Turkish TV serials, based on historical events, are currently reigning in the minds of the Bangladeshi audience.
Content consumers now seem more interested to watch stories about emperors, their wars, and their love affairs -- a mega serial on Sultan Suleyman in one of the TV channels has proven this fact. After its success, now more channels are beginning to broadcast similar stories from both India and Turkey.
The question naturally arises -- whether our own modern-day stories have lost their appeal to the audience, or is it that we’re failing to produce the content that our audience is seeking? The answer could be yes to both.
While the number of TV channels has increased, the amount of watchable content has reduced.
Television itself as the source of entertainment for the masses has lost its lustre after the arrival of digital platforms -- it is not difficult now to find good watchable content on YouTube or Netflix without ever watching TV.
There was a time when TV was the prime source of linear content for the masses. Now, the situation has changed; in fact, there’s a paradigm change in the pursuit to reach out to the audience. A TV channel has to be present in multiple mediums nowadays in order to attract the audience to watch its content.
Now, the habit of watching sensational content comes from Facebook feeds. It has become a Herculean task even to captivate the attention of the audience on Facebook.
People aren’t stopping to look at whatever you post or whatever you say. It has to be extremely interesting and thought-provoking, and it has to be on-the-go content.
There are, of course, many people who stop to read or watch history-based content. Take my interest, for example. These days, news and current affairs of the present world aren’t attracting me anymore. I’m more inclined to dig into the events of the past and what will come in the future. I don’t have to read news and editorials in the newspapers -- I can now write my own editorials and deliver news-based content on various digital platforms. In a way, I have become a competitor of the newspapers.
This is the time to assert oneself; this is the time to present one’s individuality to an audience who are always on the go. An individual who couldn’t harness the traditional forms of media can now be the most watched performer thanks to digital technologies.
As far as content in the media is concerned, we’re going into a chaotic world. We don’t know what to watch; we don’t have our focus on a single show; our focus is on too many shows -- and essentially, broken.
In this broken state of mind, the various forms of media are also going through a tough time in terms of creating watchable content. If our great writer Humayun Ahmed were alive today, he would also face a similar situation.
However, all isn’t lost in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi content-makers are also trying their best to attract the audience by learning from global experiences. Great minds are trying to make a difference in making movies, in creating good TV and newspaper content. But since we’re living in a non-linear media world, one has to pay attention to the audience. Today’s makers won’t go far if they follow the footsteps of the makers of yesteryears.
They have to understand their audience’s psychology, talk to them, and learn about their interests. I have a feeling that today’s makers aren’t thinking from the point of view of their audiences.
The creation also will have to be developed with a deep touch of responsibility. We mustn’t create anything that would seem just sensational; we must also think of its impact on society. The present, no matter how chaotic it looks, is the right time to show the content creator’s real talent, and bring back the audience from foreign content.
I think this content chaos is an opportunity for us.
Ekram Kabir is a story-teller and he can be reached at [email protected].
