Worst ever comperes killed the spirit of Miss Sri Lanka

I thank Derana channel for the Miss Sri Lanka 2007 for repeating telecast of the beauty contest, last week and reminding me to write this letter. For well over two decades or so, I have enjoyed watching this beauty pageant annually. Anyhow this year I could not enjoy it the same way as I used to do, due to poor presentation by the official announcer as well as unconventional Derana announcers.

When a program is being telecast over a TV channel, it is customary to present it as it is. When there is an announcer to present a programme there is no need to appoint announcers from the TV Channel. Derana being new in the field and not knowing the basics of presentation had a pair of its own announcers appearing in between and obstructing our enjoyment.

This duo did nothing but arouse the anger of the viewers. Having no permission to entangle in the main presentation and to get on the stage, they started interviewing the rejected contestants at the back of the stage. Surely it was a time that those rejected contestants needed time to recover from the shock of being not selected into the final five. They would have much preferred to be left alone like in previous years. Never in the history of the Miss Sri Lanka Contest have the participants been humiliated in this manner. Contestants themselves were furious and rude. Had the announcers any common sense, they would have changed the subject of discussion hearing the rude answers given by them, rather than pressing them to criticize the board of judges.

Then it was the turn of the five finalists. Mind you the question they were asked by this nasty duo was "Who do you think the next Miss Sri Lanka will be?" Now, that was a moment that each and every five finalists were wishing that she herself would be the winner, not anybody else. After hectic training for couple of months and facing mini contests here and there, now their (and also ours) final moment has arrived. It is not a moment to jeopardize them.

Anyhow, usually what happen in a beauty contest is the moment the first runner-up is announced the other automatically becomes the queen and before she can realize what is happening she is crowned, sashed and all the gifts presented to her among the cheering of the audience.

We lost all that glory of the contest due to the poor presentation of the event. The two finalists were holding each other, the audience awaiting dumbfound. Donors awaiting with their gifts and the music played…. But no results coming out… for everybody concerned it happened to be the longest two minutes of the life. What a long time this announcer kept everybody awaiting! He killed the spirit of the whole evening. This announcer certainly is a novice and the organizing committee would have given him a proper training under the guidance of some one of the calibre of Wijaya Corea or Arun Dias Bandaranaike etc.

One second thought, I wonder if this announcer also tried to imitate Ryan Seacrest of the American Idol like some other local TV presenters do. By trying to imitate Ryan, one very popular film star has become the most hated TV presenter of the island and another young one is trying to follow his footsteps now.

Leave Ryan Seacrest to himself and be one your own and make a name for yourself. It is high time our TV presenters get over this Ryan Mania.

We have our own senior world-class presenters like Vijaya and Arun, just to mention two, if any one wishes to learn anything from our own seniors. There was one very notorious Sri Lankan incident of not declaring results for about half an hour after opening the results envelope. That incident involved the film star-announcer I mentioned earlier. I wonder why the runner-up that day did not defend the results in a court-of-law?