Television Reality Shows- How real are they?

It is the era of Reality Shows on Television these days. You tune into any channel- Malayalam, Tamil or Hindi- all you can find is Reality Shows. Needless to say, they are of different shapes, sizes and content, but all of them have one thing in common- to bring out the latent talent in people some of whom look as if they hardly are talented in anything. Thus, on the various Malayalam channels you have- Star Singer, Super Singer, Super Dancer, Best Actor, Vanitharathnam, Rangoli, blah, blah, blah. Go to Tamil and Jodi No: 1, Masthaana Masthaana, Maanada Mayilaada, Ellorum Paadalaam and the like welcome you. The Hindi channels are the limit- from Comedy shows to music shows to family game shows to celebrity dance shows- they have everything under the sun that can be classified as reality shows. Now the big question here is- how real are these shows anyways? Take the musical talent shows. We did get a Sunidhi Chauhan and a Shreya Ghosal from these shows. Abhijeet Sawant, Amit Sana and Rahul Vaidya, however, are on their way to become history soon. The new Indian Idol against whom a Red FM RJ made unpleasant remarks, is now riding an even higher wave of popularity. But, the pertinent question here is- are the participants who win these music shows really talented and how much of their real, natural and born talent is being exhibited here and how much of it is acquired, cultivated and a farce? The first episode of any reality music talent show sees the participants coming in their innocent, gullible self and putting in their best efforts into the song to gain appreciation and applause from the audience. Once the judges find some kind of potential in the participant and the nation responds approvingly through SMS votes, the participant goes through a complete makeover. They are made to look like rockstars sporting the weirdest of hair styles, costume and make up. They are made to act and dance on stage. They are made to make frantic vote appeals to the viewers and in the middle of all this, somewhere, they lose that interest in singing which they exhibited in the initial episodes. Definitely, things were not this bad earlier. When Sunidhi Chauhan was crowned winner in Meri Awaaz Suno or Shreya Goshal was crowned winner in Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma, the market was not this ripe for musical reality shows. The channels allowed these participants to sing and behave the way they were as individuals and the results are now out for all to see. Conversely, when it came to the era of Abhijeet Sawant, Amit Sana, Rahul Vaidya and the Fame Gurukul winners (I dont even remember their names), the format of the whole show changed thanks to increasing TRP's. We had the participants appear in flashing costumes, latest accessories and cool hair- do's shaking a leg or more to the songs they were singing in the presence of celebrity guests who would not mind joining the participants on stage for a jig. All this definitely is good, but not good enough if the soul or the meaning of the programme is lost in between all the addendums. Which I feel is exactly what has happened to these reality shows. Due to the increasing TRP's and the urge to do something different to keep the audience interest alive, the channels are resorting to every trick in the trade to keep their shows unique and comfortably ignoring the quality of singing or the extent of talent that the participants have. No wonder then that the host of reality shows running on various channels these days have not yet been able to produce another Sunidhi or Shreya. When Abhijeet Sawant won Indian Idol, it had become national news. But 2 albums and a couple of Hindi film songs later, he has largely been forgotten. This is definitely another phase in Indian television- like the saas- bahu sagas that ruled the television screens for almost half a decade, looks like it is going to be reality shows for the next 3 years or so. High time the channel producers start thinking about something new soon- you may never know when the reality show bubble is going to burst. PS: It was interesting to read a quote by Malayalam Music critic T P Shasthamangalam this morning- "If M S Subbalakshmi or Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar were to participate in a reality show today, they would have been voted out in the first round itself. They, unfortunately, know only to sing well, not to act or dance" Bang on Target!