One of its programs, fast decline.. [Picture source]
After yesterday’s stormy debates on road, in markets, on TV and almost everywhere about India’s cricket debacle, it is much cool today. Now and again when I switched on the TV, which I normally do everyday to take in the latest happenings all over the world, all that would float in was nothing else but dissection of same old issues again and again.
Of all the channels out there, perhaps Star Ananda takes the cake of being the most worthless. One of its big stories was a couple of youth shaving off their heads to mourn India’s poor show. The commentator went on ranting at the novelty of the protest (he boasted that such ‘unique’ protest can happen only in Kolkata). What was disgusting was that the same clipping was shown time and again which obviously meant they had no other story on hand then.
The other possibility could be that some pig-headed news editor thought that such repetitious nonsense would bring in waves of viewers. This makes me wonder how in just a year’s time Star Ananda has degenerated into a pompous yet empty channel. According to me, 2 things are constant in their scheme of things: making money any which way possible, and creating unnecessary hype.
Both in high doses go against the norm of fair journalistic practices, and have the potential to drive away viewers. But then do they care? Let me give a few examples.
Bollywood films that ‘presumably’ pay handsome fees are dealt on endlessly in news-like manner before their release relegating actual news to backburner. Even otherwise there is too much emphasis on Bollywood news.
Late night fares are equally disgusting. Mouchak for example deals flirtingly on one or other aspects of home-making – never a sense of serious journalism, so to say – switching on quickly to chosen vendors (do they also pay?) who display their items. And then there is that ridiculous Ke Okane.
Contrast these with their mainline programs like Baire Dure or Khela Suru. These are progressively becoming non-programs, shrinking and shrinking further. What pricks more is that good quality investigative journalism no longer makes the cut, what with increasing stress on sensation creating items only (like drink-party in Ruby Hospital, Bob Woolmer’s probable cause of death, and so on).
In a way, Star Ananda’s degeneration is reflective of too much greed for money. It had hoped for reaching the ‘star’ in a short span of just 1 or 2 years. What that star is I don’t know, but if you talk of quality, Star Ananda comes nowhere.
It becomes easy to fall back on such top channels like BBC or the desi NDTV (or even the newly launched Times Now) for comparison. But alas, there cannot be any comparison at all.
Coming to think of it, BBC and its like appear to have stringent quality control on what they telecast, and the people manning them have profound integrity and experience to serve people with the best possible. More importantly, despite so many years behind them, these channels haven’t ever thought it prudent to gatecrash into all-too-apparent brazen moneymaking, which is so unlike the newly born Star Ananda.
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