MUST READ ARTICLE : Social Media : How does it affect TV Viewership

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I actually read that from the day you posted but due to several other loads on my mind, I couldn't! 😒 So Sorry about that!!! 😔

I'm really saying it from the bottom of my heart that I made prejudice in my mind [that] it must be in praise of social media and its "workforce" i.e. fans but was really surprised when found-out post-reading that the blog-post chosen to stick with the reality, [almost] completely!

In fact, I would seriously recommend it to any online "fan" who is in a dilemma that only bad/deteriorated contents do give bad TRPs and/or they represent the large-chunk of TRP data audience among others. So it's a "must-read" for me and everyone else with open-minds IMHO despite of its bad formatting (para[graph]s are repetitive therefore making the entire blog-post look cluttered).

At last, I would like to address the point which wasn't openly addressed in that article neither no one here seems to acknowledge it, it's fault on our part, the "viewing audience" which is not on social media/public Internet platforms and chooses to watch those conventional/"regressive" dramas with "much love" instead of new, unique and "refreshing" content. There's no denying that [audience] sample size is small but talking strictly about Hindi GECs, it's for 2 crore "households" pan-India yet it doesn't seem to reflect the views of "online audience". Why?? Because first of all, majority of them don't use social media and secondly, those who get involved in conversations about a thing related to an entertainment are only urban-diaspora at large. Because culturally, talking about a thing called entertainment which is being provided by a third-party to earn his/her/their "bread-and-butter" and in which you don't have any direct involvement is still considered a "pass-time"/waste of time. And yet we blame channels/makers for "axing" shows as if they're indeed largely responsible. And if that's not enough, we even don't get over this common "Phoren-Maal" stereotype comparing the churned-out content quality with the likes of UK and US. Comparing based on some loosely related points such as currency value, economic conditions, "cultural-superiority" etcetera. But what we still either don't know or choose to convenient ignore are few points. First of all, the social media penetration there is enormous, due to them being developed countries aka "First World". Secondly, the cultural difference/divide seems to demand different kind of content and it's presentation as per its taste and as television's history is much older there than here in India, it's now mostly in-tune/"in-sync" with it. And why do we get attracted to their content rather ours?? Well, it is simple to explain by this saying: "Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence". 😊 We simply get bored of things which are around us and curiosity inside us always "provoke" us to explore more-and-more. Third, and most important one, while we do want to watch our desired kind of content on TV, but since we don't amount to any significant portion of "TV currency" (ratings), the only resort we're left to watch such kind is premium TV channels. As in, a TV-business model which commands higher revenues from the subscription side and little or no revenues from the advertising, upside down of what has being happening here in India ever since the Pay TV era began. In fact, we were even not ready to let our totally-advertisers dependent TV channels to go, imagine what would have happened by now when Internet, social media, all have arrived but still very little or no Pay TV channels leaving every television broadcasting business to rely on revenues from only 1 side, advertisers/advertising agencies making them treat only that side as "genuine audience" [given current economic state]. Well, coming back to point. So, what I wanted to convey is that when we were not ready to pay even a "penny", are we generous enough to shell-out INR 60 to INR 150 for 7-8 number of "amazing contents" with little or without any commercial/TVC breaks?? Because if the answer is "yes", then why and how did such things happened in the cases of Star World Premiere HD and HBO's premium channels (akin to its home-market which contents get huge-applauds regularly in the online world) where they had to either change their business models or just shut-down the business altogether given in this era of social media where we were getting content what we were majorly demanding of?? Now, the second and [un]fortunately last thing comes to mind is "digital"! "Ch--k TV, Go Digital!" 😊 (Even though ironical is the fact that programming-format were made for TVs, originally) So as many of us don't watch shows on TV but rather catch-up with them on Internet. But apart from the reason of having "no time" for "appointment-based viewing" (which seems like an excuse by many, specially majority of those who get involved in conversations about their favourite shows), many watch it because either they're getting data plans for cheap or sometimes, even "for free" regardless of whether the actually bandwidth-transfer speeds (simply, "Internet speeds") are slow or not. And since it's the question of Internet which has no geographical/physical boundaries, it would be unwise to talk about India only. But since revenues are "negligent" on Internet at a given period of time than compared with Television, it's very hard-to-sustain-a-business by earning such revenues at a pace which gives just a fraction of investments made-back into the same content i.e. with such returned rates of capital. And while I do agree that earning opportunities are long-term, if not perpetuity but for a "mammoth"-media corporation like a broadcaster which operations incur crores of rupees per month and is funded by external investors just builds-up the "pressure required" by them to recoup their money and get a hike also ASAP. Having said that, even when they do make "bets" on "digital" and choose video advertising of much shorther-length than TV to make profits on that business. But see the reaction of those very same [so-called] "fans"!!! A notable number of them suddenly change their language, attitude towards the content provider. They complain about the same mostly in a way which is "deeply offensive". So if a maximum of 30-40 seconds of ads ranging 2-3 per each episode can invite much "hullabaloo", what would happen if one is asked to pay subscription fees to watch the same content sans ads and also, 5-6 "amazing original contents" (again, at any given time-period) for a price-range of INR 100 to INR 150? No need to describe the most-probable scenarios, just an imagination is suffice! Yet, we expect a "fair-deal" in which actually have a minute loss to us, regardless of what losses are being incurred by the other party. So that being said, the situation of almost all online "fans" is exactly akin to that Delhiite who was referenced as an example, she neither wanted to face the truth nor counter it. 😊

And yes, in case of 'Sadda Haq', I would like to point-out that what the article failed to mention is that TRPs for that show are measured differently since it doesn't fall under the 'Hindi GEC' category, it falls under the 'Youth' category. So using the example of a show whose target audience is already present on the platform and moreover, which have different calculation algorithms than for the one "you" targeted throughout your "blog-post" is unfair. It's just like using years old ratings data of a channel to compare with today's data (given a definitely-flawed ratings regime continues to get developed/"tweaked" as per the demand) and saying that a puppeteer who was in no TV-zone fared better than muppeteers who were in a typical urban area didn't fared well.

Hope you "enjoy reading" and do like my observation. 😊