The curious case of breakfast television

Incorporating entertainment in the news-savvy philosophy of television programming is an arduous task indeed. It is plausibly the reason why some media guru sitting in a dark dungeon came up with the ‘infotainment’ pill — an amalgam of both what is considered as ‘entertaining’ and what is considered as ‘informative’.

Channels rake in a sizeable chunk of their earnings through breakfast television. The only performance indicator at hand is the terribly flawed and inadequate ratings system. One of the reasons why the most unforgivable crime the Pakistani infotainment industry ever committed — gauging its audience — became an absolute necessity. I have firsthand experience of working with some of the most renowned morning faces of the country and their naivety is quite startling. The Mustansir Hussain Tarar era is long gone and there exists no criteria for landing a morning show anchor’s job. Worked in a few soaps? Oh, you were that girl in the famous cola advert? That veteran actor is your father? Congratulations! Here is your employment form.

Wear a designer suit and tons of makeup, grab an oversized teacup and set about lecturing the masses over everything your intellectually constipated mind can wrap itself around. There is a reason why one just cannot explain to a certain anchor what was sexist or unethical in that hand gesture he made or to the mother of morning shows why invading someone’s private space is utterly disgusting.

Content is deliberately dumbed down and restricted to basics. Command over the vernacular is a thing of the past. I have had to actually remove particular words and minutes from the run-down just because the anchor couldn’t pronounce or understand them. Audiences are rented and so are the actors, who rivetingly ‘re-enact’ crime stories or tell tales of injustices (they are referred to as ‘cases’ in the breakfast show production lingo). The rationale behind the oversimplification — cannot sell steaks because babies can’t chew them.

Come Ramazan, breakfast entertainment gets layered with overzealous religiosity and although it is a little unfair to point fingers at TV anchors when most of us attempt to reform ourselves in the holy month, the combination of nationalism, religion and consumerism is still lethal; copious servings of which we are continually consuming.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2015.