Penblunt & Hogwash

Science of Cricket mania
Penblunt

My sweet better half is bitter, by half! She is just back from the Indian Science Congress a disgraced event marred by old research papers presented by scientists who have lost it out.

That’s not the story, by the way. The story, is she told me, that the haloed Hindi news channel, the doyen of independent private news in the country, had sent a reporting team there.

Rather, the Congress organisers had invited and carried their reporting team, hoping perhaps to popularise science in the Hindi speaking belt.

They did some reporting the first two days, my honey informs me, but these were not carried. So they got suitably disenchanted and stopped reporting, but that put them in a fix, since colleagues from other media asked them why they were just taking this as a pleasure trip by the sea.

So the next day, much embarrassed, they called office back in Delhi asking what stories they should do from the Indian Science Congress, and were told… cry my beloved country….

By then, Bhajji (Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh) had been termed ‘racist’ by ICC’s Mike Procter, the umpires had gifted the Aussie cricket team a huge victory and India was seething with rage, a sentiment with which I subscribe.

So when the Hindi news channel reporters called HQ and asked for what to report from the Indian Science Congress, cry my beloved country….

They were told “Talk to the scientists for their reaction on India’s national humiliation!”

Even if I’d fill the page with exclamation marks, that would not suffice to explain my anguish, but that is the way it is.

The Congress organisers might have thought that taking this channel to the celebrations would spread the good word about science in the Hindi heart belt. But it did not work.

I cannot blame the haloed channel for this either, because its nearest rival, on the same day, was having repeat half-hour “News” shows with four or five children who all said that they had been killed in their previous birth and have arrived on Earth to kill their killers.

If such be the content of the closest rival, then I must say that the haloed channel was at least limited to a sensational issue but not sensationalism.

My worry has been that this is Hindi news channel, with a population that is spread across a huge tract of India.

Whether you speak Avadhi, Gujarati, Bundelkhandi, Rajasthani, Marathi, Sindhi, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, Mewati or Urdu, you are still part of the Hindi cable and satellite universe, a populace that has considerable say in the politics of the land.

However, the picture is not monochromatic, which is not so dark a scenario.

As I passed through 2007, it emerged that there are three types of Hindi channels: the first is the born-again-to-avenge / snake man / Baba as sex monster type… anything that sells.

The second are the ones that keep showing such news as snippets, “interesting entertaining information and visuals” as they say, but limit it to that.

The difference would be, for instance, take this single shot of perhaps 30 seconds of a lion embracing a man from behind the iron railings of its cage.

The first type of channels show this as a full show, lasting for 10 minutes, repeat after repeat.

The second type of Hindi news channels show this, may be twice during a news show, but limit it to just those single shot of 30 seconds.

The third are the serious Hindi channels which get their ratings from stings, most often responsible, socially relevant stings.

My worry was that if the tabloid channels are getting all the ratings all the time, then perhaps the good advertisers might sooner or later move to the cheap channels.

But financial results at the year-end show that the poorly rated serious channels have done better business and the worst of the lavender channels – with the second highest ratings – has not made enough money to even pay its rent amounting to Rs 10 crore now.

That is good news, for in the end, this money is what will dictate who stays, the honest or the scurrilous. Serious, high value brands have put in their money on the clean brand channels.

So, my worry through 2007 had been valid but proved to be wrong in the end, because as a senior broadcaster put it: “You will never see something like a channel saying… “Stay with us and after the break we shall bring you “Rape of the Day” from Hindustan Lever!!!”