Monday 20 August 2012

Television and cable - I am not anti, but.... - part I

The title says it all - I am not anti TV but the quality and nature programs in recent times makes me cringe uncomfortably.

to understand the full implications of the issue one must realise the following issues

Penetration level.       TV is the only platform which has the highest penetration levels into each household. Every urban and most of the rural households have access to this medium.  For watching a movie, one has to go to the cinema hall but the TV is always there.

Difficult to censor.       To watch an 'A' rated movie in a cinema hall you need to shell out a hundred rupees but the same movie can be watched comfortably at home free of cost (except for the monthly cable charge) after a few weeks.  Further we can control who goes to the movies by rigidly following the 18+ rule (atleast in places where it is implemented) but how can you regulate what our children watch on TV (ok! ok! i know parental controls on some TV systems but we are talking of the common man with the cable Tv!!!)

advertisor driven programmes.     some children friendly programmes such as 'tiny tv' used to dominate the kids channels some time back. but such programmes are being pushed to the back burner presumably at the behest of the advertisors who are eager for the ad slots. i was watching a kids programme with my daughter when i was shell shocked during the break to see an ad for a deodorant with all those impossibly beautiful grils throwing themselves over a common man like me just because he used that particular deo. now they have started raiding our kids programmes also so how much can we guard?!!!

social engineering.    with the reach of TV, social engineering is being done by the big marketing entities ostensibly to market the products.  they are forcing products onto us which we were perfectly happy without!!! take for example the fairness creams - a dark complexion girl doesnt get a job, so she uses a cream, becomes snow white and gets a job. what does this imply? meaning a girl with dark complexion cannot get a job? i will leave this topic here as i am going to write about this seperately including corporate social responsibility.

loss of innocence.   children are losing their innocence very fast with this 'in your face' campaigning, tv programmes and game shows!! a lot could be said about parental controls but the average parent is just that'average'. he/she follows the generally popular fads without being able to understand the long term ill effects on their child and the society.

... rest in part II

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