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Khabar Filmy Hai
Filmy Hee
Khabar Hai
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When top Indian
editors started interviewing smalltime starlets like Rakhi Sawant on
prime time, many cringed. Now, the fusion has reached such a stage
that respectable channels think it as a scoop if a film actor agrees
to read their evening news bulletin. Bollywood actors often refer to
themselves as “heroes”. Somehow, Indian journalism has actually
decided they are. But what is this doing to news television, the
primary source of news for middle classes? |
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 Before My Name
Is Khan struck controversy, and then gold, most likely one because
of the other (and you know which one because of which one), there
were other plans to market the movie. Among these was a show called
Khan Ka Salaam that would have run on the popular Hindi general
entertainment channel Star Plus. The group's news channel Star News
had plans to aggressively covering it. The plan was to have an event
where people across some cities were asked to share their
extraordinary love stories, which in turn were woven into a
televised show, which will culminate on Valentine’s Day when Khan
and his lady love from the film, Kajol, will felicitate the winners
of the best love story. The effort got buried in the much louder
buzz generated by the stand-off between Khan and Shiv Sena over
Khan’s remark about the exclusion of Pakistani players from the
Indian Premier League.
This is a
full-grown phenomenon on television now—Bollywood content in general
entertainment as well as news channels. “Exclusive” peeks into the
script, the process of making a film, footage from the sets of the
film, and interactions with stars are big on the small screen these
days.
Punjabi news and
entertainment channels have still to attain the size and audience to
afford such big stars, so they make do with so called "Filmy
programmes" where they promote movies without even being paid, and
live in the belief that that is what the viewers want to watch.
Not one Punjabi
channel sent out a couple of reporters to do a detailed story on
Kiranjit Kaur, the ETT teacher who climbed atop a water tank and
poured kerosene on herself and immolated herself as hundreds
watched, all after a DSP provoked her and said some uncharitable
things. Such is the proclivity to air Mumbai cinema content.
News channels,
in fact, have been more enterprising in integrating Bollywood in
their content. Plain-vanilla interviews with film stars are a thing
of the past. News channels, these days, race against each other to
be the media partners with film producers and this means “exclusive”
access to the film content and its stars in exchange for free
promotion of the film on the channel in various formats, such as
news stories around the film in the regular news bulletins, special
shows put together on the film with complete editorial support,
interaction with film stars and also, talk shows where sometimes the
entire crew of the film is invited.
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Hollywood films
can’t even expect an NBC to get their stars to come to their studio
for a question and answer session or to host some show. No channel
would do this for a film even if it had 10 Tom Cruises in it. Why,
then, is Indian media bowing before Bollywood starlets? |
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The most
interesting experiment has been of getting big stars to host shows
or anchor news bulletins. It began with Abhishek Bachchan and Rani
Mukherjee reading news on NDTV just before the release of their film
Bunty Aur Bubbly, and very recently, Amitabh Bachchan not only
anchored the editorial meeting at English news channel CNN-IBN, he
also anchored their prime time bulletin where he freely spoke about
his soon-to-be released film Rann.
“Integration of
film content into TV programming is an innovative way of achieving a
two-pronged objective—creating interesting content for television
viewers and giving the films a much-needed publicity at a scale and
in an environment they can’t reach on their own,” says Sameer Rao,
responsible for film and film content acquisition at Star. Rao is
also general manager of Star Gold, the films channel in the Star
bouquet.
An analysis by
Mumbai-based television audience measurement agency TAM Media
Research makes an interesting revelation: English news channels
spend more time, or at least spent more time for the period under
consideration, on such content than their Hindi counterparts.
According to the analysis, in January, English news channels spent
17 per cent of their average news time on films and
entertainment-led content, whereas Hindi channels devoted only 15
per cent of their time on such content.
“Television is
the biggest platform for marketing films these days,” says Sanjay
Bhutiani, former CEO of BR Films, who recently quit the job to set
up his own film marketing company. “Especially because it offers a
unique opportunity of mixing film content into TV programming. This
makes the whole process of pitching (read selling) a film to a
prospective viewer a lot more indirect and convincing,” he says.
According to people in the industry, getting channels to lend their
platforms for pushing their films is not difficult. “In fact, it’s
the opposite. More than us, the channels are keen to source content
from us,” says Shivani Prabhakar, marketing head, Dharma
Productions, the company owned by popular film director and producer
Karan Johar.
Business Case
Interestingly,
film companies don’t charge television channels for sharing their
“content” or stars with them. Likewise, channels don’t charge them
anything for promoting their films. It is more of a symbiotic
relationship, say industry players.
Television is a
mass medium with maximum reach across the country that cuts across
age and income groups. It is also one of the most expensive
platforms to ride for advertisers. A 10-second advertising spot on a
general entertainment channel during prime time, for instance, costs
anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh, depending on the
popularity of the channel and the show. A similar spot on an English
news channel can set an advertiser back by around Rs 15,000-20,000
and on a Hindi news channel, it would cost anywhere between Rs 5,000
and Rs 10,000 during prime time.
“Film producers
who are always stressed for funds can’t afford to splurge on
expensive advertising and that explains why we would give them our
content free,” says Prabhakar. And why television channels easily
relent to lend their premium slot to films is because Bollywood
content helps them lure eyeballs, which, in return, help to rope in
advertisers, the benefactors on whose shoulders their business
rests.
The channels get
free access to otherwise extremely expensive content and stars. If
invited independently, most big stars will charge several lakhs to
maybe a crore to make a small appearance on a channel.
“It is an
innovative way of giving viewers the content that interests them. We
call it VIP or viewer interest programming. You cannot expect
channels not to innovate in the current market environment,” says
Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief, CNN-IBN.
Conflict of
Interest
Even as the
channels talk about business compulsions, independent observers
argue that embedding content with commercial dimensions into regular
programming and then, pitching it at unsuspecting viewers as
innocuous entertainment is violative of their right to neutral
information.
“A film, at the
end of the day, is a commercial venture. Even if there is no
monetary exchange in this exercise, there is a strong commercial
interest involved in this. Film-makers are trying to woo audiences
whereas TV channels are trying to attract advertisers,” says Vibodh
Parthasarthi, a senior faculty member of the Centre for Culture,
Media and Governance at the Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.
Dr Vartika
Nanda, head of journalism department at the Lady Shri Ram College in
New Delhi, argues that in the case of news channels, besides
amounting to trivialisation, such content also results in building
an opinion in favour of the film, which is essentially a
money-making venture. “In case of advertising, the viewer knows she
is being wooed to make a purchase decision whereas here, there are
no such disclosures.”
The most visible
disclosure missing in the exercise is that of the relationship
between film producers and the television channels. Shah Rukh’s
MNIK, for instance, is being distributed by Fox Studios, the film
production and distribution company owned by Rupert Murdoch who also
owns Star Network, the parent to Star Plus and the partial owner of
Star News. Likewise, many producers such as The Indian Film Company
and UTV Software Communications own a varied network of channels,
including news channels. “This is an unholy arrangement,” says
Nanda.
Channels refute
these allegations. “Such opportunities are open for everyone,” says
Rameet Singh Arora, head of marketing, Colors, the general
entertainment channel owned by Viacom18, the joint venture between
the US-based media conglomerate Viacom Inc and homegrown diversified
media group Network18. Network 18 is one of the largest news
broadcasters in the country with channels such as CNN-IBN in its
bouquet.
Dismissing
charges of dumbing down news, G. Krishnan, executive director and
CEO, TV Today Network, says, “The definition of news has changed.
There is a definite shift in the viewer preference from news on
politics to sports and entertainment news. This doesn’t mean there
is trivialisation of news.”
But can such
things happen in the
US?
While
celebrating the evolving relationship between film-makers and TV
operators, people in the business themselves acknowledge that such
experiments cannot be even thought of in more evolved markets such
as the US and UK.
Prabhakar of
Dharma Productions, for instance, admits that
Hollywood
films “can’t even expect an NBC to get their stars to come to their
studio for a question and answer session or to host some show. No
channel would do this for a film even if it had 10 Tom Cruises in
it.”
“India is an
evolving market, so there are a lot of experiments happening here.
In the US, or the UK, it is definitely not possible,” says Star’s
Rao.
Yet, with the
competition to grab eyeballs getting more and more fierce and the
lack of proper regulatory environment giving enterprising
broadcasters enough room to push the envelope, this trend is only
expected to intensify in the near future.
17
February 2010
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