Reality Shows - Falling Media Standards

In this modern, hardworking, competitive urban lifestyle, where every second counts, people are competing with time to make a proper livelihood.

After a hard day’s toil a person comes back home, sits back in his sofa, takes the TV remote in his hand and switches on the television in order to get amusement, entertainment, information and knowledge.

But nowadays, we see all the entertainment channels telecasting reality shows. Even news channels speak about the various reality shows. What exactly is a reality show? They are programs which provide a platform to the common people to showcase their talents in various spheres such as dance, music, humor, acting, adventurous sports and games, etc. who otherwise would not have gained recognition for their talent. In other words, it turns a zero into a hero! It glorifies a common man’s journey.

These programs provide exclusive entertainment to people of all age groups, starting from eight to eighties. Several dance and music reality shows have made attempts on bringing back the long lost culture of the 1950’s 60’s 70’ and 80’s into the 21st century and most of the have been successful in doing so. Also, many of these shows have made people recognize their hidden talents and have motivated and inspired them to participate and bring out their talents.

Reality shows focusing on adventurous sports and games such as fear factor has helped people to overcome their fear psychosis and phobias.

But, just as every coin has two sides, reality shows too have a positive as well as a negative aspect. In fact, the negative aspect is more than the positive one. Each and every reality show that is telecast is being sponsored by big corporate houses and telecom industries. Even a weather report on a news channel is being sponsored by some or the other company. Thus, the entire entertainment arena has been largely commercialized and through these reality shows, the industries have made huge profits.

Most of the reality shows don’t even maintain the minimum standards. In this process of commercialization, the standards of these programs have been falling. In several programs, there are uses of extreme abusive language which are censored by ‘BEEPS’!!! But ironically, the more number of ‘BEEPS’ a show has, the more will be it’s TRP rating and the younger generations especially are more attracted to such shows. As a result, the younger generations are getting exposed to many things inappropriate of their age.

Nowadays, there are separate reality shows for children alone. The participants in these shows are forced to stop their studies and as a result they waste one whole academic year. Apart from this, a lot of politics and corruption takes place in these reality shows. They are taught how to get fame easily and quickly.

Reality shows have taken yellow journalism to a new height. The more controversies in a program, the more TRP it gets. The more the controversies a participant has, the more famous he becomes. Sometimes, the entire controversy appears to be just a got up game. Most such shows are entirely dependent on the voting process of people. This way, people get carried away by their emotions and send innumerable SMS votes and thus lose or better waste their money and the telecom industries make huge profits. Also, the younger generation gets addicted to such shows and sit glued in front of the television. Sadly enough, the limelight and attention which the winners of such shows get is momentary. After a while, they are forgotten by everyone and it becomes tough for them to sustain.

It is really sad that a country like India having rich culture, heritage and a very prosperous past, is getting lost in this mad race to become a developed nation. Well, becoming developed does not mean copying the west, America is still very proud about it’s history whereas India, in spite of having a way prosperous history and heritage is going in the wrong direction and madly trying to become western. The Indian history needs to be glorified and this can be effectively done by the help of the entertainment world which should do away with these reality shows and should focus on the Indian heritage.