Life after Satyamev Jayate

BY Radhika sachdev| IN Media Practice | 30/07/2012
So what should we conclude in the wake of Satyamev Jayate about the power of television?
What has also changed with SMJ is the establishment of a symbiotic relationship between electronic and digital media, says RADHIKA SACHDEV
Aamir and his lets-change-India blockbuster bowed out last Sunday, even as the channel let everyone know there would be a sequel. It has been the most talked about non fiction programme since Kaun Banega Crorepati a decade ago. Star’s PR outreach would have us believe that it actually helped to change things on the ground where some of the country’s horrendous social evils are concerned. While Aamir  did well –publicised follow ups with chief ministers and so on, the channel used social media to both create and measure response.
So what should we conclude in the wake of Satyamev Jayate about the power of television to focus attention on issues? Or about the durability of the impact it can have on entrenched social evils?
Simulcast on nine channels, the show reached  49 crore viewers (Cumulative number for the ten episodes covered in the TAM research). who  responded through various social media channels. One billion digital impressions, recorded by Persistent Systems, Amir and Star’s 1000+, ‘Big Data’ team of analysts based in Pune. These were aggregated from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and SMJ’s online discussion forum.
From their responses, it was clear that these viewers wanted to be part of this historic show, record their feedback, share a cause and strike a chord with their favourite star. Especially one who spoke in a familiar idiom and took  them on a roller-coaster ride, while prodding them on their deeply-held fears and misguided practices. 
At one level watching the show seems to have been cathartic for viewers. Khan’s empathetic, soft-handed approach made us share our guilt and feel remorse but did not cripple us with grief over those aborted foetuses. What it also did was to get people talking on issues that have always been around.
Star claims that  the show demonstrated the power of content to inspire conversations. They say it consistently ranked as the No.#1 trend on the mirco blogging site Twitter and that change remained unchanged even 24 hours after the telecast, implying  that the SMJ impact did not wane, as easily as with other fads and trends.
Jonathan Dotan, a digital media expert, who is assisting Amir’s and Star’s  research teams of over 300 stringers and journalists spread out in the country, underscores the nature of the response. “There are stories, and more stories pouring in. Deeply personal stories and shocking slices of life,” he told this correspondent. These  me-too stories that he shared over e-mail later, at times, come across as a collective chest-beating -- for which social media with its unlimited space undoubtedly offers the perfect platform.
What has changed with SMJ
A careful examination of the voluminous data reveals that what has changed with SMJ in the context of  non-fiction  programming is the establishment of a symbiotic relationship between electronic and digital media. While realty shows (also high on emotional drama) made connect with their audience through cell phones; the 13-episode SMJ series sparked a strong social media connect, with people using this media to share their intensely personal experiences. SMJ has established an Internet-TV connect in the same manner as reality shows established mobile-TV connect. Both relationships (Internet-TV and Mobile-TV) bind TV audiences on a deeply-felt emotive plane, which is a far cry from the cognitive relationship that was struck with the readers of the print medium.
In his selection of the subjects, in its format; in his treatment of those subjects; in the re-assembling of all various media forms and prior research; even in his careful section of the timing for the show – a quiet Sunday morning, instead of a more-rushed 9 pm, prime news slot – and in his statements to the press, Amir has been careful in presenting SMJ as an emotional – not as an intellectual feed.
He admits he has borrowed liberally from the published domain (He did not do that with Three Idiots and missed out on crediting Chetan Bhagat, who raised a terrible stink afterwards) but to give the showman his due, he does it with a flourish, down to the last song sequence, the waterworks et al, that only someone schooled in the Bollywood tradition can.
What was lacking in super cop Kiran Bedi’s ‘Aap Ki Kachehri” on Star Plus which was also based on real life stories of victims and disputants and attempted to straddle both public service programming and entertainment? The same degree of  star power.     
 
“Satyamev Jayate is not a product of market research or surveys; it is the outcome of passionate people coming together to tell compelling stories that our viewers want to engage with,” says Star CEO Uday Shankar. “It’s a leap in content innovation… It isn’t traditional entertainment. We wanted our viewers to relate with the show as much as we did. We wanted them to see it and feel it as we did,” says Shankar. 
 
Fortunately for everyone connected with the show, SMJ has also shaken our usually apathetic social conscience.  The handout Star proffers on episode by episode impact is both long and creative. After the opening episode on foeticide Aamir Khan followed up his show with a visit to the chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s home to present him a signature campaign against a medieval practice that’s contributed to the state’s alarmingly skewed sex ratio - 914 women to every 1,000 men, according to the 2011 census.
Thereafter, apparently,
 
That’s more than what similar shows in the past can claim, authorities in this country apparently respond with alacrity when a Bollywood star decides to turn catalyst.
 
After the  second episode on child abuse the Rajya Sabha passed a pending gender-neutral Bill - Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill, 2011 for the protection of children against this kind of abuse.  The channel chooses to take credit for that. Also, school principals in Pune have apparently begun to organize workshops on this sensitive subject for parents and younger children and made it part of their regular curriculum.
 
The two episodes that seem to have generated the most response from community and from authorities at various levels  are the ones on foeticide and on medical malpractices. The biggest take-away from the latter show was the public awareness created over non-branded generic medicines. Suddenly, ‘generic medicines’ became a subject of drawing room discussions, although no one knew who retailed them, whether they were as effective and safe as their branded cousins. Nonetheless, as a consequence of SMJ’s third episode…
 
 
The episode on untouchability was followed by an abrupt spike in the percentage of responses received from Indian youth for the following tags- improper use of reservation system, lack of opportunities for general, and reservation system. Years after the Mandal Commission agitation, caste-based reservation remains an emotive/divisive issue with the Indian youth.   
Another change that SMJ has brought about, and this could only be gauged through Twitter trends is that somewhere along the way, the issue managed to surpass the star. As #Amir slid on Twitter trends, #Childsexabuse, #Dowry, #ThingsDoctorsDo, #DontHateLove, #ForTheDisabled, #DomesticViolence, #WhatweEat and #AlchoholAbuse rode high. .
 
What has not changed
What did not change, and this may take several SMJ-copycats to do the trick, are some of our deep-embedded patriarchal values.
When Amir asked his audience after episode 5: “When two adults decide to marry and want to spend their lives together, does society or their families have the right to break the marriage or prevent it from happening through force?” – can you guess the answer?
Nearly 32 percent of Indians responded ‘yes.’
They feel families have the right to break-up a marriage.
If this is middle-India speaking (captured through SMSs), any surprise, that kangaroo courts in the form of khap panchayats still rule the roost in rural India?          
Likewise, after episode 7, when Amir asked: “Is beating a woman, a sign of masculinity?” 13.4 % urban Indians voted ‘yes.’
Predictably, two episodes geared over 50% response from women viewers – child sexual abuse, weddings (dowry) and domestic violence. 
The Indian youth’s ‘pot-boiler’ response to caste-based reservations was evident in their response to Episode 10 (Untouchability). There was a spike in the percentage of responses received from youth for the tags- improper use of reservation system, lack of opportunities for general, and reservation system.
The maximum outpouring came in response to Episode 6 (Disabled) – some 9.98 lakh messages.
While the Indian judiciary may rue the fact that media’s meddling into its business, SMJ viewers feel that media trials are good, if for nothing else, at least for speeding justice for the victim.  
About the far-reaching impact of the show, Shankar says, “The intent of the show was to use the power and platform of television to drive change. This show has disrupted every convention of programming, format, delivery and marketing. The impact is not just in the awareness it has created or the lives it has changed, the greatest impact is the power of innovation to disrupt convention and rewrite the rules of the game."
Going forward, Amir undoubtedly has a lot of grist for the next Star series on SMJ impact. Unlike any other medium, the beauty of the digital medium that Amir and Star have employed in full measure is that produces voluminous data in real time, based on which a creative, market-savvy producer can twist and turn his plots to the viewers’ demands and make it a truly RoI-driven show, which is what Amir and Star may end up doing with their next series.

Meanwhile, reluctant to let go of its discovery of the saleability of inspirational programming, Star Plus will replace the show in the same slot next week with a series on real life stories of those who have made a difference.