Followers

July 8, 2012

'Indian Idol 6' or 'North Indian Idol 6' ?

While watching promos for Indian Idol 6, after watching a very talented Devendra Singh from Punjab, I got hooked and have been watching this edition of Indian Idol right from episode one (thanks to Videochaska.com)

The preliminary rounds of selection were pretty good with the Sony Television discovering extremely talented children from the hinterlands of our vast country.

The main audition centres were -
Mumbai,
Kolkatta,
Delhi,
Lucknow and 
Ahmedabad. 


In addition, there were also mini audition centres like - 
Amritsar, 
Jaipur, 
Rajkot and 
Aurangabad. 

Yes, you saw it right. There is no Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai or Trivandrum/Cochin.

I completely understand it is Sony Television's prerogative to choose where they want to conduct their auditions.

However, given that the last year winner - Sreeramchandra Mynampati is a Telugu and is from the city of Hyderabad, doesn't it sound a bit odd that Hyderabad has been given a miss? Wasn't there  Hemachandra, also from Hyderabad, who was in top 3 in Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, few years ago?

There are certainly a number of talented children like Sreeram and Hema in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Trivandrum etc. The whiz kids behind Indian Idol 6 have been very unkind to these youngsters and it is really unfair.

Back in Hyderabad, like my sister's, almost all the families do not move out of their houses on Fridays and Saturdays evenings, because Indian Idol is telecast (am not sure if it will be the same for Indian Idol 6, though). Meaning, Sony Television has equal or bigger audience not just in Hyderabad but also in cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Cochin etc. 

By not including the key south Indian cities in the audition (and by depriving the talented youngsters of their rightful entry to a national film industry), in my view, Sony Television perhaps has done a commercial misjudgement, which they will realise, when they see their south TRPs and the SMS voting from southern cities.

Readers of this post, no matter which part of the country you belong, just step back and read it objectively and slam me if you feel I am wrong.

When the global boundaries are getting erased, we have some smart people in Sony Television who are trying to divide our great country musically, linguistically?

God bless them!



8 comments:

  1. You are right. I guess they mainly do that because Sony is a Hindi Channel and usually TRP's are more at the north. Not many south Indians speak Hindi fluently and thus even if they have great musical talent, they won't be selected because Indian Idol is basically a Hindi show. This type of diversity is there from a long time, I hope we find some solution to this.

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    1. Neha, I think we are missing the point here...last year the winner was from Hyderabad. I will not agree if some one tells me that Hindi is not spoken fluently in Hyderabad. As I mentioned in my post, Indian Idol is a very popular programme in Hyderabad, meaning there is existing TRPs. Right?

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  2. Hi Ravi

    I agree with what you say.....South Indian states have their own regional music shows on Tamil/Telugu channels...But there are umpteen kids here who would want to participate in Indian Idol...The organizers could have selected one location from the southern states.

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  3. Well, it is a hindi channel and has hindi songs. Maybe, you haven't seen the TRPs but those of Sony in the South are minuscule for them to care.

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    1. As you can see above, my point is more on depriving the talented kids in south to be part of this popular programme. The minuscule that you mentioned could well have been improved. You agree right? Btw, from the city (hyderabad) that I hail from we hear more of hindi or urdu than in Calcutta in WestBengal...just for comparison.

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  4. I wondered the same.
    You put it better in words.

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  5. I second you on this fact. At least one centre for South should have been there, that would in fact add to the diversity of the show.

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