2008. Time to place a huge advertisement in the Wanted column: Desperately seeking a new television vision. Those with no foresight need not apply.

This month sees the debut of NDTV Imagine, the first new entertainment channel of 2008. Then there will be NewsX, the latest in a series of news and current affairs channels this year. As good a time as any to draw up a wish list.

Foremost, wanted, people of considerable imagination, a little audacity and not a little sagacity to take the TV set by the shoulders and shake it upside down.

Too much to ask? It could be. In the last year, television — entertainment or news — has been on a one-way highway; when it shifts gears it goes into reverse and stalls. And that’s where we are at the beginning of a new year: at a standstill.

Here’s a push for what we want in 2008.

In news we want fewer or none of the following: Actors. Actors at weddings, at leisure, celebrities at pleasure, everywhere but at film shoots. We don’t want a constant replay of Saif Ali Khan holding Kareena Kapoor’s hand, for the entire hour. That’s not news, it’s holding hands.

No song and dance either. Next to celebrities, they’re the longest running non-news item on Hindi news channels. The elimination of one marginally talented individual or couple takes up prime time space for their tear baths. Banish them to the soaps.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines news as “information about recent events or happenings.” By no stretch of the imagination can this include superstitions, the supernatural or the stars in our horoscope. Yet, the three categories are daily features on Hindi news. Channels like Aaj Tak go so far as to hold a Diwali puja on air at prime time. So when information about events and happenings during the day should be making news, it’s time for the aarti. If they must exist, transfer them to other worldly channels.

... contd.