Reality, really?
From getting married to raising kids to testing the fidelity of your partner, reality shows on TV have grabbed eyeballs. The popularity of these shows has not only redefined television viewing but also raised crucial issues of social responsibility, propriety, freedom of expression and basic ethics, writes Derek Bose

Want to be rich and famous? Want to regress into past-life mode? Want to become a pop star? Want to embarrass your parents, your family? Want to reveal your deep, dark, dirty secrets? Want to show off? Want to be humiliated? Want to get married? Want to catch your boyfriend with his pants down...

Left to right: Stills from Pati, Patni aur Woh, Bigg Boss and Khatron Ke Khiladi. People are fascinated by other people. The viewers know it is not true, that it is all playacting, and yet they want to watch the show

After all, how bad can television get?

This is the question the nation is asking as a series of controversial "reality shows" has invaded our TV channels, both in Hindi and regional languages. The popularity of these programmes has not only redefined television viewing across India, they are raising crucial issues of social responsibility, propriety, freedom of expression and basic ethics. At the core of all this is the tendency of one-upmanship at grabbing eyeballs at all costs in the face of mounting competition in the television industry.

There is also the question of what qualifies for a "reality show". While it is generally understood that it makes for any non-fictional programme using documentary techniques of filming, the common suspicion is that all such shows currently on air are pre-scripted, rigged and contrived with the participants being coached. The abuse of reality is clearly meant to sensationalise content and notch up the emotional quotient of the programmes.

UTV Bindass’s Emotional Atyachaar works on the insecurities underlying relationships

"What we should be asking is not how close these reality shows are to truth," argues Siddhartha Basu, former quizmaster and now producer of some hugely successful reality shows, including the recent Sach Ka Saamna. "We should ideally be asking how to create 20 minutes of actuality without overcooking the content. This applies to all non-fictional programmes on TV. Even the news you see on some news channels is often reality shows."

After all, how else would you describe the tendency of channels to over-dramatise so-called "breaking news" with high-pitched commentary accompanied by repeat re-runs of clips and loud, melodramatic music? A good example would be the coverage of the 26/11-terror strike, when footage of two terrorists moving about in Mumbai’s CST station was shown stop-start, stop-start ad nauseum, with anchors out-shouting one another on different news channels. Such attention-grabbing devices are also employed during sting operations, be it cash changing hands under the table, sex romps featuring celebrities or perhaps, an off-the-cuff remark of some public figure.`A0 `A0

This is exactly the kind of over-cooking of content that critics of reality television are objecting to. Not only does it erode credibility and compromise truth, there are issues of entrapment – the only difference being that in reality shows, unlike news coverage, there are willing participants. And since these participants are all bound by a confidentiality contract, the line between fact and fiction becomes all the more blurred.

"It ultimately boils down to the level of acceptability of content," opines Sanjay Reddy, vice-president of Sun TV Network. "We all know people are fascinated by other people, and if we can make them feel for someone or something, they will root for it. This is what has worked for all game shows and talent hunts, even as there would always be a lurking doubt that the competition was rigged. Even the humiliation rounds and irreverent asides that add spice to a programme are lapped up. The viewer knows it is not true, that it is all playacting, and yet they want to watch the show. Somehow, we love to watch what we hate happening to us."

This probably explains the popularity of shows like Bigg Boss, which provided viewers the vicarious pleasure of watching the plight of a bunch of nitwits confined in a house with no external contact. Another show, UTV Bindass’s Emotional Atyachaar worked on the insecurities underlying relationships by testing the fidelity of partners. Sach Ka Saamna put participants through the embarrassment of lie-detector tests before making them own up to skeletons in their closet in full public view.

Then there have been mock wedding shows, be it Rakhi Ka Swayamvar or Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega, which no self-respecting person would ever like to be part of. And yet, as Basu points out, "The last four episodes of the Rahul `85 show took the TV industry by surprise as its popularity shot up from the 40th position and reached the top four". This only goes to prove that even if there is an emotional disconnect between viewers and participants, a programme can still be assured of success.

Explains Ashvini Yardi, programming head of Colors: "The conventional belief that viewers need to connect with characters on screen has been negated by reality shows. In the early days of soap, when saas-bahu serials were popular, every woman wanted to be a Tulsi. Women spoke like Tulsi, dressed like Tulsi, and behaved like Tulsi. The identification was complete, as Tulsi became the ideal for hundreds of thousands of middle-class Indian women. That is not so today. The same viewers have become so much more mature and discerning over time. You cannot fool them now with make-believe and candyfloss. You’ve got to get real."

It is to Yardi’s credit that the myth about soaps being the staple of entertainment programmes has been demolished. In fact, this was her brief when Colours entered India in 2008. In her bid to dislodge soaps from the prime-time slot, she adopted a two-pronged strategy — differentiated content and destructive scheduling. She launched Khatron Ke Khiladi and Bigg Boss — both reality shows. For a new TV channel, this was a huge gamble — more so because the schedules of these shows overlapped with the timings of the most popular soaps on air. Miraculously, the gamble paid off.

"Three things worked for us," narrates Yardi. "One, fatigue had set in among the viewers as there were several me-too soaps churning out the same predictable content. Two, with reality television, we could get a new community of viewers as men also started watching our shows. And three, our shows became the subject of drawing-room discussions, which was earlier not the case with saas-bahu serials. So, it was more due to word of mouth, rather than investing heavily in publicity, that Colors could become a household name in a very short time."

Colors’ success with reality shows is, however, viewed by many as a flash in the pan – an exception, rather than the rule. "The truth is that you cannot take the audience along with reality shows," says Nitin Vaidya, business head of Zee TV. "It is not a good idea. Reality shows are bleeding TV channels dry. They are all high on costs and low on returns. The shows have a lifespan of merely two to four seasons, with zero repeat value. After a time, everybody will have to get back to daal-chawal entertainment, the soaps. The only positive factor of reality shows is that they attract attention during the initial stages. But once the element of novelty wears off, curiosity dies and so does public interest."

Much as critics like Vaidya would love to see the end of reality shows, media pundits have already detected a new genre of TV programmes emerging in the entertainment space. They even have a name for this hybrid born out of a marriage of fiction and fact – emotainment. At its best, it would be somewhat like the "mockumentaries" (mock documentaries) in films and at its worst, tabloid journalism in mainstream press.

In effect, you can look forward to some infinitely hotter, spicier, more sensational and emotionally nerve-wracking melodramas invading your small screen any time soon. You haven’t seen anything —REALLY.