TRP and Beyond

What is media! A question, which is a simple answer. A tool which gives us information, a source which feels us recognised, by the haves. The have-not's of India has always on the verge of identity crisis, thanks to a birth goal that India achieved through sheer dedication-FREEDOM. From the hands and clutches of English Sun.

Media is communication and dissemination of ideas and problems, which needs implementation of solution. The solution that media never quote directly, is the the Laxmanarekha.

From Udant Martand to Bengal Gazetteer to Grama Swarajya, every time it portrays an ideology. An ideology which is prospers in democracy.

Ethics, morals, objectiveness, questioning, credibility, and 5W1H.Journalism that’s all! Really, consider a situation you get married by a matrimonial advertisement, and always tagged by the advertisement, this is the media what you use. A photo makes you hero and also villain.

The development gives us a Journalism that has audio, radio and later video, Television. So the light is faster than voice. TV sweeps the homes and culminated a bedroom, dining room culture. Lifebuoy, Colgate and Vim are at every shop. People feel the change of packaging.

A story on TV has one angle, one voice over, one ending. So the impact is one! Indulge the life and immerse you thought process for the one views they show. Define is the limit.

Then accidentally we became penniless country, the chance to globalization occurs. Winters of 1990 are chilling. Maruti already gave the power to medium class to drive on four tyres. In a span of time the market become the most strongest influential place.

Media starts it journey from the struggle to the education information and entertainment notion, see a space to galore. ZEE, SUN are indigenous, STAR is a entity of a conglomerate. But the local groups are doing well. ZEE become doyen and starts a News channels to cover information of India, a task which is never covered by any media in a vast propagation. Then Star News, lures the English segment. Really the mass channels logo and identity created by India today group venture Aajtak. It makes a niche space. Then followed by NDTV, SAHARA. This is the national play ground. Simultaneously the regional market is brimming.Westbengal, Andhrapradesh, Kerala, Tamilnadu has starting to cash the regional feelings.SUN , ETV, ZEE ALPHA, ASIANET are making places in regions.

Well the story has a good starting with a sordid present. The responsibility is on the shoulders of this fraternity.

A word that driven the whole TV media is TRP (Television Rating Point), it is a accumulated study of viewing patterns and providing crux information for the advertiser and channels planners. This whole data base functioning is govern by a Multi National Company, who works in many countries.

Current media practices and trends are dictate by TRP, the survey of viewing patterns tend to benefit market. Some media groups are giving priority to advertisement rather content and information. Media planners chalk out the plan to grind the market and make place on media spaces.

Television has immense reach and impact. It needs prior attention. The attention to not succumb in pressures. Business is all right, but the intention always is pure and ethical.

Journalism is today become a glamorous and grabing business. Individual are filling place for money and space, not for service. The root thought of this seva is dying.

Only your voice can change the situation. Demand the space. Only you can change the mediocre. And one fine day you are in the camera saying that I brought up a media that is mine and for haves not.

Soochak
soochak@gmail.com