History repeats itself, so why not reality shows... After drama, controversy and walkouts spiced up viewer interest in 'Sa re ga ma pa', Indian Idol 2 had no choice but to follow.Ameya Date, one of the guys expected to make it to the finals was voted out earlier this week. And his 'fans' protested loudly both on the show and off it. Once again, questions arise about the sms voting process. Here's what I wrote about it in my column on sify.com:
Indian Idol's voting process is not designed to eliminate the 'worst' singer. Instead, viewers are asked to send in votes for their favourite singer - like in a popularity contest.
You might say it's one and the same thing - that the person with the least number of votes is eliminated and that's fair. But think about it more closely and you'll see that the 'elimination' approach may well produce a very different result.
The 'popularity' method often attracts people to vote for all the wrong reasons. As in the case of 'Sa re ga ma pa', it could be a case of regional/ home state voting. Or just a case of people getting obsessed with a particular personality whom they will support regardless of the quality of his/ her singing - as happened with Qazi on Fame Gurukul.
And it's not a problem peculiar to India alone. Commenting on the voting pattern on American Idol on MSNBC, Linda Holmes writes,"People don't really care about the performances week to week. They treat "Idol" like a horse race. Pick your horse, bet on your horse, cheer for your horse. And, in some cases, carry your horse across the finish line. Above all, tolerate no suggestion that your horse has shortcomings.
He acted like a jerk? He's misunderstood! He sang badly? He has a cold! He has irritating, cloying, obnoxious mannerisms? That's what you love about him! No one understands him! Everyone is jealous of him!"
She goes on to observe that people love geeks, underdogs, losers. And they love everyone who is picked on by Simon Cowell.
Well, we saw that kind of thing happen here as well with Ravinder Ravi - the painter from Ludhiana - getting votes week after week in Indian Idol 1, despite his atrocious singing. Conversely the people who are perceived as 'smart' and 'good singers' often don't get votes because:
a) The average not-so-smart and talented bloke who comprises the mass of voters does not identify with that person
b) The rest think woh to itna accha hai, usey meri vote ki zaroorat nahin. With the result that a deserving singer loses out!
Of course this format suits the makers of the show. Had they asked viewers to vote out the worst singer they would have gotten far fewer smses. There's more passion - and revenue potential - in supporting your favourite!
The other interesting phenomenon in the Indian context is that women don't seem to fare too well in reality shows. Again, from the sify column:
Indian Idol host Mini Mathur hit the nail on the head when she wrote in the Indian Express, “While a male contestant is judged on his vocal talent and the 'X' factor, for a girl, the audience will also note whether she's wearing too much or too little, got attitude, if her hair is too straight, or whether her eyebrows are plucked."
The girls certainly think appearance can make or break their chances. In the previous Idol season, when Prajakta and Aditi wore Western outfits they emerged at the bottom of the pile. Apparently from then on, they stuck to Indian clothes....
In fact, after Idol contestant Meenal's performance Farah Khan observed: "Because she's good looking and sang a song that's unusual and sexy, she probably won't make it." And she was right! At the semi-final contestant stage, Idol 2 turned into an all-male contest.
Venkat Iyer wrote in with an interesting theory on that front...
I wanted to share my observation with you on why female participants are not getting the kind of votes that males get despite being equally talented. I think Indian TV shows such as Indian Idol are watched by many more females than males. That directly translates to a greater female vote bank that votes on these shows.
Guess who the females are attracted to? The males. I feel more convinced about this especially after reading that female participants got fewer votes when the wore western attire. If men were voting, the result would have been different.
I'm sure gender-wise viewership data is available... Shall certainly try and lay my hands on it.
As for Indian Idol 2, I think all this is too little, too late. Better luck next time, Sony!
ya a lot of factors count? Nice post..since the indian idol we select ..is he/she the real idol?...sms has become an easy tool to vote, change it to some snail mail and u c the response drops by some percentage , and might include more serious voters(though cant make a blanket statement on that too)...also how the participant carries himself in the show is important and what the judges tell him and their feedback too counts..
ReplyDeleteGood point about how whimsical the voting format is. I find it very amusing when the judges/anchors make dramatic and ponderous-sounding statements about how "Bharat ki junta" has voted so-and-so contestant out. It would be much fairer if voters were actually asked to vote a contestant out at the end of every round, instead of randomly multiple-voting for all the contestants they find deserving.
ReplyDeleteAlso, have you noticed, when a particular contestant is notably bad or mediocre in one round (and is criticised by the judges etc), that person is almost never voted out. The reason for this in my opinion is that the contestant's supporters (family, friends, people from his/her state) go overboard sending multiple SMSes that week. And then, the format being what it is, all that's required is that he gets enough votes to not finish bottom. Whereas if people had been asked to vote someone out, he would almost certainly have been eliminated.
yeah too much of anything can get sickening... i do not understand why so much fuss is made about these talent shows???... it is quite obvious seeing winners like qazi and debojit, that the best do not get the adulations always... all the channels want is revenue, and also the TRP ratings.... they never give a damn as to who the most deserving is!!!
ReplyDeleteI followed indian idol last year with great interest.... this year the charm is missing, i haven't seen a single episode as yet........
Indian Idol sucks in comparison to American Idol. The energy and passion jsut doesn't exist. Just compare the crowd and the singers. No Simon! Indion idol is boring as hell.
ReplyDeleteyou missed an important point here. An excerpt from my blog:
ReplyDeleteConsider this case. Suppose there are 100 people who have decided to caste their vote for their favorite contestant. Now lets say 99 of them liked X's performance and only 1 liked Y's, and that one guy sends 100 smses while the remaining 99 send just 1 each. Do this simple maths and you will know that while X is clearly the 'people's' choice, it is Y who has emerged as the winner.
The point is, it is just reflective of a NUMBER, period. It may or may not reflect on his/her popularity. Simple maths.
i believe that there is another reason why the SMS for the most popular is the way it is. It will add more money to the company isn't it? voting for the worse will generate much lesser revenue than voting for EVERYBODY!
ReplyDeleteSome good points there ...
ReplyDeleteI somehow feel that the average Bombayite/Delhiite does not 'mass vote' for a contestant from his city, at least not unless it's the final 2 or 3 (which probably happened in Abhijeet Sawant's case). Such a thing, in my opinion, usually happens only in the smaller towns and villages. That's because a contestant from a small town or remote village is not just a contestant, that fellow/girl, for them, is the person who is going to highlight their region on the map of India, like Debojeet did for Silchiri, Assam.
I guess this is a controversial statement & I hope it doesn't sound condescending or anything :-D. Just a thought, 'coz me being a Bombayite myself, see hundreds of people discussing these shows and how they like Vinit/Himani, but they will never go out of the way and spend 2-3 bucks to vote for the contestant they support.
This trend of popularity scoring over talent will continue, until these so-called talent hunts die a slow death ... it would have been a lot better obviously had there been no sms voting or if people were allowed to vote only once ... but then, where would Sony & Zee have got all their bucks from? ;-)
Had written something on reality shows with special emphasis on Saregamapa on my own blog - radiculture.blogspot.com ... and yeah, as a passing thought, I wonder whether it is Indian Idol II - Agla Kaun? or Indian Idle II - Pagla Kaun?
- Raj.
At the end of the day, the only ones who earns big money is the channels and mobile providers. We are all sucked into the whole sms lot. I may be wrong out here, but this is definitely what i feel
ReplyDeleteThough I find TV in general and reality shows in particular inexplicably ridiculous in terms of entertainment, I fully support all that they do in terms of business. The purpose of business is nothing but to earn profit. You have to produce what sells, however much ridiculous it might be. And this has worked. Starting from WWF to daily soaps and now 'reality' TV, every production that should have been thrown into the nearest municipality garbage bin before it was produced, has been aired with unprecedented success. If people are baboons, it is not the fault of the TV channels.
ReplyDeleteThe reality shows have lived way beyond their shelf life..I m sure the falling TRP's reflect this..I would like to add to the reasons why female singers are unlikely to come on top..Yes females contribute 2 the majority of viewership...and the melodrama quotient has certainly been added to the keeping the saas bahu brigade in mind...but as far as the voting goes..how many females do actually sms(barring the metropolis,how many would have access to the cellphone.) and my strongest argument is ...even if a female does vote ..she would NOT vote for an outstanding female participant (even the smses become free)...rather she would pay and vote for a medicore male ...
ReplyDeleteThere's a greater female vote bank? :-O
ReplyDeleteOnce an SMS has been sent from a phone number, does the vote from the same phone number again count. I dont think so.
ReplyDeleteI think its the underdog effect at work here. And its boring anyway.
true,
ReplyDeleteim a trained classical singer and when i see good talent go down the drain just because they arent fortunately associated with some story( rural resident, painter, beggar), it makes me sad that these contests arent talent contests at all.
Hey why not simplycome up with a 'BACKGROUND STORY CONTESTS', and then get in people like ravinder ravi etc.who have kahanis to tell the junta?
Indian Idol II: what’s behind the talent hunt?
ReplyDeleteI wanted to write about Indian Idol few days back , but its good that I am writing it today after the so called much publicized glamour stricken finale. Well, does it really searches talent, seems a bit cynical.
I have full confidence in public and if public feel that Sandeep is the Indian Idol, I respect their sentiments though my wishes were with Karunay.
Without raising any finger on the singers who participated in so called talent search, I feel that there is some fundamental flaw with the talent search process. The Judges seems to look at some other perspective as more important while selecting the singers in the preliminary round.
I was watching the program Sare Gama on T.V and found that the talent coming in Sare Gama sounded classically much better than the Indian Idol. Though I don’t have any knowledge about classical music, but I feel even a lay man can identify a good singer and you don’t need to be a Nigam or Malik or Khan to judge them. After all it’s the masses that make RD or Kishore or Lata or Asha and not a bunch of band master.
I hope if any Indian Idol III takes place, it will make some changes in its preliminary selection process and look at parameters which truly identifies great singers , as the anchor says Indian Idol is the “Betaz Badshah” of Indian Music .
I have no concerns about what goes behind the talent search, as the anchors were once discussing, sorry gossiping in front of camera that how this so called music composer gives breaks to most of the ladies participant and how the choreographer turned director searches for the AXE effect.
Best wishes to the Indian Idol participant and hope to see a better structured transparent part III next time.
i really love antra mitran ... kaash ki koi use jakar bata de
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