Yes Minister

POLITICS is welcome grist for the entertainment mill, and "The West Wing", which looks at life inside the U.S. Presidency, has had a solid run in the United States. In the United Kingdom, "Yes Minister" was a hit. But nothing similar has really caught on here so far. "Kakaji Kahin" was satirical and had a good run in the days when the chattering classes still watched Doordarshan. However "Rajdhani" on Star Plus was unceremoniously yanked off the air last year despite being interesting . Its viewership ratings were not up to the mark. It is now being replaced on the 26th of this month by New Delhi Television's (NDTV) local take- off on "Yes Minister" titled "Ji Mantriji". Made for the BBC, it has been sold to Star Plus.

Meanwhile "Pradhan Mantri" on Zee TV has just begun. One hour long, and not exactly sparkling with wit in its first episode, it could still catch on. M. J. Akbar is a gifted editor and writer who has flirted with politics. He brings together the worlds of journalism and politics in his script for this serial. Together with director Ketan Mehta, he brings pedigree and promise to the cliched world of television melodrama.

Having said that, the first episode eschewed subtlety. There is a defence scandal, the government falls, and the jockeying begins for the top job. Assorted stock characters resembling contemporary politicians including a rather direct woman aspirant (Jayalalitha? Mayawati? Mamta?), plot, connive and broker deals to be chosen as the pradhan mantri. It is all very overt, as if the makers of this serial are afraid that if they were to understate matters their not-so-bright audience would not catch on. And there are too many known faces in the cast.

There is a female TV anchor who breaks a defence scam a la Tehelka. She wears her hair the way weathercasters on NDTV and Doordarshan do, and seems to be a one-woman TV channel, as she rushes around sticking mikes into moving cars and asking leading questions. The news channel she works for is called A News. Brand promotion for Zee which owns the Alpha network of regional language channels? A News has a logo similar to Alpha's. But considering that the serial begins with the newsreader suddenly getting up and walking off saying that she is tired of broadcasting lies to her viewers, it is not such a clever idea. Zee's marketing people must be blanching at that.

Just as one is wondering whether "Pradhan Mantri" is worth returning to at 10 p.m. on a Friday night ( you could watch a movie or go out on town instead) a rather silent dark horse is chosen PM, to everybody's surprise. And it is this actor's performance (he is not one of the usual suspects), the humorous glint in his eyes as his lovely wife played by Malavika Tiwari opens the door when he returns home, that makes the serial seem interesting enough to return to next week.

For their next reality trip the Zee Network might likely to locate a serial in the stock market world. Last week they were furiously issuing denials and clarifications regarding their business dealings with Ketan Parekh, even as the latter was spilling the beans to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on what exactly went on.

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"The disaster has been used by the channels as an opportunity to push viewership," said a dry voice from the back of the hall. It was a rather unusual occasion. Even as Bill Clinton's visit put Gujarat's earthquake recovery back into the news, a meeting took place last Sunday in Ahmedabad between those who had been affected by the tragedy, and representatives of the TV channels that had done the coverage. It was organised by the Gujarat Viewer's Forum which undertook a study on how viewers in Ahmedabad had received the intense coverage by three news channels and Doordarshan.

Did TV show too much of the disaster and too little of the recovery efforts? Did the repeated showing of footage of the devastation lead to depression and anxiety and trauma for victims and their families? A teacher in a school for the blind who was one of the authors of the study said, "My own child was less horrified when the earthquake actually happened . He used to get a lot more traumatised by TV coverage in the days that followed."

The key findings of the study, as well as what men and women in this meeting stood up and said, was both positive and negative, and even in some senses contradictory.

On the one hand it confirmed that television became a lifeline. "When everything failed, all essential communication broke down and a state of utter confusion and chaos prevailed, television played a very important role in keeping the quake-hit people going, regalvanising the system and ensuring some immediate response to the event," it said. Also few were in any doubt that television coverage was the single biggest trigger for the scale of relief which poured in.

Yet even as viewers agreed that the coverage was very pro-people, constantly highlighting the endurance, grit and courage of ordinary people, they insisted that the sheer power of the medium contributed to the sense of terror and vulnerability of those living in that zone. Gory images were endlessly repeated. One viewer claimed that the depression caused by the scale of devastation shown on TV even led to suicides. An assertion which the channel representatives present could hardly let pass unchallenged. All of them said they could not sugar coat the reality, and they were equally clear that they were contributing to keeping the scale of devastation alive in the consciences of those far removed from it. A young woman from Star News, said, "Those images were meant for the rest of the world. So that they stayed with you. They helped the victims connect with the diaspora."

Whereas the interviews with the victim-viewers were done as part of the qualitative study, the quantitative study showed that 70 per cent of the respondents had learnt about the epicentre and scale of the earthquake from television. Eighty five per cent said TV was their first choice of medium at this time, and whereas people began by watching one channel initially, soon they switched to multiple channels.

"Aaj Tak", which really took off as a channel with this major news event, emerged as the favourite in cable and satellite homes in Ahmedabad on the basis of this study. Over the fortnight following the earthquake, the number of respondents who accessed more than one channel went up by almost 40 per cent with Zee and Doordarshan losing almost half their audiences to a new multiple channel viewer. "Aaj Tak", however managed to hold on to its audience. However, possible because of inadequate penetration of cabled homes, it did not show up in the market research ratings for this period, which the Zee representative was busy handing out at the meeting.

SEVANTI NINAN

E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com

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