Then, in 2006 Idol had been quite thanda. An online poll threw up some startling statistics. 82% of the people who took the poll said they had not seen a single Indian Idol episode. 13% said they had seen a few while about 5% were avidly following the show.
An Optimum Media Solutions report noted that in 2005, the 7th January episode of Indian Idol notched TVRs of 6.8, while the 5th March finale saw a surge in the ratings to a whopping 15.3
In January 2006 Indian Idol 2 ratings were on an average a miserable 3.31. A host of stars had been roped in to add 'buzz' - the latest being Will Smith. But it seemed like too little, too late.
Sony Television took it for granted that we would tune in to Idol part 2. The promotion and build up this time was pretty low key. Plus, in the meantime they flogged the vapid Fame Gurukul which threw up a joker of a winner in Qazi.
The dark horse
And what they had not counted on at all - Sa re ga ma pa Challenge from Zee TV. The once staid show decided to go the SMS way. In addition they introduced the concept of music directors acting not just as judges but mentors with the creation of 'gharanas.'
These moves had been controversial (loyalists said the show was better in its unadulterated format). And they had created controversy, which is always a great boost to ratings.
Sa re ga ma not only achieved a TVR of 3.53 in Jan 2006, it outdid Indian Idol in the buzz factor.
The drama so far: One of the judges Ismail Darbar staged a walk out. Then the contestants staged a walkout.
The core issue had been SMS vs Talent.
Darbar was peeved when his favourite Nihira was voted out by the public.
Can't people recognise quality when they hear it? Just because Nihira can't wear revealing clothes or dance, should she be eliminated? Is that how we have ever judged our greatest singers, like Lataji?
Darbar later returned to the show - many cried this was a mere publicity stunt.
Then Himani, Hemchandra and Vinit staged a walkout claiming they had been threatened by ULFA militants who supported the 4th contestant Debojit. They too returned to the show. But the issue of Debojit proceeding into the finals based on a huge number of regional votes had caught fire...
Here's my take on the subject, elaborated - The ‘finals’ of any sporting event is fraught with glorious uncertainty. Anybody can win. Even if the contest is lopsided, even if one team is far more fancied than the other. Upsets can and do happen. And that’s why we tune in.
The finals of a ‘reality show’ however, are quite a different story. But no matter how well 17-year-old Vinit sang, the result was a foregone conclusion. His rival Debojit had been getting a record breaking number of SMS votes for many weeks. Nothing was wrong with that, except that 80 per cent of those votes came in from Assam. And Debojit was Assamese.
I’m not saying Debojit was untalented. But was he the most talented? We’ll never know, because a huge number of people were choosing to vote not for ‘India ki Voice’ but ‘the boy from Assam’. Without giving the other contestants a fair hearing, a sporting chance.
In that sense, the show was truly a mirroring reality. India voted for its singers the way it voted for its politicians! Merit mattered less than the fact that the candidate was from my mohalla/ community/ state.
The reactions
One person wrote in to say:
I completely agree that in Saregamapa the voting pattern for Debojit was somewhat not acceptable as he was getting the votes mainly from the Northeast region and not from the whole of India. But why single out Debojit? What about the others?
Basically at the end of each show every contestant used to request his/her home state to specifically vote for them . It is another story that the response was not so overwhelming everytime as in the case of Debojit.
The fact is for all reality shows like this the home state always plays an important role in a contestant' s win or lose.. Again on the other hand contestants from the South never got any votesfrom their home state because people from the South do not watch Hindi programmes. In a country as diverse as India if diversity plays such an important role in hampering someone's ambition and hope then there is no bigger tragedy than this...
A valid point. Women were not considered 'talented enough' to play in orchestras. When the auditions were held from behind a screen, where the performer was not visible, the percentage of women musicians in orchestras went up quickly from 5% to 50%!
This is an example used by Gladwell in his book 'Blink' which looks at the complexities behind snap judgements. In the orchestra case, the maestros would have been entirely unaware of the flaws in their judgment. They would have been outraged at the suggestion that their decision-making was compromised by sexism.
Now theoretically we could put all participants behind a screen and let people vote for the best voice. But then it would be a radio show, not a TV property.
While Zee could not have engineered votes from Assam (that happened spontaneously) they had certainly capitalised on it by announcing the same on every episode...
What could have been done
Another gentlemen sent in a sensible suggestion:
Even in the Olympics, when multiple judges are giving marks to contestants, the highest and the lowest mark givers are eliminated and an average of the rest of the marks are taken. This is done to remove any bias a judge might have for or against any particular contestant. The same could have applied here.
The votes from the state giving the highest and the lowest votes should have been eliminated and then the average should have been taken.
Magar phir wahi baat hai - show mein spice kahaan se aata.
Aur na aise strange replys aatey: " It is an article written by an idiot. I am astonished... Use your brain. Is Assam a part of India or what? For people like you the North East is always sidelined. Rubbishhhhhhhhhh."
I'm sorry but the conspiracy theory does not hold
The Indian government has made a mess of the North East situation, no doubt. But I and millions of other Indians think of Assam as just another state in the Union of India. We do not vote for Assamese singers because we are against their place of origin.
Many of us simply don't want to waste 6 bucks. For any singer, from any region.
Bottomline: Ultimately, the feeling is that neither Vinit nor Debojit deserved to get so far (Himani, Nihira and Hemchandra were more talented). Those who had been following the show said Vinit too garnered votes through means other than pure talent (apparently by making up some stories about a 'lady love').
But hey, these are 'reality' shows and the reality is that people want to discuss how unfair this one's elimination was and how badly that judge behaved. Because these are 'hope operas'.
And whatever the means a contestant can use to awaken emotions enough to vote for him - he or she uses. That's the way the show is designed.
India seems to be finally maturing the Western way. It is interesting to note that these shows are finally emulating the Western model where a star (performer of any kind) has to keep himself/herself in the news to sell oneself. The definition of fittest (as in survival of the fittest) has changed from creatively talented to famous. Roughly translating from a hindi saying: If you are infamous, you are indeed famous.
This also reminds me of a test that was conducted some 10 years back in the USA where in a movie theatre featuring a suspense movie, every 10 minutes, for 1 second, a Coca-cola ad would turn up. People were furious with Coca-cola as its advertisment interrupted the movie, but after the movie was over, the sales of Coca-cola from the shops sky-rocketed suggesting that these things work at subconcious level.
At the end of the day, no one really loses. Most reality 'stars' end up earning big bucks through playback singing and live shows. Instead of struggling for years and years like the singers of a previous generation. And simply for that, I say, these shows raining down on us are a good thing.
Life is not fair - that is reality. Neither are reality shows which are actually not real at all...
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