Mini Mathur has been a popular face on the small screen, having hosted several reality TV shows like Indian Idol, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, Sirf Ek Minute Mein and Yeh Shaam Mastani to name a few. Recently, the actor-host took to Insta Story to criticize makers who choose popularity over credibility in their hosts. “Years of working on your craft cannot be substituted by social media following… You pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” she wrote.

Ask what prompted the outburst and Mathur says, “We stayed true to the reality of human drama. We had no playbook on how to manipulate audiences. We did what a TV host was supposed to do. Our connection with the contestants was real. It wasn’t scripted.”

Having been a host for 28 years, Mathur recalls the time when she was pregnant: “A producer told me Indian audiences don’t like seeing pregnant women on TV and that broke my heart a little.”

The 48-year-old insists there was a time when the industry invested in forming TV host personalities. “There seems to be zero skills required [now]. You pick [someone] who has a large social media following or is acting in a popular daily, shove scripted words into teleprompters and prop them up. And because these presenters aren’t primarily committed to being TV hosts, the show producers need to constantly populate their shows with noise and low-brow gimmicks that appeal to the lowest common denominator,” she ends.