Television
finds itself threatened by an adversary with a much smaller screen - the mobile
phone.
The head honchos of several GECs (General
Entertainment Channels) got into a huddle with a bunch of techies. Things were
just getting worse for them - on one hand, their ad revenue was shrinking with
the cap on the advertising air time per hour. And on the other, people were
spending too much time on their mobiles. It was fine as long as it was
restricted to commercial breaks - there were so many of them. But now, with the
number of ads being drastically cut down, all their mobile activities were
happening during prime time television, when the soaps were on. Predictably,
TRPs began sliding.
"I can't believe this. It should be ‘them’
who should be sitting in front of the idiot box with these boxes,” the head of
a regional GEC pointed to a box of Kleenex as he bawled into a fresh tissue. “Instead…”
he couldn’t continue any further. Another channel head was deep in thought.
"We need to do something about those mobiles...” He looked at the techies,
one of whom spoke up. "A London-based start-up has created a tracking
system that locates where the audience is and plays ads in their mobiles. We
can use it to play recaps of the earlier episodes of your soaps in 60 second
loops that will stop only when the viewers sit in front of the TV and take
their hands off the mobile." The channel heads were overjoyed.
When the viewing millions realised what was
happening, they were furious. "They didn't even seek our permission to
flood our mobiles with their content. We have to retaliate." They went to
the same set of techies who were only too happy to make more money. And they
came up with Off Pocket, a mobile case that was capable of blocking any signal
- cellular, Wi-Fi or GPS. "Slip your mobile into this and it will be
impossible for anyone to track it or send any reminders," they assured
them. The GECs were back to square one and went back to the techies, who were
ready with another solution.
"Every mobile has an energy source
that emits radiation - we can use infrared sensors coupled with the latest
thermal cameras to locate these phones." 'Must be like the HotSpot
technology in cricket,' thought the executive from the GEC that showed a lot of
T20 as well. Soon the mobile phones couldn't stay hidden and the trackers were
back at work again, inundating each phone with hours of episodes and reminders,
until the bleary-eyed viewers couldn't take it anymore. They trudged back to
the techie team.
"Not a problem," said the team
leader, "we have the perfect answer for that too. We'll make your mobiles
virtually unrecognizable and so small that no tracking system can locate
them." So they created tiny mobiles with ultra-strong
micro-supercapacitors that made SIM Cards look like visiting cards in
comparison. And with the supercapacitors being so light and flexible, the
mobile phones ended up looking like tiny buttons. So life went on smoothly, with
audiences staying engrossed with their phones and the channels working
themselves into a lather over their soaps faring badly.
The GEC heads, driven to despair, called
for another meeting. "The management is clearly bored of directors dishing
out the same drivel on the channel," began a channel head. However, the
others were too busy with their mobiles, checking their respectiveshow ratings,
and ignored him. "Why are you guys phubbing me?" he demanded, feeling
irritated. "What's that?" the others asked, unfamiliar with the term.
"Phubbing - it's snubbing others by getting busy with the phone when
they're talking." "If snubbing people with a phone is called
phubbing, what's snubbing soaps with phones called?" one asked. "Sobbing?"
suggested another helpfully.
And that's the reason why, to this day,
die-hard fans of soaps are seen sobbing as they watch their favourite
characters go through one trauma after another, five days a week.
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