Fear Factor

Once there was this man whom the neighbours and relatives called an ‘idiot’ all the time. This man, to take revenge on all those who called him so, began killing them one by one, breaking their skull, and then eating their brains. This gruesome incident and many others like this prompted the country’s premier channel, Aajtak, to think of putting out a show that would showcase such crime stories that were of human interest. Shams Tahir Khan, a popular TV anchor, who had joined the channel in 2000, sayshe used to meet police officials who had such stories to tell that would make a great programme package if put together. Thus happened Jurm, the first crime show on any news channel.

The Saturday night programme gave the channel a good harvest of TRPs, probably prompting rival, Zee News, to come up with a similar programme on a daily basis. Crime Reporter, on Zee, happened because of the zeal of doing a ‘different’ kind of programme on the same issue. The person behind it was Vinod Kapri, currently the Managing Editor, India TV. He was in Zee then. Reminiscing about the origins of the idea, Kapri says, “I remember, an old couple had been murdered in Vasant Kunj. I asked the news to be made number one in the run order. It meant the bulletin would open with this news, which was unheard of in those days. I argued: If the safety and security of an old couple could be compromised in the Capital, then what about those in the rest of the country? My suggestion was thatevery day, we would have one or the other crime story from every corner of the country. The idea was to make a crime-centric show that would be different in content and also in presentation. So for the first time, we got a presenter from the National School of Drama (NSD), Raghavendra Mudgal, to anchor the show. For the first week of the show, it was among the top five in ranking...And a trend was set for the rest to follow.”

Then came November 21, 2004. The time: 11.00 pm. Two prominent channels – Aajtak and Star News launched their weekly crime show – Vaardaat and Sansani respectively. 

To counter the success of Crime Reporter in Zee, Aajtak and Star tried to capitalise the time slot available in the same band on the weekends. Star had hired an NSD pass out, Srivardhan Trivedi, like Zee had done earlier. Trivedi carved out a niche for himself with his presentation style, though he and the programme has been accused of sensationalising the show 

quite often. 

Driven by the TRP ratings, by this time, a new crop of crime shows had developed. NDTV, by and large considered to be a more serious channel, also added crime shows in its programming –Dial 100 and FIR. Compared to others, this had a more subtle, matter of fact reporting style. Star introduced another show called Red Alert , and Kal, Kapaal, Mahakaal on Zee was raking in the TRPs. ACP Arjun on India TV also attracted many eyeballs with its presentation style where the anchor of the show is a fictitious character dressed in a police uniform.

With crime shows on all channels giving huge returns, and the weekend concept becoming a daily affair, some channels came up with the bhoot-pishach idea of having a show on para normal issues. This introduced another spin to crime shows, with the coming up of Kaun Hai on Star, and Khauf on Aajtak. 

Sanjay Nandan, the presenter of Kaun Hai, defends the show, saying the idea was not to create horror, but was against horror. “We travelled across the country, collecting evidence of such incidents, and proving scientifically that they are a figment of our imagination,” he said.

Industry watchers say such programmes became popular also because they had their eyes set on the pulse of the people. Sansani on Star deserves a special mention for running many commendable campaigns against quacks and “holy men”. This, however, was also seen to be taking a cue from Shohaib Illyasi’s hugely popular India’s Most Wanted, which ran on Zee TV .

Satish K Singh, Editor, Zee News, rightly defends the rise of such shows on Indian television. He says: “Such shows are not bad, per say. Most of the time, any way, crime stories are on the front page of all newspapers. Be it financial in nature, like the 2G scam, and other such scams, crime related to passion or society find their place prominently in the newspapers. So what is wrong if TV news gives priority to it? The point is, it is not being done to glorify the crime. Rather, it is making the public aware of the preventive aspects and the safety angle. This, in fact, would curtail the crime ratio in the country and is the focus of such shows.”