Column

When satellite television came to India, the Doordarshan-weary middle-classes welcomed it into the drawing rooms and hearts almost instantly.

Anything was better than watching dreary DD. Sponsored programming, especially serials, had somewhat alleviated that ennui, but for the most part, watching DD was torture.

With satellite television, there was a choice, a wide choice. Apart from the BBC and CNN, which gave more ‘independent’ news, there were music videos, films and American soaps and sitcoms.

Of these, The Bold and the Beautiful was the most popular; the unending saga of the lives of glamorous people, with every kind of twist and turn and peppered with intrigue, kissing, and incest caught on like wildfire.

Pretty soon, however, there was much soul-searching and breast beating. Irate mothers spoke about how it had become embarrassing to watch television along with the family, especially the children.

Articles were written about the corruption of Indian values due to the onslaught of foreign influences, and the government pondered on ways to jam satellite signals.

We all know what eventually happened. Satellite television has thrived and the average Indian urban home gets over 75 channels.

American programmes are watched by a minority, and Hindi is in, and does anyone remember The Bold and the Beautiful anymore?

The Indian family is now worried not about getting embarrassed, but on the effect this media explosion is having on children.

“How to prevent kids from watching the wrong kind of television” is the favourite topic of parents when they meet.Some parents have switched to DTH television, which offers the ‘child lock’ facility, but that doesn’t always work, because the kids often crack it.

Besides, if they can’t see something at home, they are bound to see it at a friend’s place.

Do the parents know exactly what they are trying to prevent their children from seeing? Ask most of them and they will generally say: “There is too much sexual innuendo in the English songs on the music channels”; “The sitcoms are full of sexual humour”; “English movies have nudity, bad language and violence.” So what can the children see? “Cartoons, Hindi films, Indian serials, Indian programmes.”

Have parents watched any of the above closely lately? The cartoons are, and have always been violent; some are explicitly ‘adult’ in the sense the jokes are for a grown-up mind (The Simpsons).

some show children as badly behaved brats (Shinchan.) I am no expert on Saas-bahu serials, but what little I have seen tells me that they are mostly about family intrigue, intra-family affairs, occasional violence and gender stereotyping of the worst kind. They don’t have any kissing of course.

The talent shows have pre-pubescent girls wearing tight costumes singing and dancing suggestively, being manipulated for the TRPs. This is ‘family viewing?’

To my mind, there is an even biggermonster out there, which doesn’t lurk but struts around openly and to great approval and that is the great Marketing Machine that is constantly targeting children.

We are not talking of colas, chips and burgers here but much, much more. A British author, Sue Palmer, has written about KAGOY (Kids Are Growing Older Younger), which is a marketing strategy towards the increasing tendency of children to yearn to be more grown up.

This tells the kids that it is not enough to use their own clothes, a few other handy items and their imagination to play, but that it is important to have branded paraphernalia, including everything from T-shirts to shoes to cell phones.

Dolls are useless without accessories, little girls must start thinking about grooming themselves from the age of 6 and boys should try and be ‘edgy’, a code word for anti-authority.

The three reasons, according to Palmer, why marketers target children are: Guilt Money — the tendency of parents to give expensive gifts or money to compensate for not being available; Pester Power, which is the ability of children to influence purchase decisions and Brand Loyalty, which is what children, hooked on to a brand early enough, will show through their lives.

The examples she gives are about the West, but it is no different here. In fact it is worse, because Indians are in the early stages of rampant consumerism and have not latched on to its ill-effects; parents too are enjoying seeing all these brands that are raining upon us. Ask a parent and he might even wonder what the fuss is about - “shouldn’t my child have the best?”

Marketers have sussed this out. Their campaigns are no longer in the ‘locked’ channels, but have moved to the mainstream, adult-approved, shows.

Our kids are thus protected from the ill-effects of western ideas like dating, kissing and horrors, sex. But they all have the best brands, with a little help from their parents.

Email: sidharth01@dnaindia.net