Did anyone watch Abhishek Bacchan and Rani Mukherji read the news on NDTV yesterday?
(I did not and I am very curious about this – do you think there is any chance they will retelecast the news? in a bid to increase OTS, of course – that is, for the uninitiated – Opportunity To See)
As the number of TV channels are increasing by the day, partnering with Hindi films is seen as one of the surest ways to grab eyeballs.
Ditto for the number of films which get released but never see the light of day beyond day 2 in theatres.
“Marketing synergy”
Quoting Shah Rukh Khan from a long-ago episode of walk the talk with Shekhar Gupta, the movies are selling everything but the movies – he has never said a ta-ta-ta-ta-truer word.
How long will it be before ads get passed off as news – on television, I mean – it already is in the print medium – Times of India < ---> Economic Times < ---> IndiaTimes < ---> Femina < ---> Miss India contest < ---> Filmfare < ---> and now Mumbai Mirror – you get the drift.
I had read/heard something about Star News using an hour to tell viewers about the saas bahu characters in its serials in the format of a page three tv news…
The lines are blurring…enfotainment has given way to sellotainment !
gautam
How long will it be before ads get passed off as news – on television, I mean –
It’s already being done. I remember watching a full session(between 2 ad-breaks) of some Bose thingamajig on HeadlinesToday. The news host, Jhujhaar Singh, asking leading questions to some salesmktg type, who was ‘obviously-dying-to-reply’ with his answers. The tamasha didn’t stop there. They had a real system in the newsroom, and did a complete product demo, with pricing et al. All this was filed under ‘Entertainment News’. I believe NDTV is no kosher either. Many times you would’ve seen filmi-types appearing as guests on their primetime news programme, to talk about their films-albums etc. Ofcourse, once in a while, they try to be smart and hide their tracks when they garb it as ‘expert opinion’ on a ‘panel discussion’ of some controversy. About other news channels, the less said the better. Frankly, I started liking the good ol’ DD(metro?) news where there are no frills. And they are now improving on their presentation. Give it a spin if you like it.
(*pls add a Preview button if you can*)
was at Anna’s place and we were zapping channels when we came upon this telecast. The whole thing was so silly and boring…if they had to do it, i wish it was better packaged…neither did we get to hear the news nor did we get to see the humor in what Bunty and Bubli were doing…
the lines are blurrring for sure…. it is just that people now wish such planted entertainment is actually a little more entertaining!
Suhail, I have no idea how to add a preview button – help.