating. I still can't understand whose mistake it is. Maybe the crowd is too varied, one looking for romance and the other saas Bahu or social issues. Satisfying both is not easy. Having a script written tightly with both combined hasn't still worked out. Majority of TV crowd is still sadly behind the typical masala saas bahu shows and TRP's reflects exactly the same.

Ether the whole media concept has to change or the people's mentality has to change. Converting the story of SC into a show needed guts, SLB wanted to do it, he is trying but all depends on if the crowd accepts the same or the channel allows him to do the same. He seems to be getting crushed in this TRP game and now long running of SC depends entirely on TRP. But like you said now looks like he can't afford to get Kumud married to anyone else, he will lose the existing viewers as well. I almost wish he had taken a movie instead of making it into a show, atleast we would have got to see the real version like Devdas and it would have run successfully as well. Who knows SLB might be regretting his decision by now. Great actors, best sets and wonderfully taken but still...really sad.

I think Kaadal, it's too early for such grim predictions, but yes, SLB will have to be use all his ingenuity to balance both sides.

I wish we had the seasons concept, you know, a lot more attention gets paid to quality that way, and actor burn out is not there!

Great, arshiji thanks.

Originally posted by: arshicritic

PS, I should have caught on, no girl will give herself a name like that ! 😆

good post.see, one thing mr. bhansali has to realise.that changes will have to be made. he is making a product and if there is no demand for it then it will have to be scrapped(and i dont want that to happen)he is not making this show for his personal pleasure but for public consumption.then alterations will have to be made.if certain tracks are not working then different tracks will have to be considered.i hope that slb realizes it and i really want this show to be appreciated by a large no of people because it deserves to.

I think the major problem has been in the marketing of the show...

Hindsight is 20/20 vision and we have no idea what was the marketing plan..

I have some observations of missteps in marketing which are causing low trps...

1) Low early watchers due to too much focus on the novel: Most of our generation have not read the work, but due to too much focus before launch everyone read up the gist and knew about the tragic end.

This caused two things..

a) Turned off many people to even begin watching.

For e.g. I skipped a whole month thinking so what if its SLB, its all going to end in a tragedy. So why bother? And on a saturday repeat telecast, while randomly channel surfing, I caught a few mins of the epi when kumud is teaching saras to fly the kite...was blown away with the scene...then watched all the epis that day...then decided to find out more...then downloaded the earlier epis..and now hooked. How many are so lucky or so crazy? :-)

b) when the show got telecast it angered the purists...old generation trp uncles & aunties who may have read it felt so offended on the changes of a modern setting to the original that they did not begin watching in protest...for e.g. in the novel kumud is the antithesis of our kumud. In the novel, while she's intelligent and brilliant, she is actually a very gentle, docile person who wouldn't hurt a fly. I have relatives who do not watch in protest because they feel SLB has committed blasphemy by 'corrupting' the essence of the main character.

2) No clarity that this story will not end in tragedy: SP & SLB seems to have bought the rights to the original work. Therefore they can adapt freely without fear of lawsuits. This was not announced till much later.

Marketing still went on and on about 'adhoori dastan'...imaine even the blurb on our forum overview (maybe taken from SP) still talks about being denied the joy of becoming one etc. etc.

I am not saying it should be all sunshine, but especially when you are basing a show on a novel, you have to provide hope that it will all turn out well in the end. For e.g. in IPK (not seen this show sorry. SC is the only hindi TV show I see) I am sure what kept you going back every day was the hope that it will evenutally turn out well.

They should have marketed this story as something on the lines of :Saraswatichandra in the 21st century.. They could not meet in last century, we will make them meet this century" types. That would have been a curiousity factor which alone would have got more people to check it out.

Maybe SLB still wanted to turn this out as a tragedy...coz till about 1 month ago he was still giving out interviews about SC that he has been unhappy in love, so he likes to make tragedies to make the world feel the pain of love's labor lost and how it makes people noble etc.

This approach can work for a film, because as an audience you invest at most 3 hours of your life. With a TV show, everyone of us invests 30 minutes of our time and emotions every single day. After 'connecting' with the leads there is no way you want them to be sad / denied the joy etc.

3) Newness of the TV medium for SLB: I think lot of the above flows from this one. SLB had admitted that the entire TV medium is new to him.,,...meaning his understanding of the audience expectations & reaction, expenses, TV screenplay (vastly different than a film screenplay), the cutthroat nature of competition, audience fickleness because they have 200+ channels to switch to even if they get slightly disconnected..

4) Confusion over marketing after launch: A TV Show is not a film. For a film you do all heavy duty marketing before launch til the guy buys a ticket. For a TV show you do all heavy marketing after launch and need to do it on a sustained basis.

So we had fundo trailers, web telecast on valentine day...and almost zero activity after launch.
How do you get mindshare in new viewers to even begin watching the show?

Bottomlines...
I believe all of these have contributed to a low initial viewer base which also started to taper off thinking its all going to do down bad in the end / complexity of the plot..

Hopefully, the course correction has started and it will recover...coz both SLB & SP want to make money at the end of the day...so egos will hopefully be set aside...

...but I still fear a phase of dumbing down or at least putting off the major tracks on the back burner...this is inevitable...coz if you want to get new viewers in and ge tthem to connect fresh you will need to take some of the complexity out...and when you get a critical mass...you can start putting the original story bits in again...

...like this Juhi business as per the spoiler...I think that's totally unrelated to the novel...but will help to extend the samud love track...

...now if only they did better promotion ...maye take a call and spend ome more on promo frequensvt, spoliers, interviews etc. we would still be home...

Thanks for posting this!!

TRPs are what determines the profits for the TV shows and the channels. And while to us viewers, these TRPs may just be some mere numbers and hence we might ignore these TRP rankings. But in reality, the ad revenues (which are dependent on TRPs) generate most of the profits made by the TV channels... and unfortunately for us viewers, if the channel doesn't get the desired TRPs, they wouldn't mind messing up with story-plots or character sketches in a bid to increase TRPs... and there can be times when these changes may not be acc to our likings. And if the TRPs still don't increase, then they'll just take the show off...

One more point I missed

5) 7:30 PM. Seriously? There are news items which say SLB was offered 2 choices 7:30 & 8:00 PM. And he chose 7.30 PM, because he felt that audiences in villages / smaller towns go to bed early!!!

If this is true, it is just so sad. Imagine, your trps are measured on the first telecast and not on repeats. Most of the target audience in India is either working / on way home from work / preparing dinner at this time.

I guess most people catch the repeat at 9:00 PM on DD or 11:00 PM at SP. This could be a bigger audience number, but just does not get registered.

Hotdogg, your analysis is the most sensible piece on the topic. Hope SP/SLB take some hints...

@arshi critic...:

@ Arshi, hotdogg, great topic.

Will come and post my two cents soon.😳


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