Shock your viewer! Keep him worried! Depress the housewife who sees the turmoil ridden soap. These seem to be the general guidelines to get TRP. Negative news sells, but what about positive stories, what about stories that give hope and happiness.

Of late I have started hearing remarks which could be worrisome to some of the news channels. Well-read and generally well-aware friends of mine say they’ve stopped looking at television news for information. They say channels just harp on one negative news forever. For instance they say they have already heard too much about CWG- the deadlines being missed and the corruption involved. They say move on give us news that touches us directly. So does that mean the immediate success in getting TRPs using sensational negative news is not going to help channels in the long run? So should channels change their stance? Would these rules also apply to soaps?

At my own home, family members are hooked to Tamil serials shown on a well-known south Indian channel. One of the producers there is mainly dependent on showing sufferings of the protagonist (a woman) for TRP. The producer has been very successful with this initiative. But what will happen if the same protagonist was shown achieving things, shown having a happy life, shown being positive all the time. Will it work? Will the TRPs go up or down? Obviously, there is a need to have a villain in the story, but in the serials there are one too many. There are the situations that go against the protagonist, there is of course a main villain and then there are those who support the villain. All in all every minute is dangerous for the central character in that half an hour. Look at how this affects the psyche of the viewer, subconsciously we are told we live in dangerous times and no one can be believed.

In contrast, let us look at what happens when positive subjects are shown. When India wins a cricket match or when Saina Nehwal wins a badminton tournament or India launches the moon craft or a cut in income tax we are happy and want to hear more about it. The TRP is bound to go up, but why is it that we don’t keep harping on these subjects. One cannot obviously shy away from all the negative things that happen around us. We definitely need to show them to the viewer so that he can be aware. But probably somewhere we have got into the habit of over kill of the same. It is not possible to balance every negative news with positive one; my only belief is if we harp equally on positive news in the long there will be positive results on the TRP front. The results may not be immediate but in the long run more viewers will be attracted towards the channels with positive outlook.