TRP - a friend and a foe - Page 4

Originally posted by: hotdogg

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.

Originally posted by: arshicritic

I am completely against not following the basic story of the novel because it would lose the right to be called an adaptation then. If she has to be married off to another person, it should be done that way because that's how it is in the story. Poetic liberties are one thing but changing the narrative which is possibly its major high point, strips the story off the essence.

@doublep

This is exactly what I feel, for me one of the reasons for watching a re-make of a classic is to undergo the same journey, with the same characters, just in a different medium.

Imagine watching Gone With the Wind as a TV show, we know how it is going to end, but that's how it has to be, or Romeo and Juliet - they cannot live happily ever after, because that's not how Shakespeare intended them to be

So, speaking of myself, if I invest in a story, that I already know went a certain way, then the re-make must also go that way.

That's why I love every little nugget Samarth shares about the original, because at every step, to compare with the original, is what adds to the excitement and appreciation of watching a remake

Knowing the course of Saras and Kumud's story doesn't take away from its enjoyment, infact it makes these romantic moments even more precious

After all, the beauty and appeal of Devdas and Paro's story would be ruined if they were to live happily ever after.

I for one would be very disappointed if Saras and Kumud story doesn't match the original, I am not here for a love story, I am here for the love story!

Originally posted by: smrth

@hotdogg,

Thanks for putting commercial aspects in such a clear perspective. Understanding the underlying forces that drives a project indeed makes one more patient towards some compulsive adjustments.

Coming to your analysis, considering TRP as benchmark tag of a project's marketing worth, which in turn decides its prospective income tr. advertisement and subsequent profitability/viability as its ROI (return on investment), would they (advertisers) not have more refined dissection of TRPs in general and ( for right puchasing channel) more favourable calculation of input cost/ investment in particular for this show? Let me elaborate;

1)For first part, are all TRPs considered flatly uniform? If model makers are aware that 'mass' is more leaning to crap, then simultaneously would they also not account for the 'reverse' in some spacial case. That is, if a project is critically and visibly good in content, might it not be attracting more 'weighty' viewers? That is, viewers with higher class or better purchasing power? More educated and higher income group which tend to endorse quality- commercial advantage of a powerful niche place built on strength and reach of quality? in nutshell, do they have analysis of sample group that has formed the base of individual show as per their income group, age group, education etc.? That is, dissection of TRPs from purely purchasing power parity? Or there is no such mechanism?

1. Frequency Monitoring: In this method, meters are installed in the homes which are considered as the sample of the total population. These meters keep track of programmes/ channel being surfed by the particular household. It reads the frequencies of channels, which are later, decoded into the name of the channels and the agency prepares a national data on the basis of its sample homes readings. But there is a drawback in the technique, as cable operators frequently change the frequencies of the different channels before sending signals to the homes

2. Picture Matching: It is a relatively new concept to India and in this technique the meters tracks data of the picture that being watched in the household. Along with this agency also records all the channels' data in the form of small picture portion. Data collected from the sample homes is later on matched with the main data bank to interpret the channel name

Originally posted by: hotdogg

Unfortunately trp is still a very broad brush..some copy paste from my research...

- currently the only electronic rating agency operating in our country is INTAM (Indian Television Audience Management). The two methodologies it adopts for determining TRP's are:

1. Frequency Monitoring: In this method, meters are installed in the homes which are considered as the sample of the total population. These meters keep track of programmes/ channel being surfed by the particular household. It reads the frequencies of channels, which are later, decoded into the name of the channels and the agency prepares a national data on the basis of its sample homes readings. But there is a drawback in the technique, as cable operators frequently change the frequencies of the different channels before sending signals to the homes

2. Picture Matching: It is a relatively new concept to India and in this technique the meters tracks data of the picture that being watched in the household. Along with this agency also records all the channels' data in the form of small picture portion. Data collected from the sample homes is later on matched with the main data bank to interpret the channel name

Here is the problem...
The ratings derived are measured based on the data collected from top sixteen cities of nine states in India. This sample further does not take into consideration the people from lower middle class and also people from smaller towns. Further they have not even considered the elite class on the assumption that these people would prefer to watch high end English channels as compared to the local channels.

Presently, TRP is based upon only a small urban sample of 5500 homes spread all over India. Most of the sample homes are situated in urban areas. Critics doubt as to how this small sample could truly represent the taste of Indian.

2)For second part, specifically for this show, what is this DD angle here?? I read in few posts that this show is also running on DD. So what arrangements would be there? What would be DD's contribution? Surely they won't be broadcasting it on free. So would not their 'contribution' lower the cost for seller or purchaser? Add to it, are current TRP calculations count DD viewers? Perhaps they are not count. But obviously, advertisers must be aware of this additional patron base. So what now would be ROI for this particular show for a channel?

DD has its own ratings system DART (Doordarshan Audience Ratings). DART is a diary based system of ratings. DD people distribute diaries in sample homes and the viewers are asked to note down each programme as and when watched by family members. In the end of the week a person collects all the diaries and sends them to the head office, where popularity of programmes is calculated.

Who knows what comes out of a diary based, manual, paper-based government run rating system?

To conclude:
- trps only provide a glimpse of a small sample and not the actual mood of the population.
- Certain sections of the society have not been represented in this rating and hence it does not give the correct reflection of the viewing habits.
- There is a need to have a rating based on the viewing habits of elite, middle and lower class spread across all the cities of our country for this rating to be meaningful for the channels and advertisers.
- However, this method does provide a hazy picture which nevertheless has been appreciated by the industry.
- Advertisers, channels, producers at least get a somewhat skewed picture of their standing in the fiercely competitive television market.


So whether a show runs or not is entirely dependent on 5500 trp aunties located in top 16 cities across only 9 states in India and who are strongly middle class have a preference for hindi channels and a natural bias against 'elite' content, since they have never been exposed to alternative thoughts / concepts. 😕

This makes me want to puke..🤢