What they don’t tell you

About the mysterious creature they call Media.

To be successful, you need to start early. At 21. There is then plenty of time to learn the ropes from seniors, grow contacts, and still look fresh and pretty. Specially (sad but true) for women.

Let’s face it. Men can afford to look like fat, sloppy fish and still be lead anchors if they know their stuff. Women need to be pretty and speak well, never mind how much they know. And most will be thought of as bimbos anyway. I’ve seen how much smarter many of the female anchors are, how much hard work they put in. But still the stereotype. In business media specially, men are listened to and women are looked at.

Yes, women get in more easily and the ride up is easier for them. But, also sharper is the fall. Everyday there is a younger girl who can replace you. Not many survive the race, eventually.

No, anchors do not get paid a lot. Some of them do, but only eventually. That is once they are a name to reckon with, and the channel cannot bear to part with him/her. They used to make a lot of money once upon a time when good anchors/speakers were a rarity. Not anymore. Thus, you can have 2 well known anchors and 5 chotu ones to make a channel. And the others have a long way to go.

Anybody who is somebody in Indian media today started when the channel did. Udayan Mukherjee with CNBC TV18, Pranoy Roy, Barkha Dutt with NDTV, Arnab Goswami with Times Now. A pattern that makes you think…maybe that is the formula.

Aggression is the key in media. Who gets the best stories, faster, the exclusives. That’s what sets a channel apart from the others. You blame the media for sensationalizing. They do it for survival. A very competitive, harsh world this is.

Lastly, the fame. How many anchors from any channel do you remember on the top of your mind? A maximum of two per channel? This is how it usually goes. If they’re your friends, they’re thrilled to see you on TV. “Wow! I saw you on TV yesterday. It was great.”. If someone you don’t know, it is, “the girl with the nice smile on that channel.” Or if they meet you, “Oh! You work in a channel, I think I’ve seen you somewhere!”.

In the end, it is all transient.