Letters: Tamed by TRPs

Apropos Mihir S Sharma’s satirical and informative piece “Screaming to be heard” (December 31), the trio of news reporters, anchor-editors and experts have perfected a style of news presentation on TV channels in which everyone speaks a lot but says nothing. The situation in Hindi channels is much worse where you have to read the important developments on the fleeting news ticker at the bottom as you watch trivial information dominate the screen. The growing number of these news channels shows they have succeeded in generating a class of viewers that keeps their TRPs going. However, in this game they are underestimating their social role and losing the opportunity to inform and educate the masses on serious social and political issues — avoiding deaths due to illicit liquor or stampede, dowry, the declining quality of parliamentary debate and so on. If only they could read TRP as Trend Resetting Planning.

 

Y G Chouksey Pune

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