By Kiran Khalap, April 4, 2010

This evening, Ambika Soni, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Union Cabinet, India, was being interviewed on TV.

She admitted that she was not in favour of censorship of TV programmes, but that TV content producers needed to exercise restraint since most homes in India were single TV homes. Which means the entire family could watch one programme at a time: selective viewing, say, a sports channel by the adolescent son and a soap opera by the mom, was not a possibility.

To me, this was deja vu with a small twist in the size! Because it reminded me of the state of Indian cinema till a decade ago: because single screen theatres were entertainment destinations for the entire family, pan-Indian cinema stuck to a formula. The formula included stories that catered to a safe, traditional sense of morality, sprinkled liberally with slapstick comedy moments and exotic, not-within-reach locations.

Today, the multiplex theatres have given birth to a totally different kind of cinema: one that can connect to smaller focussed audiences (by experimenting with ‘risky’ themes and bolder execution styles) or can continue to serve the ’safer’ larger audiences. Look at Love Sex aur Dhoka at one end and Three Idiots at the other.

Does that mean Indian TV content is fated to wallow in the lachrymose waters of antediluvian themes…until a majority of homes start owning ‘multiple TV screens’?

Or will TV content break its shackles by becoming easily available on another screen that is totally individualised…a screen called the mobile phone (500 million and counting!)?

What do you think?