Your Voice

Shernaz Sutaria, 21, Creative Visualiser
Real life situations can get monotonous sometimes. Television programs are in a constant battle of earning the maximum number of TRPs. While regular soap operas can be moulded into any interesting story, reality shows are scripted and rigged. Reality shows would be boring if they weren’t rigged. They try to get in the ‘controversial’ element. This makes the viewer sit on the edge of the seat waiting for something interesting to happen. Unnecessary ‘tamasha’ attracts more viewers, thereby increasing the TRPs. Reality shows are built on such a base!

Sameer Nanjangud, 26, Marketing Professional
Indian reality television is unnecessarily sensationalised. Viewers derive sadistic pleasure out of the fights and bickering. People should try to see reality TV from an infotainment perspective, which is lacking in today’s times, where influence is drifting towards entertainment and little is always hyped to more.

Ratnaraaj Parekh, 26, Manager (Corporate Publishing)
Reality shows are great, as long as they are ‘reality shows’. When the producers start telling participants to induce emotions for TRPs that is absolutely wrong. Also, rigging is wrong too, and in a way, the organisers of such shows are cheating the audience. There should be some kind of moderation for such kinds of shows.

Husain Haveliwala, 21, Chartered Accountant
All reality shows are predetermined. It’s actually not possible for reality show producers to telecast it so effortlessly. There is always a possibility for things to go awry which cannot be handled by entertainment channels! The producers as well as the participants are paid to entertain people. So they go to any extent to get TRPs to hit the roof.

Amruta Karnik, 23, Freelance Photographer
People are interested in controversies and scandals and hence such celebs appear on such shows. Public voting helps them gain commercial success. Thus, the celeb remains a constant throughout the show to gain higher TRPs. Situations are planned to gain more footage. It’s all about the money, honey!

Fatema Rexinewala, 22, Counselling Psychologist
One of the attractions of reality television is the supposed ‘reality’ of it – unscripted situations and reactions, but the ethical issue is the fact that it isn’t nearly as ‘real’ as it pretends to be. At least in drama shows, one can expect the audience to understand that what they see on screen doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of the actors’ lives. The same, however, cannot be said for heavily edited and contrived scenes. Participants know that certain behaviour is likely to get them more air time. The producers contribute to the creation of these characters since they completely validate just that motivation. A typical ‘bahu’ sitting around and smiling isn’t perceived to be as entertaining as a top-class fashion model pointing her finger at a man or woman and angrily telling him or her what to do. That’s the nature of entertainment!

Volume 1 Issue 7