Pradana Vizha

So, is it the season of Pradana Vizha again? Where we sit down and apparently honour the talents and horrors of local TV station, Vasantham Central? Whereabouts do we honour the artistes who have since left our fair shores to crack it big in mainland India or Malaysia for that matter. These being the only other 2 countries where an Yindian has enough scope to further his/her pull over swaying crowds.

We take a look at the pre-math of the event to see what exactly all those names, companies, facts and figures tell us. Who we like we've highlighted in red, and of course the mandatory italicized comments within brackets.

Best Variety Series: Planet Galatta, Miss Vasantham, Vasantham Star, Neengal Kettavai

[I think you know where our tastes lie. Question is what the hell does Neengal Kettavai have to do with it all? Possibly satisfying the oldies demographic amongst us]

Best Drama Series: Padigal, Goal, Manam, Thirai, Nagal

[Don't even remember any of these shows.]

Best Info-ed/Culture Series: Vizhigal, Ullasa Oorvalam, Kannavai Thedi, Cooking for Love, Pournami

[Still waiting for who the hell made the cut in Kannavi Thedi, or is that just an open ended question for us to wonder]

Best Children Series: Subra n Friends, 24/7, Engal Ulagam, Kathai Neram, Savaal

[A no-brainer. Subra to take the cake.]

Best Actor: Vadi PVSS, Mohan, Kathiraven, Puravalan, Somasundram

[Give this man the award, and throw him a beer]

Best Actress: Renu Theresa, Kavitha, Vanitakumari, Premalatha, Annetha Ayyavoo

[They all sound alike, move alike and wail out loud in the crying scenes alike. We leave this to the general public.]

Best Supporting Actor: Veeraraghavan, Gunaseelan, Silvarajoo, Paneerselvam, Mohan

[We say, Veeraraghavan ought to get it cos he is really in much suffrage in Aal Illa Theevu]

Best Supporting Actress: Prasakthi, Manimala, Kalaiarasi, Prasanna

[Again, jus hand it to the best "cry"er]

Best Child Artiste: Nishok, Subramaniyam, Poobalan, Habib, Girish

[Nishok! The gangster boy who actually made us wanna tune into Subramani without fail]

Best Host: Elamaran, Shamen, Anwar, Ismath, Kavitha

[Tough choice. So we went with two. Comedians make the best hosts.]

And then, as usual, the fill up our coffers with your SMSes game is afoot. The nominees for "Who would you like to spend the most money on to listen to their acceptance speech" are:

Most Popular Male Singer: Pravin, Shabir, Saravanan, Mohan R, Suriamurthi

[We say go with old is gold. Man deserves to win something after years on the stage]

Most Popular Female Singer: Malini, Ananthi, Kavitha, Gunalakshmi

[Urm.. shouldn't this be Most Popular Dancing Female Singer?]

Most Popular Dance Group: Sangesthraz, Sureshvanaz, Movesh

[The Z syndrome hits again. As like a recent dance competitions, we are now led to believe that even those who don't win are winners in their own right. Right?]

Wise decision to make "Most Popular Programme" a television ratings contest rather than an SMS one or it would totally defeat the purpose. At least the one who wins it truly has brought benefit to the sponsors who place commercial after commercial, sometimes back to back in order to gain our consumer cash.

Interestingly, even by Pradana Vizha standards, the talk of cronyism, nepotism and political game play has been around since it's debut year. There was one particular year if you remember where only 2 production companies were vying for all the awards and amazingly, they came out with an equal number of awards at the end of the night.

Well, the market has opened up liberally now. And many other companies have joined the fray to provide some perfect competition. Let's see how they rack up according to collated nominations:

Blue River Pictures - 2
Eagle Vision - 7
Spectraa Productions - 2
Megastar Advertising - 1
Humming Bird - 1
Rough Cuts - 1
Verite Productions - 3
Art of Entertainment - 1
Golden Vision - 1

How could such a grand event pass by without the sponsors who make it happen. The usual suspects are in the fray again. Get ready for a bombardment of seen again ads, before, after, in the middle and in all the teasers.

But really, can businesses owned by Yindians or targetting the Yindian demographic only be stifled to those few whom we keep seeing over and over again for aeons. Conquering the commercial scenes and eventually our brain waves with their ditties and jingles? How come no other firm steps forward? Is the Yindian demographic too small for their advertising budget to be wasted over? Or are the account managers at MediaKorp simply enticing the "usual" clientele? Anyone's brain we can pick on this?