Don't mourn the loss of your favourite game show, said the channel. Don't mourn the loss of hopes and dreams. Don't blame your bad luck either - you never had a fair chance of making it to the "Hot Seat" anyways.
Dial mein kuch kaala?
The India TV story, backed up with impressive amount of documentation, painted a pretty bleak picture of the selection process for India's most popular game show.
The gist of the expose: KBC gets 25 lakh calls per episode, so the odds of making it to final 10 twice are next to zero. Yet, it happened five times. And though the rules bar BSNL and MTNL employees, at least nine took part..
To elaborate: 25 lakh (2.5 million) viewers vied for a place on every episode of KBC2. To qualify required a small amount of grey matter and large doses of luck.
Step 1: Call in or sms (via MTNL, BSNL or Airtel) and answer one simple question. Charges - Rs 2.40 on BSNL/ MTNL or Rs 6 on the Airtel network.
Step 2: Of those who answer correctly the computer 'randomly' selects 500 callers who are then asked to reply to 2 more questions.
Step 3 : This was followed by round 3 where a lucky 100 people must answer 3 more questions.
Step 4: Of those who clear this hurdle, the computer generates a list of 10 'final' participants who get a chance to compete for the Hot Seat.
So yes, anyone making it to the 'final 10' twice defies all laws of probability.. And yet, India TV had pictorial evidence to prove it.
The BSNL tangle
And the second time on Sept 12, 2005 in episode 15. This time he won Rs 20,000.
On the face of it, there had been a huge mess up. Rule no 1 of the 31 listed states:
Competition.
Lines of this kind drafted by the 'legal department' are a standard part of all competitions. Wonder whether the auditor was given a specfic LIST of companies whose employees were persona non grata.
As per official statistics, 7.5 crores of the 10 crore calls received were through BSNL.
BSNL happens to have more than 3.5 lakh employees... Wonder whether they get free calls from home and office. If so, they probably did just that in their 'spare time' (which is never lacking in a PSU!).
That would be simple 'misuse' of faclities. More worrying was possible manipulation of the system. After all offficals such as Shri R L Dubey, Director (Planning), BSNL stated on record that calls made from PCOs, office board lines and any other telephone lines (other than BSNL/ MTNL) would not be considered valid entries.
For both image and profit reasons, BSNL needed to provide some answers. In July 2005 BSNL had already raked in over Rs 4 crore or 32 lakh per day by routing KBC2's tele-voting calls from across the country.
Any breach of trust would surely affect future revenues of this nature!
More questions
And what was Star TV doing? Whatever the angle at BSNL, at the end of the day the organisers were to blame for actually allowing BSNL employees to appear on KBC. You can't shrug off 9 such instances as an 'oversight'.
"Shaayad Star TV ko yeh jaankaari maloom nahin thi... ," suggested India TV's Rajat Sharma. Then he adds, "Magar unki website par har participant ke details maujood hain. Woh kahaan ka rehne waala hai... kahaan kaam karta hai etc etc"
As regards the same person appearing twice on air, Rule no 17 states: Contestants could make it only once to the Fastest Finger First round for any Show in a Schedule.
So the channel defended itself by saying that those who made it to the final 10 twice were not picked in the *same* shooting schedule. It appeared fishy...
Especially because to ensure 'fair representation' the rules further stipulated a quota for women (2 out of 10 in every episode at least). There was a regional quota as well to ensure participants were drawn from throughout the country.
Under those circumstances the chances of making it twice in the final 10 appeared all the more remote!
Auditor, where art thou?
The FAQ section on the KBC 2 website contains the following query:
There are touts and so called influential people who claim they can get me an entry directly into the show. How true is this?
Answer: There is only one way to get on to KBC 2 - by qualifying through the phone lines, as described in the rules. There is no question of bypassing this process, and contacts have no role to play at all in gaining entry into the contest. It is a fair process, closely monitored by independent auditors.
Well, these independent auditors were the venerable KPMG . What exactly was their job defintion? Who set up the systems to execute the selection process? Who oversaw its functioning??
Since KBC was a franchise of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' it should have been following the same selection process. Has the Mother Brand faced any such issues??
It is still unclear who was ultimately responsible for the selection of contestants. Was it Star TV or producers Synergy Communications (owned by Siddhartha Basu)? Or was the task outsourced to a third party??
As Amitabhji would have said sahi option ko 'lock kiya jaaye'...
Why it mattered
You might say, it was just a gameshow - why get so worked up? The truth was it was far more than that. Combine the lure of winning one crore with that of interacting with India's biggest Bollywood actor and you have 'the Dream of a Lifetime'.
At one level it was luck - but once you made it to the Hot Seat, it was all about your soojh boojh. Your General knowledge, of course. But also your ability to handle pressure, your presence of mind.
Unlike the other game shows, on KBC2 anyone who won a few lakhs really 'earned' it. KBC2 was perceived to be a merit based game show where luck played only a facilitating role - not a decisive one.
Coupled with the grace and gravity of its host Amitabh Bachchan, KBC2 was synomymous with the 'high standards' that every Indian wished to see in public life.
If those standards were in fact diluted, it felt like a betrayal of faith. A loss of innocence. A lack of decency.
Mild aftershock... so far
Although the rotten eggs may have been few in number (and none of them won significant amounts on the show), the fact that they did make it on air is not just egg but fully cooked omlette on Star TV's face. Naturally, India TV had been trying to gain as much mileage as possible.
This included its trademark rabble rousing anchoring. "Dekhiye kis tarah Star TV ne hazaaron laakhon darshakon ke jazbaaton ke saath khilwaad kiya. Chaliye aapko Patna le chalte hain... "
In Patna a 'member of the public' appeared to be reading a speech from a paper (written down for him by whom?) expressing his shock and anger. Junta accosted on the roads of Mumbai were a little more natural and convincing. The channel claims messages from 'lakhs' of viewers were pouring in...
But the story has not had a major impact... Being an India TV expose, no rival TV channel covered it.
Midday had featured the story on page 1 but again, most folks missed it, as Mid-day was more of an office/ commuting paper than home delivery.
It remained to be seen whether media took up the story or keep mum. As the show was now officially 'over' in any case, they chose not to antagonise Star TV.
Every dog has his day
India TV is one those those channels most of us never tune into, just taking in nano-second darshan of it as we surf by. I for one made several efforts to consign it to the nether regions of my 100 channel television. But the Cable Guy seemed to believe every underdog deserves a chance and keeps fiddling with the order.
He may be right.
Every channel can come up with something to hold the viewer's attention. And every viewer can come up with something to draw the channel's attention.
This story was first brought to India TV's notice by a KBC crazed viewer based in Udaipur who had notes and details of every episode ever telecasted. From which contestant spent how many minutes on air to what suit Amitabh Bachchan was wearing on a particular day.
KBC mein chahe number na aaye, citizen reporter ki haisiyat mein ab aapka bhi number as sakta hai. Some consolation huh!
Uhm..can't say that i was too shocked to find such a revelation but you do expect a certain level of integrity and transparency when a show of such magnitude is being screened. Plus it had the added bonus of being associated with Big B who for some reason instills a false sense of security (in relation to credibilty) in us!
Another thing, did anyone else feel that shows with celebs are rigged...rigged as in ..somewhat pre-planned..I don't know about the new ones but the old ones where I saw SRK etc, was just too obvious. They made it to 1crore or a sum just below that...and they conveniently donated it all to charity!
The story was certainly mind-blowing and shocking. Even after the 4 steps mentioned, lakhs of people stood no chance of making there, when such fishy things were happening.the photographs are a indication that people were being fooled.
Well it was a very sad ending to a game show that inspired millions of Indians. I myself was a big fan of KBC but alas...now the crediblity of all other Game shows on idiot box is also in question.
But a big applause to Big B who quit the show when he realized what was going on.
Honestly, this might be true, but did it really matter. Sure, the BSNL and MTNL guys can rig the phone-ins, and they might have did that, Star should have acknowledged the problem and fixed it. Or maybe they got a better 'revenue sharing' model in exchange for letting random people in on the show. Too many 'kaun'spiracy theories out there.
Do I think most game shows are fixed? Yes.
Does that fact let me not sleep at night? Nope.
And Bluffmaster, I think this won't do jack to the image of the Big B. You see, for me, a person determined to corrupt the sense of democracy in India clinging to power is more impoartant than some game show.
This is a fraud on a monumental scale. Previously guys like Siddharta Basu were looked upon as incorruptible but even idols have feets of clay !!
How can these fellows stay silent (if they were unaware). Couldn't Siddhartha easily spot a repeater contestant. Couldn't he have vetted the contestant properly.
This is akin to the major QUIZ SCANDAL which rocked America in the 1950's.
Probably higher standards wouldn't appeal to the Indian populace. Leave aside degrees, what would be the GK level of an average indian? Its all hiphop stuff, publicity, fame, and marketing that played the game. Don't know how can 'quality control' be asked for in such a show with such audience!
Give us four options or four hundred, we'd still vote for a clean, untainted KBC!
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