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Telly babas: The new-age gurus
They are the new-age gurus and their popularity is no less than the Tulsis and Parvatis of the idiot box. Meet TV?s star evangelists.
Join your hands…. take a deep breath... and very slowly put your hands straight up in the air. Ek... do... teen… Take a deep breath again, and bring your hands down… Thus goes on the bearded, saffron-clad baba, on the small screen, as millions of viewers stay glued to their TV sets, lapping up each bit of gem that he spews.
They are the new-age gurus — for television, of television and by television. Every day, they visit you in your living rooms, quenching your thirst for happiness, solace and health. It’s reality TV with a religious twist, and it’s working bigtime.
Small screen, big ‘stars’
Interestingly, in this genre of reality programming, the ultimate winners are not just the channels but also those faces who ‘star’ in the shows. From the likes of the popular yoga guru Swami Ramdev (who is in midst of a raging controversy right now) to the relatively unknown ones like Anubhavanand Ji, Jinchandraji Maharaj, Aacharya Pramod Tyagiji — they have all benefited from their appearances on sundry religious channels.
The trend has been in the making for almost a decade now, and there has been a steep rise in TRPs over the past five-odd years. Says LV Krishnan, CEO of TAM India: “There has been a considerate rise in the viewership of these channels and shows.” And going by the rule of TV — that viewership is directly related to the content — our telly gurus have sure learnt how to cash in on the popularity of the medium. TAM ratings suggest there’s a higher viewership on weekends. And on any given day, early mornings attract the largest viewership. Out of 100 per cent of the television watching population, 9.02 per cent watch these religious channels between 4-7 am, the next popular time band being 7-9 am.
Pay for popularity
Says an official of a popular religious channel: “Many gurus, before hitting ‘stardom’, even pay to appear on our channel. Relatively new faces pay anything between Rs 50,000- Rs 5 lakh, depending on the duration of the show. But once they get a following, they are lured by the other channels.” And once you have hit ‘stardom’, money isn’t a factor. To attract viewers, big names like Asaramji Bapu, Guru Maa Annadmurti or Swami Ramdev are given free airtime.
So, what decides which guru gets good airtime? Says Anil Anand, business head, Zee Jagran: “We tie up with gurus on the basis of their connect and reach. Of hundreds of gurus we try out, only a handful manage to carve a following.”
