Executive Dossier

“The casting couch does not exist in the TV industry”

Published

23 years ago

May 22, 2003

After a eight month hiatus from television, Rupali Ganguly (daughter of veteran filmmaker Anil Ganguly) stormed into our drawing-rooms by replacing Shilpa Kadam in Star Plus’ weekly hospital series turned soap, Sanjivani.

Television is not the be-all and end-all for her. Films were never a burning ambition in her. Yet, she is a gifted actress of the new block. “I was getting straitjacketed into the goody-goody girl types. My problem is that I don’t want to the same kind of roles. Like films, you do get typecast on television too. My role in Sukanya (B4U) and even the double role in Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin (Sony) were too white. I could not identify much with those.

Who has so much of white? My role as Simran in Sanjivani has too much of grey, sorry, black. Who has so much of black?” she begins.

In a heart-to-heart chat with Vickey Lalwani, she traces her journey, defines her ‘modus operandi’ and also reveals some dark secrets of Bollywood she stumbled upon along the way. Excerpts –

You came as a pleasant surprise in ‘Sanjivani’…
(interrupts) Thanks for saying ‘pleasant’, but it’s not ‘surprising’. Replacements in serials midway are a common feature (smiles).

Being the daughter of a film-director, you must have been used to the glamour of Bollywood. Why are you settling for TV serials?
Actually, I tried my luck in movies. But I flopped, circumstantially. It took me some time to accept, though. If I wanted to make it, I could have.

What do you mean by ‘circumstantially’?
I’ll tell you later.

Tell me about your first appearance in films.
I started in movies in my dad’s film (a Bengali venture). I was studying in the ninth standard then. The film was a super-duper hit. But somehow my dad never wanted me to join films. Anyway, he gave me a bait. He said that if I could secure 90 per cent in the tenth standard, I could go ahead in films. I secured 89 per cent. He did not relent. Instead, he set a fresh target for my twelfth standard. No prizes for guessing that he was indirectly pushing my film aspirations under the carpet.

But why?
Simple. Bollywood is a bad world.

“It is difficult to register when you come in as a replacement. But do you know that after I got in, the TRPs of ‘Sanjivani’ have shot up? “

Did he tell you that, openly?
Never. My dad has been a parent and not a friend. There has always been a slight distance between us. I have to be very careful in front of him- no foul language, no non-vegetarian jokes.

What happened after you joined college?
Well, after the twelfth standard, my brother sent my pictures for the Femina Miss India contest. My family has a very middle-class mentality, yet I was selected for the preliminary rounds. In fact, I went till the last 20! I talk very smartly. That impressed the judges, I guess.

What do you mean by hinting that the middle-class mentality could have gone against you?
I mean- my make-up was very ordinary (my mom applied the lipstick and my mausi did the ‘kaajal’) and my costumes were very much covered. I come from a family where girls do not wear low-cut blouses or tie sarees below the navel. Even today, my dad insists that I wear only a saree, above the navel of course, on family functions.

A little more about your dad… before we go further?
He is really, really strict. Not so long ago, I would not be allowed with friends beyond 8 p.m. So I never got addicted to the party culture. Even nowadays, I party just once in a blue moon. The time-restriction has been extended to midnight though. As for his film-making, he does not intend making any more Hindi films at least. Gone are the days when stars respected the film-makers.

Today, every film-maker has to literally run after the stars. And before he catches up with the star/starlet, he has to break through the cordon of the star/starlet’s ‘chamchas’. This haughty attitude of today’s artistes, which smacks of bad professionalism, is one of the main reasons why the film industry is in the doldrums. Anyway, why should my dad waste so much of time and energy? He has won enough acclaim in life. He is a contented man.

Then what happened? I mean, after the Femina Miss India contest?
I got a film called Do Aankhen Barah Haath. Govinda and Bappi Lahiri were involved with that project. Both of them are close to my dad. So he agreed. I also did Angara which was a home-production. Madhoo had a problem adjusting to Mithun Chakraborty’s dates, so I stepped into her shoes.

“God help me when I am doing a difficult scene with Vikram Gokhale. A difficult scene becomes doubly difficult, then!“

And then?
Then, I received several offers– but things didn’t work out. I was told that… (shrugs her shoulders and laughs).

Told what?
I was made to realise that the casting couch exists. I had an option to take it and become a star, or go into obscurity.

What did you do?
I cried. I dared not tell my dad, but yes, I did tell my mom. She told me ‘it depends on how ambitious you are, but considering the way we brought you up, you shouldn’t be doing it.’ I backed out and threw the acting bug out of my system. For your information, that film had a big filmmaker and two new heroines. I was supposed to do one of those roles. The film flopped but both those girls got lots of mileage. That was what I meant when I said that I flopped ‘circumstantially’.

And then?
I started pursuing my studies. I joined Hotel Management. I completed the three-year course. All of a sudden, I was offered TV serials. I guess that was the result of my theatre work, which I used to do alongside my studies. My initial reaction was that TV serials are a down-market kind of thing, but I took it up. I realised that television was actually getting bigger than films. I started enjoying all my work- Yehi To Pyar Hai, Sukanya and Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin. My dad was okay to serials for two reasons, I guess. One, I had grown up and was able to look after myself. Two, the casting couch does not exist in the TV industry.

Are you sure that casting couch does not exist in the TV industry?
I am not signing on this. At least, I have not been a party to any. In the TV industry, it counts that you are the daughter of somebody who is known, but when it comes to the film industry, nobody gives it a damn.

Anyway, how did ‘Sanjivani’ happen?
I got many offers on TV, but most of them were very similar roles which required me to use buckets of glycerine only. My adrenalin had stopped flowing. Come to think of it, I was never doing it for money. My father’s financial support has been there all along. The Sanjivani offer started the adrenalin to flow again. I loved the negative aspect in Dr. Simran’s portrayal.

Weren’t you sceptical that the audience might not accept you in Shilpa Kadam’s place?
I was very sceptical, underline the word ‘very’. It is difficult to register when you come in as a replacement. But do you know that after I got in, the TRPs of Sanjivani have shot up?

“I am a ‘ghatan’ at heart. Thank God that the negative character of Simran is not supposed to anything blasphemous!”

Do you get into the skin of the character?
Yes. I am a combo of spontaneity and method. When the scenes are light and fun-loving, I just am myself. I don’t have to exert at all. I am a happy-go-lucky and friendly type in real life. I easily identify with the goody-goody stuff. When it comes to scenes, which demand that I vent anger or start crying, I adopt the method route. I retire with the lines into one corner of a room and start putting myself in the character’s place. That takes some time, but I get it.

How do you do the difficult scenes?
Some scenes are ‘really’ difficult. Those who say that acting is an easy job are liars. I always do a rehearsal before the difficult scenes. What may be difficult for me, may not be difficult for my co-star. So he/she may not require a rehearsal, but then, most senior artistes do help their juniors. Things are relatively easy if I am doing a difficult scene with Gurdeep Kohli because she is a close friend of my age. I can easily ask her for a rehearsal before we actually enact it out. And even if we goof up the rehearsal, we smile and do it again.

But God help me when I am doing a difficult scene with Vikram Gokhale. A difficult scene becomes doubly difficult, then! He has such a towering and domineering personality. Still I don’t compromise on going into a difficult scene without a rehearsal. I have to literally request Vikram Gokhale for a rehearsal but I do it.

You said that acting is not an easy job. Then why are so many people jumping into it?
It’s just 15 seconds of fame for them! Do you think that they all last? Leave aside a growth in your career, even if you want to maintain your present status, you need to be focussed. We have so many guys and girls getting into television who are not bothered about the low output they deliver; the moment their shot is over, they are glued to their mobile.

Would you like to do the saas-bahu type serials?
Am I not doing a saas-bahu serial already in Sanjivani? Of late, my ‘saas’ is against me since I am expressing my disapproval of my husband’s love for the other woman in no uncertain terms (smiles).

Would you like to do something sensational, say, a negative role that goes against our Indian culture?
I can’t do it. I am a ‘ghatan’ at heart (laughs). Thank God that the negative character of Simran is not supposed to anything blasphemous!

You told me that you love’d’ the character of Dr.Simran when you signed? Does that mean that you don’t like it anymore?
(laughs). You caught me on the wrong foot, man! Well, of late, it’s getting to me. That mad, jealous behaviour! I have become a hysterical vamp (laughs). Especially after the Holi scene where she says that her husband Rahul should spray colour only on her but Rahul gets intoxicated with ‘bhaang’ and sprays it all on the other woman, Juhi. I couldn’t digest the fact that Simran does not say anything to Rahul but goes and spits fire on Juhi.

Do you think women get a fair deal on television?
Fair deal? Women are getting a far bigger chunk than men. In films, the hero is the be-all and end-all of a film. Except Aishwarya Rai, no Bollywood heroine is as popular as Tulsi/Parvati/Ramola/Pallavi. I know of many people who say ‘Goodnight’ to Tulsi before retiring for the four nights of the week when Kyunki… is telecast. How many Bollywood girls can boast of that? There is nothing left for a heroine in Bollywood. All that she has to is don under-sized outfits, smooch the hero and perform pelvic-n-pectoral gyrations.

Role models on television?
Only Shekhar Suman. After his debacle in films and the death of his son, he rose like a Phoenix from the Ashes. How many people can do that?

Does the fact that serials are shot at a hectic pace leave you with minimum scope for creative satisfaction?
Yes, serials offer little to no chance for retakes. There are tough deadlines too be met. The production house is answerable to the channels. But I guess, creative satisfaction is minimal in films too. You cool your heels for hours before your shot is called, and by then, you are completed disconnected!

Are you drained at the end of the day?
Not always. That’s simply because I haven’t taken up any other serial. I have been offered many negative roles like Simran of Sanjivani, but I refuse to be typecast. But please don’t mistake me for being one of those who prefers creative satisfaction at the cost of commercial prospects.

That means you are doing something else too?
(smiles) I am also making commercials for New York Life. Actually, Ashwin Varma (Corporate Vice President of New York Life), my dad and I are partners in this venture. Every year, Varma comes down to India to make the commercials. I have also acted in one of those. I am mainly involved with the concept, dress-designing and production part. New York Life is a foreign based company which has various markets. Our company caters to the Indian market. These commercials promote Indian culture.

Related Topics:Sanjivani Shilpa Kadam in Star Plus Vickey Lalwani

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Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

Published

1 month ago

January 27, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

Published

3 months ago

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indiantelevision.com Team

INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

Published

3 months ago

November 28, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8.

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability.

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns.

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives.

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes.

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement.

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift.

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.

As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium.

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception.

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence.

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors.

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable.

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact.

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.