Why Rakhi Sawant will never boot out the saas-bahuReality shows like Rakhi ka Swayamvar are far from a threat to modern-day saas-bahu formats

Reality shows like Rakhi ka Swayamvar are far from a threat to modern-day saas-bahu formats

Reality shows like Rakhi ka Swayamvar are far from a threat to modern-day saas-bahu formats. We explain why!

Did we really believe that the K serials and their ilk were under threat because people want to play peeping Tom and watch Rakhi Sawant snag a husband and raise a child? Or catch a ‘topless’ Salman Khan quizzing people on what percentage of Indians launder their own clothes?

We have Rakhi Sawant's wedding album

Will reality TV ever kill off the omnipresent serials?

No, says Radikaa Sarat Kumar.

“As long as we use soap to have a bath, soap operas will remain on TV.” It may not be the most elegant way to put it, but the Chairperson of Radaan Media Works, sure got her point across at the session on ‘Current Trends in TV Content’ at the FICCI Entertainment and Media Conclave being held in Chennai.

Fiction, a.k.a the soaps, is not even on the endangered list.

Nonfiction television or reality TV is extremely expensive to produce, explains CEO of Synergy Adlabs, Siddhartha Basu. And they hardly ever break even, let alone make any profit for the production houses – the exception being, of course, Kaun Banega Crorepati, a show that changed Indian nonfiction television forever.

However, ‘reality TV’ is integral to programming today because they create the buzz, make it to Twitter’s trending topics, and have news channels salivating at the bit.

It is so integral that Sanjay Reddy, Senior VP of Sun TV Network, believes that reality television is becoming more scripted nowadays, so as to make melodrama take the guise of truth and keep the audience engaged. A claim that Basu is quick to shoot down – at least, as far as his company is concerned.

But he does admit that, come Tuesdays (in northern India) and Thursdays (in southern India) -- the day when the TRP numbers come in – it’s time for “trench fighting”. For the less scrupulous, it means judges walking out, contestants hyperventilating and collapsing in tears or families taking under-the-belt pot shots at each other.

However, the way ahead is not all gloom, says Radikaa. Though some reality shows may have learnt a bad lesson from soaps -- using drama to pique interest (recall the sudden deaths or ‘resurrections’ in your favourite serials?) -- soaps are learning from nonfiction programming, too. She believes soaps will soon be grittier, more ‘real’, thanks to reality TV.

Rakhi's next: Pati, Patni aur Woh

And so ends the session? No. Just when we thought everything that needed to be said had been said, there came a curve ball.

G K Mohan, a television producer from Andhra Pradesh and the last speaker of the day, claimed to have devised a surefire formula for television success in southern India -- using a typical south Indian meal as a metaphor. Confused? So were we.

How is cinema like rice, soap operas like sambar, knowledge shows like vegetarian curries and other reality shows like non vegetarian curries, we are not too sure.

Amidst loud laughter and titters, Mohan expounded on his theories: "Kaun Banega Crorepati was a great show. But it was a thinking man's show. My audience is not intelligent." So, says Mohan, he went to make the 'antithesis' of the show, Gold Rush. He claimed Radhikaa had taken that idea to create Thanga Vettai, her reality show based on winning pots of gold -- a charge Radhikaa was quick to deny!

The ‘food man’, so dubbed by moderator Anil Wanvari, Founder and CEO of Indiantelevision.com, did not add much to the session, but he did let us leave with a smile.