REWIND Sight & Sound
Many channels, little variety

It’s been a year of few changes, says Amita Malik. Doordarshan continued to don its sarkari cap, Aaj Tak again bagged the Sab Se Tez Award and NDTV won some more laurels

It is customary at this time of the year to look back on the achievements of the past year and look forward to the next. There is an old French saying, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." And that about sums up the media scene.

I wish I could say there has been a revolutionary change with the change of governments, but that is simply not the case. Doordarshan continues to be a sarkari channel in spite of the pretence about autonomy. It reports official events and, more usefully, the proceedings of Parliament, which at least gives a chance to voters to see how their elected candidates are performing and whether they are serving their constituency, if not exactly their country. They also provide some unplanned entertainment. At the end of the year, DD introduced two separate new channels for the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Pity the taxpayer.

DD did rather less well with the cricket coverage bonanza, which it got by default towards the end of the year. But its greed for money, its insensitive and unsporting advertisements which were seen more than sport, continued to be an irritating and frustrating experience for sports lovers. One immediately saw the difference in the quality of commentators and less obtrusive ads when ESPN covered the Bangladesh-India tests. It was also a welcome rest from Mandira Bedi and other distractions. DD’s efforts to have better newscasters led to slightly better dressed and more relaxed newscasters who even got blurbs on the screen. But no one seems to have trained them or supervised their performances when even intelligent ones like Elizabeth Jane outspeed the Rawalpindi Express. Here the men do rather better than the woman.

DD still treads a lonely path with Krishi Darshan and other purposeful and socially relevant programmes, but its pathetic effort to simulate serials on the private channels instead of reverting to the themes of its early serials has not done it much good. Where it still lags behind is in its programmes for Kashmir. They are not only dismal but have poor reception.

Its neglect of western music and programmes in English and persistence with Hindi and filmi geet has made it lose out to China, Thailand and Indonesia for years. This is what happens when the media moguls in Akashvani Bhavan and Mandi House and not North-Eastern experts decide what is good for the Nagas, Manipuris, Arunachalis and Khasis. They even mixed up the Chief Ministers of Meghalaya and Tripura when Sushma Swaraj launched a channel with great fanfare some time ago.

In the sphere of news, Aaj Tak again won the Sab Se Tez Award, only Hindi being in competition as the good news channels in the southern languages, Bengali and the rest are not allowed to compete. Surely it is time that the award covered all languages.

Meanwhile, NDTV continues to be covered with laurels including, among others, the prestigious award by the International Press Institute for news coverage. Going by its ratings, it also leads on the international websites. NDTV stands apart with programmes like Jai Jawan (which had Aishwarya Rai in Siachen giggling with the Jawans) and its satires on politicians in Double Take and Gustakhi Maaf.

Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai deservedly steal the limelight and win awards with monotonous regularity, but let us not forget other steady shiners like Radhika Bordia who does gutsy off-beat programmes. I still remember her coverage on the Ladakh scouts climbing up sheer rocks like mountain goats during the Kargil war. Last week, she went to Iran (head demurely covered with an elegant shawl) with a party of Indian Parsis in search of their roots. A fascinating travelogue combined with serious research. The Zoroastrians in Iran, it seems, are faring unhindered, if quietly, in a strictly Islamic society.

I have tried hard to watch CNN consistently but they are too Hong Kong-biased for me, India being largely incidental and sometimes not even listed with countries receiving particular programmes. But I liked tremendously a very long in-depth interview by one of their best anchors with African Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai, the lady who had millions of trees planted in her country, a sort of larger-size Bahugana, and saved the environment. When CNN goes beyond Oprah and other American-based shows, we enjoy it.

As for the BBC, it had egg all over its face over a hoax call, which its enemies (mostly rivals) hugely enjoyed. But I think its programme Question Time India should be re-named Interruption Time India since anchor Sagarika Ghose thinks she is the main star (she is not, only an anchor who should let others talk and not interrupt or pick up trivial questions from the audience instead of serious ones). How one longs for its earlier days when it was run by Prannoy Roy. Now it seems to be like a rowdy session of Parliament.

The serial scene remains bleak and if Smriti Irani narrowly missed shooting down the BJP she will at least gun down an erring young man in the New Year edition of Saas`85. Jassi is also going to be glamorised and shed her buckteeth, awful hairstyle and nasal speech. Pity, because she will become unrecognisable and lose the immense popularity she enjoyed among plain working girls (with or without her brains) and, for that matter, ordinary people all over India who find in her the lovable girl next door.

To end on a disturbing note. It is a sobering thought that during 2004 among programmes enjoying the highest TRPs and ever more than the saas-bahu serials were the programmes on real life crime which pop up on every channel around 10 pm on week nights. The most dreadful crimes (already shown in the news) are recapitulated for us with gory details, especially crimes of sex and violence.

They are more likely to give viewers ideas about committing crime than awakening their conscience about helping prevent crime. They titillate the basest instincts and give a kind of bizarre-viewing pleasure, which is not healthy for the country.