TV WATCH
March 2011 . Week 3
Is Prasad Oak a target of Ambush marketing ? |
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One can understand the healthy competition
among the Marathi TV channels to show their supremacy, but when
someone uses ambush marketing to humiliate a celebrity who is
not attached to any of their programmes and is actively
associated with rival channels as a host, it is certainly taken
in a bad taste. Latest target of such ambush marketing has been
popular Marathi actor Prasad Oak.
Now, we all know that
Prasad Oak
has been successfully going from door to door all over
Maharashtra to meet the Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law duo in
the favourite programme 'Bhanda
Saukhyabhare' on Star
Pravah. He is also associated as an Anchor of the reality
show 'Halla
Bol' on E-TV. Every
actor has the liberty to
perform at the programmes, wherever he or she feels comfortable.
It is his or her wish to accept any number of films and refuse
whatever is not suited.
Recently we witnessed one such scene at
Zee Gaurav awards,
where the anchors
Swapnil Joshi
and Pushkar Shrotri
dragged unnecessarily the name of
Prasad Oak by
making a direct personal attack on him during the live show. It
was certainly not their spontaneous act, but it was knowingly
reading out what was written in the script meant for the duo. In
this particular act, Swapnil while addressing Pushkar said "Tu
Abhinayachi Shapath ghena mhanje Prasad Oak ne tyachya
charitrychi chi shapath ghenyasarkhe aahe" ( Your swearing about
acting is like Prasad Oak swearing about his character). Isn't
this in bad taste?
Such baseless comments not only sent a
wrong message but also raised doubt about Prasad's character.
Moreover, it was a personal attack, clearly to malign his image.
It was also an example of ambush marketing. It may be recalled
that during another programme of Zee 24 Taas 'Favourite Kaun'
awards a little before Diwali, anchor Mahesh Manjrekar kept on
pulling the legs of Prasad Oak, during every short interval by
making an announcement in the name of breaking news and stating
'One more film of Prasad Oak will be released shortly.' In
another reality show of Zee
Marathi's 'Khupte
Tithe Gupte' the anchor also made a joke on Prasad Oak,
stating "Even Shahid Afridi was annoyed, when he was called
Prasad Oak." And this was also a cheap joke and another attack
on the actor.
It was but natural for Prasad to react on
this issue and he did so in the presence of his wife on
Star Majha's popular
programme 'Dhantedhan'. While speaking to Star Majha anchor Amit
Bhandari, both Prasad and his wife reacted sharply on such
utterances made during the Zee Gaurav awards. Prasad's wife also
stated that she had asked Pushkar how he dared utter such
foolish things about his longtime friend. One does not know the
further progress on this issue, but one thing is sure that
Marathi Movie World did receive reactions from their viewers,
condemning the act on the part of the Zee Gaurav anchors and
targeting Prasad for no reason.
On the news front, Zee 24 Taas in a special
news programme had invited former Commissioner of Police Mr. M.N.
Singh to discuss about the rise in crimes in the city of Mumbai
and the involvement of underworld in the killing of a senior
citizen at a cake shop in Goregaon. The former commissioner
openly said that the rise in such crimes was due to the Guns of
Police lying in cold storage these days. Such a reaction clearly
hinted at poor functioning of the Police on such issues.
IBN Lokmat raised another
important issue of poor law and order situation in Nagpur,
where during broad daylight, a college student Monica Kirnapure
was murdered by two assailants who came on a motorcycle and
intercepted her. The channel in their programme 'Justice for
Monica' also showed an appeal made by the parents and other
students from her college to those witnesses numbering around
hundred, present on the spot at the time of this attack; to come
forward and help the police.
The news channel blamed the police
department and the administration for their poor progress in
investigation during the past two weeks in nabbing the
attackers. The firebrand News anchor Nikhil Wagle also made a
personal appeal to the viewers from Nagpur to come forward and
help the investigating team. He blamed the witnesses for not
coming forward. "This broad day light murder of a young girl
and nobody coming forward as witnesses is the biggest shame for
so called progressive Maharashtra," he said.
by Ulhas Shirke © MMW
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