This Rhea-lity TV has an expiry date

NDTV's Sanket Upadhyay tells me about an ex-colleague, who pointed out that as a news anchor on TV, his real competition was, you know who? Kapil Sharma! Now Upadhyay didn't mention that person's name, since this conversation was happening on his news channel — befittingly discussing the state of television news media itself.

I was on that panel discussion, and therefore within the couple of minutes of allotted talk-time, didn't quite get to explore the difference between media, and pop-culture.

And that it's the quasi-tragedy of TV itself, that as a visual medium it automatically lends itself to pop-cultural aspirations, where the likely numbers (of followers) are incredibly huge, and credibility/respect counts for little.

It's not a surprise that India's finest journalists, without a doubt — and with an exception or two — belong to print. Let alone the sincerest reporters, following diverse beats. Few of whom you would have even heard of. Who are India's best-known journalists, though?

Ones you watch on TV. Recognise by face. Identify them often for their views. Sully their image for their purported hypocrisy on social networks. They attract trolls. In turn, they build a direct pipeline of, I'm assuming, more followers, than detractors. This pipeline is called the consumer base. It takes ages to develop.

Once you have, it appears, protecting and growing it becomes the only self-serving point/purpose of what you do. Politics works similarly. Yes, Kapil Sharma is pop-culture too. Arnab Goswami is pop-culture as well. The natural extension of which is that you exist, therefore you are. No Kapil Sharma Show means no Kapil Sharma at all!

And so it's unlikely that anybody on the day following Goswami's broadcast knows/cares what's the news he delivered the night before. So long as he became news himself — by way of some clip or the other, "Drugs do, drugs do…." Or an angry monologue, twitching his eyes, banging on the desk, that can also be set to music.

The clips turn into shareable memes. From a street-level fame/parody point of view, he gets bigger still. As huge as Kapil Sharma? For that moment, yes. Except, Sharma is a professional entertainer/comedian. Goswami, I'm guessing, didn't set out to be a TV actor. He perhaps chanced upon it. Or at any rate, is smart enough to be aware of what he's doing, and gaining from it as a result; in the short-run, that is.

You see the conundrum? No, you couldn't, up until the pandemic, which forced people to stay indoors. How long could you be interested in prophets of doom? Whether to do with the virus, job-loss, or a limited war with a neighbouring country, all at once — if none of it had hit you personally; yet? In which case you wouldn't be interested in any other conversation, anyway. Otherwise — why worry, until worry worries you; whatever will be, will be, etc.

You sat with family to entertain yourself before a TV set. Except, never since Hum Log (1984), that birthed soap-opera in India, has television gone without a single new episode of a serial, for months! Ditto for sports, reality TV, and all other sub-genres classified as 'general entertainment'.

Who filled this gap? TV news. All day. How? By turning away from its core purpose (news). And turning the death of a movie-star into a serial. That the unfortunate incident involved Ekta Kapoor's much-loved discovery for desi television, the hugely loved Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput, lent this story both a lead actor (no more), and melancholy thereof, that's hard to resist.

Also, easy to galvanise public anger around, mixing facts and fiction, and playing it out with familiar tropes/characters — the upright father, the 'maa ka laadla' boy (mom is no more), with four adorable sisters, looking out for him, and yet who took his own life.

Or was it murder? Closely examine his neck. See, there are pages missing in his diary. Close in, who's the 'mysterious girl' entering his home? Let's throw ethics and sources under the bus while we're at it. No look, he's laughing, he can't be suffering from depression.

There is a 'suicide gang', 'Bollywood mafia' behind all this. Police are in with them. So are politicians. What about the dead manager? Party at her house. Keep throwing big names. Lay audiences enjoy it all the more. No, wait, the villain is 'the other woman' — Rhea. #ArrestRhea! Who's this command directed at? The public, dangling the hand-cuff back!

Indian TV news industry, ratings-wise, a totally sidey/insignificant product category, saw itself add lakhs and lakhs of new viewers, as per latest data, and made crores from Rajput's demise. This new crowd will eventually move on to soap operas, once those restart. Times Now, regardless of their inter-school dramatic skills, can't compete with Bigg Boss. And I'm sorry, Republic, no matter how third-rate their language, ain't no Roadies, yet!

Investigating agencies will at some point find the truth from multiple innuendoes/theories/fictions of Rajput's case. What will TV news channels do, once its core audience sifts through all that was fed to them — as news? Late (print) journalist Vinod Mehta put it best: Credibility is like virginity; you lose it only once. Some have lost a lot more.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14

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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper

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