POPPING THE ELECTION CHAMPAGNE

In the West, elections are fought as much on TV as in the ballot booth. The more telegenic and articulate a politician, the more likely he/she is to swing votes. Appearances count, and that’s why it does seem as if the election coverage on our channels is practically centered around Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi — they make better visuals.

The hope was that Indian television would absorb the professionalism of Western television, minus the tabloid-ish frivolity, but that hasn’t happened. If there is a short cut to get viewers and that involves reducing serious issues to trivia, television will do it.

But then our TV programmes are dead earnest even when they are trivial. The irreverence of say a Jay Leno is lacking, as is the incisiveness of newspaper coverage that quarries our past promises, manifestoes ignored and of course pictures to illustrate everything. Television hasn’t been around long enough to accumulate enough visual material.

Wars, elections and other natural or man-made disasters always spell boom time for the television industry. During the last elections, psephology and election coverage had come of age on Indian television, thanks to the entry of satellite channels. While politicians were fighting over constituencies, channels were fighting for a bigger slice of the viewership cake. Apparently, Indian audiences are now even more open to real infotainment, and the elections came at an opportune time to test just how ready they were to accept news and current affairs programmes in large doses.

This time, everybody was better prepared, since they had foreseen the fall of the unstable government and imminent elections. It is not surprising that the 1998 elections caused the birth of two channels devoted to news and current affairs — STAR News and the Zee India TV, the new incarnation of EL TV.

STAR News channel has bagged Prannoy Roy and his excellent team plus, according to reports, the best equipment money can buy — apparently $10 million worth. They also have programmes like Village Voice and Walkabout that capture the mood of voters — a mixture of anger and resignation.

BBC, CNN, NBC are expected to cover the elections with the usual competence, but entertainment and general-interest channels like Zee, Sony and TVI, also climbed on to the election bandwagon with exclusive, and some imaginative shows relating to the elections.

But it is really not their fault that most of our politicians do not have telegenic personalities. They neither look good on TV, nor do they speak well. So most interview and debate shows rely almost entirely on the skills of the presenter/moderator.

A revelation this time has been the emergence of Javed Akhtar as television luminary. Face Off, the interview show he presents alongwith Pritish Nandy is an example of in-depth research, precise questioning and good television — on DD no less! (Interestingly, an insider reports that both Akhtar and Nandy go on air absolutely unprepared and manage the questions solely on the basis of their own reading and memory — which makes the show doubly commendable).

The Javed-Pritish duo does not use the velvet glove approach, or give the interviewee a chance to wriggle out with facile replies. More interviewers like that, and we would have better informed and more eloquent politicians on television. Not the line-up of usual suspects — Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, Sitaram Kesri, Mulayam Singh Yadav and an overkill of IK Gujral and MS Gill.

The other high profile team of Vinod Dua and Mark Tully on Chunav Chunauti ’98 (Sony) seemed to have gone on air without adequate preparation, it would seem, and without really getting a handle on what was required to grab the attention of viewers, snowed under a glut of election related programmes.

But in spite of its flaws (who is interested in what parties have to offer — do they have anything to offer at all?), Chunav Chunauti ’98 benefits from the experience of Dua and Tully and their ease before the cameras, which comes from long years of working with the medium. And Dua may once in a while be stumped by a smart interviewee, but he is a very effective moderator of debates.

The Zee Network came up with some interesting concepts —The India Votes series had funky stuff like Yehi Hai Politics doing take-offs on politicians, Poll Top Ten, using the countdown format to present the important events of the week. They managed to line up experts like M J Akbar, Udayan Sharma for the debates and had extensive campaign trail coverage.

A mix of the serious and the facetious is perhaps the best bet, since people are seeing these elections as a bit of a bad joke.

STAR TV went for the big names Madhu Trehan on Newstrack, Vir Sanghvi focussing more on political issues on his excellent A Question Of Answers, Rajat Sharma on Awaaz, Karan Thapar doing Special Session and Tavleen Singh being hands-on as always with Ek Din Chunav Ka.

Other media stars like Nalini Singh, Dilip Padgaonkar and Arun Shourie are splashed on other channels, forcing viewers to perhaps stop channel surfing for a while and watch what they have to offer.

Then there are those smart little spots with film and sports stars and other celebs exhorting viewers to vote wisely.

However, all channels concentrating on election specials are faced with the tough task of getting through the apathy of viewers. This is a cynical election, with the public really past caring about who comes into power and how.

The real excitement will happen during the vote-counting and post-poll coverage. That’s when the most pessimistic viewer will watch to see which way the country will go in the coming months.

But news and information doesn’t stop when there is no mega-event happening. After the elections, it would be up to the news channels to get viewers hooked and keep them there even where isn’t election glue to do the job for them.