MADE FOR TV ELECTION

Elections 2009 are being fought on two fronts. One, on the ground through campaigns, rallies and speeches. The other, inside television studios. This election is the first one to be fought under the intense glare of television cameras. And that’s why some people are calling this a made for TV election.

Look at every single issue that has dominated this campaign. Varun Gandhi’s hate speech, the shoegate scandal involving journalist Jarnail Singh, the tu-tu main-main between Advani and Manmohan Singh, Karunanidhi’s breakfast to lunch fast… every single issue has been shaped by TV. It’s almost as if elections 2009 are the biggest reality show of this season.

And there’s a very simple reason for this. The airwaves are crowded like never before. In the last elections in 2004, there were less than 50 news channels in the country. Today that figure has tripled. There are almost 150 news channels, English, Hindi and vernacular put together. That’s 300 million news watching viewers. That’s 300 million votes at stake.

So much so, today some Hindi channels, like Aaj Tak, our sister channel for example, has TRPs that can match General Entertainment channels like Star Plus and Sony. This was unthinkable some years ago. And this has happened bang in the middle of the IPL season. I think the entire TV news industry can take a collective bow for that.

For the urban audiences, TV has replaced the election rally. TV is where election issues are being debated, dissected and given shape. TV has become the single biggest source of first-hand information and opinion for urban India. And politicians being smart people have latched onto it. Today you’ll find a Congress spokesperson and a BJP spokesperson in every single debate show on TV, every single night. Even parties that have an aversion to TV have gotten smart. The Comrades of the Left who always thought TV to be ‘bourgeoisie’ have got well-spoken, made for TV leaders like Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat. Even the BSP which brandished TV news media as ‘manuwadi’ has found an articulate spokesperson in Shahid Siddiqui.

But does that mean elections are won and lost on the idiot box? Not at all. If that were the case Arun Jaitley should’ve been Prime Minister of the country by now. TV in India hasn’t reached a stage where a debate can cost Nixon his presidency. But we’re getting there. And fast.

There are some viewers who complain that news TV has been reduced to a bunch of talking heads. The same old faces, the same boring issues. I agree with that partially. It’s not as if Indian elections don’t offer interesting stories. Muslims of an entire village in Etah boycotted Mulayam Singh because he joined hands with Kalyan Singh. But that story never made it to the nine o clock news. Dalits in a village in Solapur decided en masse not to vote for Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde because their village hadn’t seen electricity in five years. Again that didn’t feature in any prime time bulletin. TV is guided by what sells and what doesn’t. What gets more eyeballs and as a consequence, TRPs. But then again, that’s the nature of the medium. TV news is less than 20 years old in India. It’s still evolving. Give it some more time. Maybe by Elections 2014, it will get more altruistic. But till then, let’s have more of the Ravi Shankar Prasads and the Abhishek Manu Singhvis.