TELEPROMPT
Bland, biased, boring
Mannika Chopra

NO one can accuse television news of ignoring anniversaries. When Doordarshan (DD), the world’s largest broadcasting network, turned 50 last week, it was time for some sort of genuflection. CNN-IBN acknowledged the event by interviewing Salma Sultan, a perennial anchor on DD News, known for her stiff upper lip and her trademark rose, but still beautiful after all these years. Karan Thapar, delved into the DD phenomenon more deeply by quizzing BG Verghese, former member, Prasar Bharati board, Bhaskar Ghose, former I and B Secretary, and yes, Sultan once again on India News Hour on CNBC TV 18.

In The Buck Stops Here on NDTV 24X7, anchor Barkha Dutt interviewed Rini Simon and, oh no, not again, Sultan, who coyly revealed the secret behind her rose, and why she draped her sari across both her shoulders (answer: unmatching blouses). With 31 channels, 61 studios and access to 130 million households, DD easily has the largest footprint in the country. It reaches where no private channel can ever hope to go, making iconic programmes like Krishi Darshan and Chitrahar, long before the invasion of vulgarian countdown shows, down to the grassroots level.

I am told that this weekend CNN-IBN is airing a half-an-hour documentary on the network which will hopefully look at whether DD has adhered to its mandate of being a successful public service broadcaster by focussing on the socially marginalised, and at the same time being a medium which promotes culture values and ethics. As mandates go, this is undoubtedly a tall order, and one that half a century later has not remotely been fulfilled by the network. In fact, if anything, DD has regressed. As time has gone by, DD has been suffering from a growing identity crisis. Faced by the onslaught from private channels, the network has been forgetting its social obligations, and has tried to become a pathetic imitation of commercial channels.

There are those within the DD hierarchy who believe that public sector does not mean public service but profit. As Ghose says, the network and its handlers are "suffering from schizophrenia, walking a tight rope between being a commercial enterprise and one with larger social responsibilities. The fact is it has to be one or the other. It can’t be both." The standing the network had as a monopolist when it aired serials like Hum Log and Buniyaad is almost a thing of the past. And it is not as if the network then was simply staid and uncontroversial. DD in its heyday aired Kaka Ji Kahen and Tamas, with an edgy subtext, and at the same time it telecast entertaining epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Today, the channel doesn’t even have a fig leaf of worthy programmes, even though its lineage has guaranteed it front row seats to all major happenings. Unlike its alleged role model, the BBC, it does not command reverence or respect.

A global survey undertaken by McKinsey in the 1990s on the world’s public service broadcasters did not even include the network in its list. Today, any TV critic can argue that the network’s content is bland, biased towards the establishment and suffers from the worst sin of all in the 21st century— it is boring. But even while analysing its decline, you cannot deny DD’s positive contribution. In a way it created, and continues to create, a pan India feeling every time it airs the Republic Day parade, or the August 15 celebrations, or even the deathly dull speeches of successive presidents. It has also, as CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Sardesai says, played a vital role in cranking India’s television revolution.

By providing a huge technical pool from which the private channels happily dipped into, wittingly or unwittingly, DD played a catalytic role, changing the mediascape of India forever, and in the process journalism. "Satellite television owes a huge debt to DD," admits Sardesai. But today, sadly, the network has abandoned any pretensions of quality. Sad, because even though it is seen as an adjunct of the government, it is also seen as a reliable medium, able to give news without a high decibel count. There are still a lot of viewers who are getting their news from DD rather than from the more resourceful and energised private channels. Ironically, with the cacophony and din of the private news channels, now more than ever, there is a need for a measured news network whose credibility is not driven by TRPs.

Here is a huge opportunity which can be picked up. Is it too late for the media monolith to redeem itself? As long as the channel does not truly become autonomous and focussed on becoming a professional media outlet, even a cockeyed optimist will have to say, yes. Maybe this realisation was expressed, unknowingly by Doordarshan itself which last week did not really display a sense of occasion on having turned 50.