Spare us,
Sony
Did the channel have to make the sportscaster repeat the ad
slogans? And the dumbing down of cricket in evidence during its
telecast of the Champions Trophy tournament matches makes one
shudder at what Sony might have in store for us for the World
Cup.
Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan
The recently concluded Champions Trophy Cricket tournament in Sri Lanka was a
washout in more ways than one. We may not have had an outright winner, but
there was definitely an outright loser - Sony Entertainment Television (SET).
The channel which has won the rights to telecast next years World Cup in South
Africa took cricket programming to abysmal depths with its show ¿extra innings¿
that appeared before, after and in the innings break of the ODIs.
To begin with, Charu Sharma is no Harsha Bhogle though that really isn¿t his
fault. In fact to sympathize, one could see how uncomfortable he was in the
idiotic format that, I suppose, was thrust upon him. Its one thing for a
recorded voice to accompany an ad that says "Super Sixes brought to you by
so and so..". Its downright demeaning on the other hand for a sports
journalist to be saying, "We¿ll get back to you Krish, after we take a
look at the Kwik 4s package - Kwik ho paas to dard khalas". After the
montage of boundaries, we¿re back in the studio to hear Charu repeating
"Well that presentation was brought to you by Kwik, Kwik ho paas to dard
khalas! Getting back to you Tony, what do you think ." In fact most of
Charu¿s time was spent interrupting the experts to tell them that there was
"lots more to talk about after this next package". Montages are
entertaining to watch, especially when Sehwag is in this kind of form. But
there is a concept known as "too much of a good thing" and SET
totally overdid it. Some of the packages were ludicrous and it was obvious that
they had been made for the product and not the other way around. Shouldn¿t
special packages be conceived for their relevance to the game so that a company
can then decide whether it deems sponsorship fit, depending on the image of its
brand.
Now Ruby Bhatia has been singled out for so much ridicule that I almost feel
sorry for her. Some feminist friends told me I was being an MCP when I
commented after the opening match that Ruby stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Just because she¿s a woman invading a man¿s game" was their retort.
The ironic part is that the reason she was put there in the first place should
raise any feminist¿s ire. It¿s quite obvious that she¿s been put there
PRECISELY because of the predominantly male viewer-ship and because she¿s part
of the ¿entertainment.¿ Considering her knowledge of cricket is non-existent we
all know what part of the entertainment she was contributing to. India Today¿s
Sharda Ugra is right up there as a top cricket writer and Star¿s Sonali
Chunder is probably the best sports newscaster in the country. The
issue was never about women. It¿s about people who know something about the
game. Ruby just consolidated the stereotypical image of women being ignorant of
cricket by perennially behaving like the dressed-up doll watching her first
cricket match. Patronising men answering her idiot questions probably negates
any effort made towards destroying the stereotype, on the pitch by the Indian
women¿s cricket team. Little wonder that a curvaceous damsel with an exotic
name was the host of the Indiatimes SMS prediction game in the same studio.
Incidentally, one SMS question asked viewers to predict the number of times a
fielder would crash into the advertising hoardings. W.G. must be turning in his
grave.
Agreed - its entertainment after all. But one must realise that Indians take
their cricket seriously. SET may have a strategy of focussing on cricket and
Bollywood - but do we have to be forced to watch them being merged into one? Is
anyone really interested in knowing at what position Fardeen Khan fielded for
his school team? Or whether Arbaaz Khan prefers watching cricket on his home
theatre system versus in a pub with his friends? The same bubbly attitude which
makes a Ruby a hit as a VJ makes her look like a fool in a studio. The dance
sequences are great on the movie screens - but do we need to be shown bollywood
clips in a cricket studio?