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Have you ever wondered where all these wonderful serials we get on our television here in India came from? Most of them are from The Big Four. These are the four main Television Network rivals in the US of A: NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX (FBC).

The percentage of US Households reached by these top four Networks namely NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX are 97.17, 96.98, 96.75 and 96.18 percent respectively! Boy, that is huge. For those of us here in India, to make it sound more familiar, let me try to label which Network our favorite shows on TV here in India actually belong to.

NBC is responsible for giving us great sitcoms and serials like Friends, Joey, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers, The Contender, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, Scrubs, The Office, Law & Order: SVU, Santa Barbara, The West Wing, Baywatch (1989-1990), ER, Just Shoot Me, Caroline in the City, Will and Grace, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hollywood Squares, Ed, Star Trek, The Pretender, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Knight Rider, Stingray, The A-Team, The Cosby Show, The fresh Prince of Bel Air, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and Miami Vice.

Whereas, from CBS (of the Janet Jackson’s breast fame), we get CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Rock Star, NCIS, JAG (except for season 1 which was aired on NBC, but cancelled it in 1996 after it finished 77th in the rating. CBS picked it up and went on to show 9 more seasons of it), NUMB3RS, The Amazing Race, Survivor, The Bold and the Beautiful, The King of Queens, Becker, Yes Dear, Still Standing, Everybody loves Raymond, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Tour of Duty, M*A*S*H and Chicago Hope. Two new serials that are soon to come to StarWorld, Ghost Whisperer and Two and a half Men are also from CBS. (The Oprah Winfrey Show and Wheel of Fortune were obtained by CBS through acquisition of King World Productions).

ABC gives/gave us shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, Alias, Boston Legal, 8 Simple Rules, My Wife and Kids, Less Than Perfect, Monk, Whose Line is it Anyway, The Drew Carey Show, Home Improvement, Full House, The Practice, Dharma and Greg, The Bachelor, NYPD Blues, The Wonder Years, Doogie Howser M.D., Who Wants to be a Millionaire, The Addams Family, General Hospital, Three’s Company, Dynasty, The Fall Guy, MacGyver, TJ Hooker, The Six Million Dollar Man and Batman (of the POW and KABOOM fame).

From FOX, we get The O.C., The Simpsons, The X-Files, American Idol, Cops, 24, Arrested Development, Malcolm in the Middle, That 70’s Show, Ally McBeal, Married with Children, The Simple Life, 30 seconds to Fame, Temptation Island, MAD tv, Joe Millionaire, Guinness World Record Primetime, World’s Wildest Police Video, The Street, Alien Nation, Beverly Hills 90210, Boston Public, 21 Jump Street, animations from “FOX Kids” like Futurama and X-Men, and ofcourse a serial I so totally love which is not broadcasted yet here in India, Prison Break.

Yes, if you are as crazy as me about TV shows, then I’m sure you’ll recognize most of the names up there. Some of them might even bring tears to your eyes, because those shows were aired in India long before the entry of AXN, StarWorld and Zee. I used to watch Beverly Hills 90210, Tour of Duty, MacGyver, M*A*S*H, Sledge Hammer and The Fall Guy on StarPlus those days. And even before the entry of Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV Network in India (1991), I used to watch Knight Rider, Stingray, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Cosby Show and The A-Team on Bangladesh Channel during the black & white TV days of yore. Some of us from the Northeast and West Bengal could catch Bangladesh Channel Transmission on our TV antennae (we just had to tweak it a bit here and there), while the rest of India had just Doordarshan .

Anyway it really sucks that the I&B Ministry had to ban Cable Operators from airing any movies with an A or U/A rating on Cable. Like we used to see “anything” in the first place anyway. Every hot steamy scene had always been censored, much to our utter dismay . I don’t remember seeing any b**bs on Cable, but I think I do remember seeing Van Damme’s bare ass in a couple of his movies . And the way these people say it, “Adult Movie”, makes it sound like those sleazy XXX porn you buy illegally from one of those many black markets in and around the city. Sheesh.

I think banning of such channels will only encourage more pirated downloads from the Internet and the sale of pirated VCDs/DVDs.

I really hope they don’t stop StarWorld too because the channel airs my all time favorite show “Law & Order: SVU” which deals with sexual crimes (A post dedicated to “Law & Order: SVU” coming up next). And then there’s Baywatch and the upcoming Miss Teen USA contest to be aired on StarWorld which might be considered “A” too. “A” means “Adult Content”. How vague is that? Animal Planet and Discovery Channel show animals with close resemblance to Human beings happily fornicating in public. Isn’t that “A” too? History Channel shows the biographies of people like Caligula, Cleopatra and Mata Hari infamous for their sexual exploits. Isn’t that “A” too? News channels show news about rapes and other sexual crimes in India. Isn’t that “A” too? Music channels show music videos with models dressed in skimpy skirts and exposing a lot of skin. Isn’t that “A” too? Many Hindi soaps like “Saat Phere”, “Vaidehi” and “Virasaat” have contents about sex scenes, rapes, extra-marital sexual relationships etc. (Source: Mumbai Mirror) Isn’t that “A” too? And last but not the least, Doordarshan shows the Assembly House Session where politicians fight with each other using abusive languages not meant for your children’s ears. Isn’t that “A” too? Sooner or later, everything will be banned at this rate. Damn. No wonder people enjoy better serials in the US of “A“.

We live in difficult times, my friends…

Cheers.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 2:42 pm and is filed under More than words, Whatever. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.