Thursday, February 09, 2006

YIPPEE, THERE ARE SOME YUPPIES (Or yeehaa, there is yahoo!)

There's a good possibility that Indian news channels in English have got certain basics completely wrong. They all claim that there is a huge potential for 24-hour news channels; they all say they are targeting the yuppies in the metros. And funny enough, almost all my yuppie friends in Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad - yes, I do have some non-journalist yuppie friends - say they don't like watching news anymore; these guys would rather read newspapers, watch movies and blog. Shocking. None of them ever mentioned it to me when I was still working.


Seriously, is there really so much scope for so many 24-hour news channels? I myself tried watching two channels continuously over the past two days - on live streaming video - and was quite disappointed. And I was expecting nothing out of the world. The only thing that impressed me was the quality of video on broadband. The portals, of course, seem to have a lot of potential. If the TRPs-or-whatever-they-call-it-these-days are really measured on the basis of viewing per minute, do they really count? No wonder, everyone wants more and more breaking news stories, exposes and such. After all, all you are looking at is some eyeballs that will stick with you for a few minutes to boost up your rankings and revenues. Is that what it is all about? Sorry, I would rather give them a miss. (If you leave out journos, politicians and special interest groups, where will the rankings stand? Also, what percentage of the population - yuppies included - really watches news in English?)


Is any of the so-called entertainment channels thinking of going back to the good old days of two or three 15-30 minute long bulletins a day? I think that would be a good idea - you can always put the breaking news on the ticker (which you anyway do) and perhaps, have a special bulletin, if it really merits one. Of course, the thousand or so fresh journalists mass produced at the numerous self-financing colleges every year will lose a few well-paying job options. My advice to them: Guys, remember just one thing. Long after we all die, they will refer to our era as the Internet Age.


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