Tag: tv

aur ye khat humko likha hai…

May 2, 2020 / / 0 Comments

This is from the Facebook memories of 2014.

2-3 days ago I was listening to AIR FM Gold channel and there was a letter from someone from some remote place in Kashmir. The gentleman insisted in the letter that DO read the name of the place from where I am writing.

I couldn’t stop myself from noticing the difference. On one side we in the metros are living this always-on-run life and on the other side there was someone who wanted his place’s name to be read loudly so that people know about it ! How simple life must be at that place !

Folks who have been radio fans before this FM channels attack era came would be able to relate to it.

If you have been a radio fan in those days, you would be able to relate to it so much. The happiness when names from the letters you sent were read on radio; it was so blissful. Such simple joys. It was TV that killed the radio listening in India. As TV kept coming to more and more households, Radio started getting ignored. TV was more entertaining and “new”. Only the older generation tuned to BBC News & All India Radio for news. Then came the FM era. The FM channels in small cities were more like an extension of AM/SW channels, covering local stuff etc. But this burst of FM channels in Metros spoiled it all. Almost all of them broadcast trash day and night. They can’t really be called radio channels.



(Image from here)

With the number of listeners going down many radio channels all over the world have started shutting down their services. Also the companies stopped making Radios. At least in India, if you go to market to buy a radio, there are very very few options available. Phillips is making one or two models & same thing Sony is doing. Then there could be some low quality stuff made locally. Western countries especially USA is going good in this area. You search for a radio on Amazon.com and you have hundreds of options to choose from. Also if you YouTube for a DIY radio antenna, you will see thousands of videos posted by people from Western counties describing how to make you own antenna for AM or SW. It is so beautiful and nostalgic stuff.

This fast paced life and new means of entertainment and getting information has replaced this simple part of our lives called radio. I don’t think that era is gonna come back but we at least can cherish those memories.

Re-plugging a post i did few years ago – Best of online Ghazal radio stations.

Enter-marriage-tainment

August 2, 2009 / / 4 Comments

Since evening, all the news channels on idiot box TV are talking about Rakhi ka Swayamvar. Anyways there is no fun in talking about the credibilioty of the news channels as since so long all of them have become money making businesses rather than what we call as “constructive journalism”. If we leave 2 or 3 English news channels, all others are in such a horrible condition that they need to be sent off air immediately. Now talking about so called entertainment, things like Rakhi ka Swayamvar are just crossing all the limits. Is marriage such kind of entertainment that it should be shown on the TV ? And how successful marriage arranged like this is going to be ? I just watched the TV for 10 minutes and was just wondering how big the arrangements are and parents of participants are also there. One lady saying to another “shayad aaj tum saasu maan ban-ne wali ho”… what the heck shayad ? The participants, their family members…man they all appear to be so stupid…waiting for all this.

Isn’t the media being just too cheap to earn some bucks ?

Land of (un)reality shows…

October 11, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Well, has everything on this bloody planet to be driven by money only ?

Since last 2-3 years, there has been almost a flood of reality shows be it for music, dance or anything else X Y Z. One after another, all channels started something and the people who might not have been earning a single penny, got a chance to be judges and it was all gold. I have not watched much of all this but recently have been following Sa Re Ga Ma on Zee TV & Junoon kuch kar dikhane ka on NDTV imagine a bit.

Sa Re Ga Ma: Its a worldwide phenomenon man. Can’t even remember what all countries they have visited. Its like a child’s play. Its flooded with scripted fights, arguments and unlimited non-sense. I just can’t understand if you are searching for a good singer whats the need to show so much of other bullshit. It has to be a simple show where all participants perform and there are judges to judge their performances. The one who does the best is the winner. Simple, no rocket science. But MONEY matters baby. And the stupid audience, more the non-sense a show has, more they like it. And that is what they need, audiences !

Junnon: Dish TV was not airing NDTV imagine so i couldn’t watch the initial episodes. But people say that it was good initially. When i started watching it, it had got screwed up like all other shows. First of all the host Annu (Why the heck its not Anu ?) Kapoor was a big disappointment. All the time giving his own expert comments. And then in the last episode when Amitabh Bachan and Abhisheik Bachan were the guests (to promote ‘Drona’ obviously) [Oh and did you notice that it was a music show and Ghulam Ali was there but chief guests were Bachans, again MONEY matters stupid !] the way and number of times the host was buttering Bachans was utterly irritating.

I never knew how it was going to end. I thought that they were looking for a winner in each category (out of Folk, Sufi and Bollywood). But no man, they were looking for an overall winner. What bullshit. So you are making Sufi, Folk and Bollywood music compete against each other ? Ridiculous.

Its not the story of these 2 shows. Its the story of all the crap running on all the channels. The only good show that i have enjoyed is Awaz Punjab Di – I which was telecast on Punjabi channel MH1. By the time it was ending i saw the standards going down as the people who were judges when it started had quit. But still it didn’t host any useless fights at least. It looked like a music talent hunt.