Hammer and Tongs
ALOKE THAKORE
It was a sparsely crowded room in Kansas City, the city that headquartered one of the three long-distance telephone carriers called Sprint, and it had representatives from cable companies, electric utilities, telephone companies, satellite companies. It was 1994 and what they were pitching to the audience was who would provide the Internet connectivity, who had laid the last mile, how the satellite companies need not care about the last mile, and how increasing bandwidth and greater ability to compress data would mean that there would be a channel for every interest imaginable. There would be a gold channel, a sewing channel, a lacrosse channel, and the list went on. The TCI chief had announced the 500-channel universe. What about the content and who would watch them, asked someone in the audience, wondering whether just a technological possibility would translate into audience interest. For those in that room full of techies it was not a question worthy of great attention. The important thing was it would be possible.
One was reminded of this interaction when the news came in that yet another television channel devoted to news in English would be there later this year from the INX stable. And then the small news items devoted to news channels in Indian languages, which other companies were contemplating. The news stories dutifully took all opinions. There were those who thought that the advertising pie was likely to grow and there was space for more channels, and then those who thought this would be another phase of consolidation with channels falling by the wayside. The news channel cookie would crumble this way or that. But the question that all this begs is what would a new channel offer that would be any different than what the existing channels offer? And that is the problem today. At the risk of enraging the channel owners why should one watch an NDTV 24X7 and why not CNN-IBN or Times NOW or something else, or why Star TV and not Aaj Tak or Zee or anyone else?
Taking a simple market-oriented view, one should at least hope for some advantage of one over the other for the consumer; let us not kid ourselves into thinking there is a viewer to be considered. May be CAS makes one channel a significantly cheaper alternative to the other ones and if that does not happen, and forgive my ignorance since I am not sure how this system will work in my neighbourhood, there may not be a price point advantage. There may be distribution issues where even one`s desire to see a channel may be denied because of CAS or just poor distribution. Since channels are largely promoted either through their own bouquets, the case that aggressive promotions can make one watch a channel consistently cannot be sustained. What then possibly may be the argument is that what one gets in one channel is substantially different than another channel and hence, one should be watching a particular channel and not another.
On any given day with the usual news flow this somehow cannot meet muster. The discussion can never be how different they are, but how utterly similar they all look. In some cases, those who are slightly visually challenged and if you want you may want to add even cognitively, it is difficult to separate the anchors. They all seem to look alike, have their hair cropped the same way, speak in a similar manner, and even shout, smile or nod their heads similarly. The fact that they get excited about similar things is a more serious issue. The rank uncharitable view for this would be that they are all drawn from similar dross and have their origins in the same offices, and hence such verisimilitude is to be expected. Do not ask me to whom?
But there is another explanation that seems worth considering. Television news in its 24-hour variant, which is how unfortunately it has come to India coming as it did at a particular time in the technological history of communication, has become a meme. The idea that television is a meme has been argued earlier. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the University of Chicago psychologist and author of many books including the acclaimed Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, in his book The Evolving Self wrote, "Television is a dramatic example of a meme that invades the mind and reproduces there without concern for the well-being of its host." He went further and noted, "Certainly it does not seem reasonable to argue that television is a tool that helps humans adapt to their environment. It does not enhance moods, nor does it improve chances of survival. All television does is to replicate itself: screens get bigger, pixels multiply, sitcoms beget other sitcoms, talk shows generate further talk shows, all the while using our psychic energy as their medium of growth." ( The Random House unabridged dictionary defines meme as a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.)
Looking at different television news channels in India, including old Doordarshan that recently edited a package to music in their national news, Csikszentmihalyi`s argument does not seem misplaced or in error. There is nothing different in the way that different channels cover stories. Excitement, concern, empathy, activism, all packaged in much the same way, can be seen on different channels. They look alike, talk alike, and behave alike. The repercussions of television as a meme for society is an issue that needs to be deliberated at homes and in families, but what does it mean for the business of television news and for democracy does concern us. For democracy, what such a position means is that the diversity of treatment of news stories, and hence scope for diversity of reception, is not something that we can hope for as citizens. If the news roll and the treatment of items within the roll are similar, then where is the question of choosing between two or three sets of agendas? For the business, however, the question is even more alarming. The idea that there can be any loyalty towards a television news channel is not a possibility. There may be anchor loyalty, largely, and harsh though it may sound for those who believe that such loyalty is based on content, based on look and feel, but there is scarce channel loyalty. Television news is basically a commodity business, where attempts at artificial differentiation can only succeed to some extent. We should see in this round an increased share of expenditure on brand building instead of programming and hiring talent because that is where there is some hope for the channels.
But what about the new ones? The choice is between being part of the palimpsest brigade or doing something that makes them something different. This is more than asking what would be their USP or what is the distinguishing quality. The easy and yet difficult to deliver answer is that they continue to be commodities, but with exceptional branding they try to achieve differentiation. Unfortunately, between the promotional cup and societal lip, this can only be a happy myth since 24-hour television news is a meme; it will be a replication. The other way would be change the product itself. Make television news something that it is not right now. But that requires editorial acumen beyond just making a more profitable news channel. The upside if it is achieved, however, will be valuations that may dwarf those of existing ones. Now that is at least something worth attempting for.
Aloke Thakore is a media consultant, journalist, and teacher. He can be reached at hammerntongs@fastmail.in