Audience participation in television is always difficult. It’s difficult for television stations to broadcast letters they receive, though we have seen CNN broadcasting thoughts of their viewers. In newspaper, the opinion page and letters to editor gives readers space to express themselves (of course, they are selected and edited).
In television, there is very little normal audience can do. They are a few ways to integrate the audiences’ voices. One good model of television giving space to their audience in Nepal is Kantipur Television’s Sarokar. The one-hour weekly program has gained popularity and because of the nature of the program, it asks for the citizens’ participation.
The participants of the program.
The program, produced by Bijay Poudel, Somesh Verma and researched by Bhaskar Gyawali (all of whom are my friends), is a moderated discussion between 12 to 24 people on a particular topic.
I watched the shooting of the program on April 16. It was on the election of constituent assembly and there were 14 participants. Four of the participants were invited while other joined by their interest. The station runs an advertisement asking the people to call them if they are interested to come and join the discussion on the subject on Sunday for about an hour (or until there are enough callers).
Normally, no caller is rejected and they all are asked to come for the shooting on Monday. I talked with a few participants who came by their interest and they seemed quite happy. “We were said the democracy dawned in 1951 and then in 1990, but as a normal citizen, we didn’t get forum for such expression,†one of the participants told me.
During the shooting that lasted for 53 minutes the participants participated nicely in the discussions. Though I felt like the time wasn’t enough for the participants to talk all they wanted too.
Somesh and Bhaskar during shooting of the program.
I have seen program called Sarbajanik Sunuwai in Nepal Television in which the programs are organized in districts and government officials are made to answer the questions from people. And, that too is quite participatory.
I believe these two models (of course, I don’t know much about NTV’s program for I don’t have friends producing that program) of participation of citizens in discussion of current events will have some effects and there will be more such program.
Photos by Nepal Photo Agency
