But doesn’t this mirror encourage crass sensationalism and dampened content quality?
Here I segregate between mind and performance. You have to understand what is happening in people’s minds that make them watch crime, cricket and cinema more than anything else.

Why are people so interested and fascinated by crime?
There are two angles to this. One is because crime is presented in a soap opera form. From our youngest age, we are used to hearing stories of good an evil, with good winning in the end. When crime is also told in that story-form, with the evil ending up in the dustbin, it appeals to people. The narrative form makes it easy for people to relate to it. The second reason people relate to it so much is that it is close to their lives. It is relevant and localized. So on a subconscious level, it touches people’s fears, as much as the thrill of seeing the evil being caught and squashed.

What about soap operas, why are they so popular?
The drama that spreads out is very relatable to people’s lives, to their neighborhood and their family. It is something people can easily relate to and it is dramatized in an easily absorbable way. So with the right settings and story, with the right chord touched within the viewers, people live and breathe those characters. They become like a family member.
It is not only an Indian phenomenon. It happens all over the world.
It basically takes into account the emotional sentiments audiences have. It is able to capture that emotion in the form of a story. Besides, the family dynamics as shown are very much like the ones of the marketplace.

Third, the gossip element is crucial. People need to talk and vent. And there is only a limited amount they can do about relatives and friends. So in a neighborhood for instance, for housewives especially, discussing soap characters and stories form a major topic of conversation.
On the overall, women mostly watch soaps and Bollywood, while men are into news (crime) and cricket, plus a bit of Bollywood. Politics is not such a strong item on the agenda. This year particularly, it has been interesting to see that the election campaign has not attracted eyeballs. We measure news’ audience item by item and could see how this year’s viewership for political matters has been even lower than last year.

... contd.