Do you know why ‘television’ is referred to as the ‘idiot box’? Different people have different opinions regarding this, but most of us agree on, ‘we hate the melodramatic aspects of television’, and why not?
When television was first discovered, it was a blessing to have this box at homes and the home with a television would have the eye of every other house in that locality or around that area. There were times when that very house would always be filled with guests because people just wanted to get a glance at the television. Now, if you closely look into the matter, it is next to impossible to find a house with just one television set because every other house has two or more. Maybe that’s why today (21st November) is observed as the World Television Day.
Still, why is it so that the shows are struggling hard for TRP? Simple, the youth isn’t much into television these days. With ‘Netflix and chill’ up the charts, nobody wants to sit on the sofa and stare at that box, which doesn’t look like a box anymore, and in some years, wouldn’t probably be visible too, just saying!
Image Credit: dailymotion.com
Television is now the grandmother in the ‘devices’ category. Nobody just wants to spend time with it. When our parents were young, they were amused by the fact that a ‘box’ is talking! Now, we just keep it shut. With phones, or even better, ‘Alexas’ and ‘Google Homes’, there’s no point in owning one, is there? The youth have everything inside their pocket. Applications do the work of the television channels. What do you want to watch, ‘Bojack Horseman’? Well, the applications have got you covered. Also, not to forget, torrent has literally made every movie channel run short of money in their business. There’s no point in beating around the bush, let’s face it, television doesn’t cater to our needs anymore.
However, some TV actors wish to differ. HotFridayTalks asked TV actress Harshita Gaur, (who has now also shifted her focus to Web Series with Mirzapur) whether she feels that TV is dying a slow death. She said, “Oh my god! No, it can’t. I have done 900 episodes on Tv and I think a lot of people still watch TV. It has its own audience.” While Shweta Tripathi said that what might change on TV is the content since there is so much competition now with web series being made. “TV does tend to get monotonous but I feel that the TV content might change according to the kind of web series being made because there is tough competition now,” added Shweta.
Well, if you talk about the device, we obviously need it to stream our movies or watch Netflix and Amazon Prime. We may also need them to play our favorite video games, but not anymore for the TV shows.
The youth especially, have different engagements. Do you remember when we were literally excited because some company decided to bring a ‘pause’ button on a television model? Now, we can ‘pause’ any effing moment we want to, because our phones, our wish!
Hence, television doesn’t have the required upgrades that are needed for the youth to function. If you are a young person still mesmerized by television, sis, subscribe to ‘Netflix’ right away!
(With inputs by Manisha Pradhan)
