With shows that were meant for television shifting to the web (and collecting millions of online viewers along the way) and ace production houses creating 'audiosodes' just for cell phone users, the 24-incher in your living room ought to feel threatened. Janaki Viswanathan tells you where else you will find just-like TV entertainment
With shows that were meant for television shifting to the web (and collecting millions of online viewers along the way) and ace production houses creating 'audiosodes' just for cell phone users, the 24-incher in your living room ought to feel threatened. Janaki Viswanathan tells you where else you will find just-like TV entertainment
On August 15, 2009, director Abhigyan Jha celebrated independence of a different kind: "I was free from moronic channel executives," says the director of stand-up comedy show Jay Hind that went on air, online.
Episode title: Free Your Mind. Jha, who is founder of Undercover Utopia, has previously produced cult stand-up show Movers and Shakers starring Shekhar Suman.
The director says he was given a contract by Imagine in April last year, but they didn't end up putting out the show in July as promised. "I decided that it was time to show the channels that they are not the ones who determine content. My obligation is to my audience, not to a middleman of a TV channel," he says.u00a0
Jay Hind is packed into 15-minute capsules, each of which sees anchor and popular film and television actor Sumeet Raghavan present a tongue-in-cheek take on politicians, actors, even the IPL. Viewers dig advice, and so, Bhojpuri actress Divya acts as agony aunt, filling in as scandalous comic character Savita Bhabhi. Jay Hind looks and sounds like any other television show, except that it airs only online in partnership with buzzintown.comu00a0
Now you hear it, now you see it
Queen of television production and Creative Head at Balaji Telefilms, Ekta Kapoor is in the mood to grab a chunk of the viewer pie off familiar turf. She has tied up with mobile phone service provider Aircel to experiment with a new genre altogether. Kapoor will be producing an 'audiosodic' series for Aircel mobile users. Kriminal Kaun is a crime-based interactive series that will be available on a subscription basis to users of the said service provider only.
Every episode is split into four segments; the first two follow a crime just as it occurs, while the third allows listeners to guess the criminal, and the fourth sees the identity of the criminal revealed. New Media, Balaji's digital wing, is the brain behind the show. "So far, we've got voice mobisodes, but soon we'll be moving into visual mobisodes too," says Kapoor, sharing that tie-ups with other mobile service providers are already underway.
Already online
While Jay Hind may be the first full-fledged Indian show to make it online, youth channel MTV India has been producing online content for a couple of years. Aditya Swamy, senior vice president, sales and marketing, says the channel stands by axillary programming. "If we've got a show airing on our channel, we also have a behind-the-scenes video available on our website, and the same can be downloaded on your cell phone." During live rock shows, Swamy says, there's a special crew that films and edits it in real time to put up instant feeds on the Internet. "MTV survives on mobile phones and the web. Our digital platform has a user base of nearly 4 million," he says.
The first tryouts
While Jha might have stepped online only after a channel backtracked, and MTV works hard at maintaining a multimedia presence to support its parent channel, Babblefish Productions has been creating exclusive content for the Internet for two years. Samira Kanwar, founder of Babblefish, a Mumbai based production company, says she wanted to take up a project that wasn't "mass". "I didn't want to get into a market where a lot of competition already existed." Kanwar picked the next big thing: the Internet.
Babblefish shoots live gigs, interviews, produces regular shows and music videos, all for the online viewer. "It's an unexplored media and I wanted to make it my forte, my niche," she says. That Kanwar is also currently in discussion for a major TV project, can be justified by a shrug and "at the end of the day, you need the money to run a company" justification.u00a0
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Pros beat cons
And that brings us to what is perhaps the only negative aspect of shifting shows online: money. "Advertisers continue to believe that television is a good medium, so ad rates for Internet shows are miniscule," says Jha.
But the pros are many. Internet programming spells endless freedom. "You can put exactly what you want online," says Mrinal Jha, Abhigyan's wife and producer for Jay Hind. Jha adds, "You are free from the channel's 'dumb down' policies and are able to multiply your audience without any hype."
Kanwar and Kapoor both admit that the online target audience is a small one. "You can make a whole show on golf, which very few people will be interested in. But you can anyway," says Kanwar. It's the opportunity to tackle smaller sections of interest, and create programming that's people-specific, that makes it the medium of the future, Kapoor reasons.
Bye, bye TV?
Does that mean your television set will soon turn obsolete? Not really, although as Abhigyan Jha says, both mediums are likely to fuse into one. "Just like the iPod didn't replace a music system, the Internet won't replace television," says Swamy.
And Rajan Shahi would be happier that way. Producer of hit TV soaps Bidaai and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai says he'd rather create content for mass audiences. "The Internet and mobile phone entertainment are for tech-savvy folk. I'd like to stick to my small-town loyal audiences who just want to watch a nice family show, at least for now."
How it unfolded in the west
The shift abroad started early on, with free television shows being 'downloadable' on mobile phones as early as 2007. Today, in the US, the Internet is as strong a media as any other.u00a0 "Advertisers use as much time and effort to put up viral videos as they would a hoarding," says Kanwar, predicting that India will get there in a couple of years.
She cites the example of a mattress company in the US that has a viral video made for Internet consumers only. "It shows the employees of the mattress company falling over each other like a pack of dominoes, into a truck. The truck's door shuts, and the company's name flashes. It's that simple." Of course, the west has its advantages: technology tends to hit them first, they have quick Internet connections, most people have access to the web, and Wi Fi is omnipresent.
"It will happen here soon. Twenty years ago, TV sets were niche, now every household has one." Everyone in India owns a mobile phone too, and that's got Kanwar toying with the idea of creating agricultural content for farmers based in north India.
Ultimately, an idea is what's big on the Internet, whether it was the couple who jigged into church and posted the video on YouTube, or the Lonely Girl who began video-blogging one day simply because she was bored. "On such a medium, the quality of the video doesn't matter one bit. Idea is king," says Kanwar.
The handbook
How to post your own show online
Get your reasons right: Are you a) doing this for the money OR b) to simply make a statement and be known? PS: a) may be tough.
Think up an idea: It can be anything -- gossip, a character, something you saw on the street, anything at all. Don't bother about how many people will relate to it. Someone will.
Borrow a handycam if you don't have one, or shoot on your mobile phone video application. Quality doesn't really matter.
Log on to find applications or quick 'do-it-yourselves' for editing your clip or short format show.
Post it online and get your friends to view it, leave comments and pass on the word. It is that simple.
Desi shows you can catch online
Log on to:
https://jayhind.buzzintown.com/ to watch Jay Hind
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131899472189 to catch Sapna Bhavnani's act as Speedy Gonsales, a music-based show
https://babblefish.in/ to watch a Pentagram live act, an interview with music producers, or the P-Man show
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