REALITY BYTES AND MORE

Reality television shows are fast becoming fixtures in our otherwise busy lives. Be they the Rakhisawantinyourface variety or musical talent hunt shows, they're notching up the TRPs and how! What's surprising though is that the viewers of these shows are not your typical housewives bred on a steady diet of saas bahu sagas. Instead they cut across ages, professions and genders. A fact not lost lost on erstwhile hindi news channels. Prime time news on any day now resembles a bollywood set on the make, replete with interviews of the reality contestant or his family bedecked in the latest Manish Malhotra creation. Good for us newshounds. Or terrible perhaps- imagine a harrowing day spent digging out that good story only to have the smiling countenance of a reality contestant thrown in your face in the evening at the end of it all. Makes you think, reality bites. So much so that recently a leading news channel went so far as to call a meeting with its reporters instructing them not to bother hunting for daily news stories but to look out instead for a real life reality tv like situation that could then be played out as a half hour 'special' !!! New school of journalism huh?But the show itself is a win- win situation for all concerned. For the contestants its usually a rags to riches story, lapped up by an eager audience, phone companies making a quick buck via phoneline voting and last but not the least producers laughing all the way to their banks. So who's complaining really save disgruntled journos? Stalwarts in the industry maybe, who just can't digest this bastardisation of genuine talent searches. What was gotten at the end of years of private struggle is now handed over in a matter of weeks on a golden platter. Music videos, cars, not to mention instant stardom, the winner takes it all. But pop stardom doesn't come without its perils. Easy come easy go they say. So is the case with reality stardom that comes with an instant sell- by date. Glittering contracts with that all important win are often not honoured and the contestant at the end of one year by now faded from collective public memory is often left high and dry with nothing but a few promises and fond remembrances of the golden days gone by. Making way of course for the new, shining kid on the block- king for a day. Smile for the cameras darling.Reality bytes anyone?
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