'Obhinoy Shilpi Sangha', the representative body for TV drama actors arranged a thought-sharing session at National Art Gallery of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on November 2. The session was arranged to discuss about the falling standards of TV dramas and degrading state of TV artistes and find a possible solution to these issues. Rownak Hasan, joint secretary of Obhinoy Shilpi Sangha read out the keynote of the session. Present at the session were actors Abul Hayat, Enamul Haque, Chayanika Chowdhury, Azad Abul Kalam, Afroza Banu, Bridaban Das, Mosharraf Karim, Chanchal Chowdhury, Shahriar Nazim Joy, Chitralekha Guha, Tania Ahmed, Maznun Mizan, Moutushi Biswas, Lutfor Rahman George and more. Representatives from different related bodies were also present. Among them Shahidul Alam Sachchu and Ahsan Habib Nasim, president and general secretary of Obhinoy Shilpi Sangha; Television Programme Producers Association of Bangladesh President, Mamunur Rashid; Director Guild general secretary SA Haque Alik were present.

Discussants stressed the importance of improving standards of TV channels. They said that lack of policies for satellite channels, lack of concern for improving TV drama standards, presence of middlemen in the TV industry, faulty TRP ratings, over emphasis on commercials, cheap rate for drama productions, non-implementation of three-party agreement, bad influence of social media as the reasons behind the falling standards of TV dramas.

According to Azad Abul Kalam now that there are so many TV channels lack of any proper guideline for these is unacceptable. Why should everyone be allowed to have TV channels he asked. He also took the partial blame on TV artistes like him who are often bickering among themselves instead of focusing on improvement of their skills. Chanchal Chowdhury also voiced his concern about the responsibility of artistes who he thinks should improve themselves first.

One interesting figure revealed at the session was that TV channels' evaluation is based on TRPs that at present gather data from around 1.5 thousand TV sets in the country. These sets mostly belong to lower income community. It was also stressed that TV channels are not run as pay-channels so essentially they have to depend on commercials for finances.

Leave a Comment

Recent Posts