ITV

Tag: Malini Iyer

  • SaharaOne to reschedule comedy band, 3 new launches this month

    SaharaOne to reschedule comedy band, 3 new launches this month

    MUMBAI: February will see some major reshuffling in SaharaOne as far as the channel’s programming is concerned. The comedy band will see a time change, three different genre shows will debut and at the same time, February will also mark the exit of two existing shows.

    A fresh comedy band, in place of the original 8 pm, will be constituted at 11 pm. All existing shows – Malini Iyer, Baal Baal Bacche, Aao Bahen Chugli Karen and Main Office Tere Aangan Ki are moving to the late night slot with effect from 7 February. This is being done to fill a need gap for comedy at the late hour, says SaharaOne programming head Kumud Chaudhary.

    As was reported by Indiantelevision.com early this year, Dial One Aur Jeeto and ADA, which were to debut on 17 January, will now launch on 7 February and 14 February respectively. Dial One Aur Jeeto, which will be aired at 8.30 pm, is a non fiction show with the agenda of pulling in viewers to the channel with a series of questions that audiences can answer and win prizes. The stickiness this show generates is expected to translate into more viewers for the Ken Ghosh produced ADA, which will be aired at 9 pm.

    Another SaharaOne show, produced by Miditech, Dil Chahta Hai, which was originally intended to launch on Valentine’s Day, will not launch for quite a while, say channel officials. Instead, a mini series in the thriller genre, No.13 will launch on 25 February at 7.30 pm. No.13, says Chaudhary, is targeted at children in the eight to 12 age bracket, and is ‘very different in orientation from existing SaharaOne shows’.

    The launch of these shows will see the exit of the lackluster Kucch Love Kucch Masti, the bold show that debuted last August, which will take the final bow on 10 February. The kids’ show Aavishkar – Ek Rakshak too will air its last episode on 18 February.

    Kuchh Love Kuchh Masti, says Chaudhary, was a ‘good show’ that gave the channel a spanking new image’, but it now has to give way to other new shows, she says.

  • Sahara aims at share of lifestyle programming pie

    MUMBAI: Sahara Manoranjan has not tried lifestyle programming till now, but is now aiming to go full throttle at it with a fashion magazine show hosted by VJ and actor Malaika Arora Khan.
     

    Slated as part of the channel’s weekend programming, the Malaika show is likely to have one telecast on Sunday mornings. Her presence on the channel is aimed at attracting younger viewers to this entertainment channel. The other show targeted at younger viewers, Saathiya, too goes on air on 19 July, and will run Mondays to Thursdays at 8.30 pm, in place of the outgoing Zindagi Teri Meri Kahani.

    While Malaika will add the necessary glamour quotient to the Sahara Manoranjan programming, another mega show, Chandramukhi (directed by Sunil Agnihotri, who earlier created the opus Chandrakanta) has also commenced shooting. Produced by Applause Entertainment, this show is expected to go on air in the coming few months.

    Sahara officials also confirm that Malini Iyer, the Sridevi starrer that was expected to create waves but has caused hardly any ripples in television programming, is due for a revamp by September. The programming revamp at Sahara Manoranjan is being phased in gradually, and more changes could be in order as the management contract deal struck with Percept D’Mark takes shape in the following weeks.

    Officials also confirm that pre-production work has begun on a Hindi quiz show to be produced by ace quizmaster Sidhartha Basu’s company, Synergy Productions. Basu, however, will this time not be seen in front of the camera, but will restrict himself to wielding the director’s cap.

  • Sahara to start two Cinevistaas shows shortly

    Sahara to start two Cinevistaas shows shortly

    MUMBAI: While the Boney Kapoor produced Malini Iyer is yet to make its presence felt in the top rated shows on satellite TV, Sahara Manoranjan seems determined to flood its prime time with at least half a dozen new shows in the coming quarter.

    Two of these shows are produced by Cinevistaas, which currently produces Sanjivani for Star Plus and Crime Patrol for Sony and has earlier produced Draupadi for Sahara. According to creative director Siddharth Malhotra, Cinevistaas will poduce a weekly comedy show titled Jaroorat Hai, Jaroorat Hai starrring veteran artiste Farida Jalal in the lead. JHJH belongs to an experimental ‘comic soap’ genre and tells the story of a mother and her five sons. The series will take up familiar situations in a typical Indian family but look at them humorously instead of taking the serious route. Sushmita Mukherjee, Sumit Raghavan and Gaurav Khera are also part of the cast.

    Another show, a daily titled Saathiya – Pyaar Ka Naya Ehsaas, will also also debut on the channel around the same time. This serial will have Amarr Upadhyay, Sanjit Bedi and Shraddha Nigam in its cast. To be directed by Kaushik Ghatak (who handles Sanjivani), Saathiya… is a love triangle and traces the life of the three protagonists whose choices in life define their destinies.

    Both serials are expected to launch by April or May.

  • Sahara does a hat trick of new shows

    Sahara does a hat trick of new shows

    MUMBAI: After the long lull that followed the launch of Sahara’s supposed big ticket, Karishma – The Miracles of Destiny last year, the channel started the new year with a bang. The Sridevi starrer Malini Iyer and Paresh Rawal’s show Bhagwan Bachaye were launched earlier this month. The third launch from the channel this month is Aroona Irani’s Zameen Se Aassmaan Tak, which has been in the pipeline since October last year.

    The serial which has been produced and directed by Aroona Irani was launched with a media conference in Mumbai on Wednesday at the Tulip Star Hotel and will start airing from 2 February.

    Among those present were Aroona Irani, her husband Kuku Kohli, Kiran Kumar (who described his role in the serial as the best role he has ever played on television so far) and Sahara senior vice president programming Tripti Sharma.

    First and foremost, Irani cleared all doubts that the serial has been inspired from the famous Hindi film Waqt. She said, “This is not true. Waqt is the only Hindi film that was based on an earthquake tragedy. Just because my serial has an earthquake in the story does not mean that my eyes were on Waqt while penning the story of Zameen Se Aassman Tak.”

    A still from ‘Zameen Se Aassman Tak’

    Zameen Se Aassman Tak which will be aired Mondays to Thursdays at 10 pm, is a family drama; the story of which is somewhat on these lines – An earthquake hits protagonist Balraj Thakur’s (Kiran Kumar) life, he gets separated from his wife (Aroona Irani), and his daughter (Jeevidha of Yeh Dil Aashiqana) is forced to dance in a bar because she has no money to cure the old lady who shelters her. Balraj subsequently marries Meera (Sudha Chandran). Thus, Balraj has two families. Any prizes for guessing that dramatic situations follow between the two families?

    In an earlier interview to indiantelevision.com, Irani had said that this serial would see the light of day in September or October 2003. When we asked about the delay, she admitted, “Yes. The serial got delayed by about four months.” But why, we wanted to know. The lady took the blame on herself. “In this serial, I was involved with the story, production, direction and acting. Plus, I am constantly monitoring Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand and Tum Bin Jaoon Kahan. Being a daily, we wanted to bank at least 60 episodes before flagging off. Hence, the delay.”

    To another query by indiantelevision.com whether she found any difference in the style of functioning compared to Zee and Star Plus with whom she has been working for quite some time now, Irani smartly quipped, “Please don’t ask me to differentiate between my three children.”

    Come 2 February and we shall know how Irani’s new baby is! Can she reproduce her Midas touch of Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand? One thing is for sure… Sahara Manoranjan needs it more than Irani.

    Besides Aroona Irani, Kiran Kumar, Jeevidha and Sudha Chandran; the other players in the show are Dharmesh Vyas, Noopar, Yash, Satyen Kapoo, Rajiv Paul, Rajeev Verma and Hansika Motwani.

  • Paresh Rawal show to debut with Malini Iyer on Sahara

    Paresh Rawal show to debut with Malini Iyer on Sahara

    MUMBAI: This time round, Sahara Manoranjan is playing it safe.

    The channel’s big ticket show of the year, the Sridevi starrer Humari Bahu Malini Iyer, that kicks off on 19 January, will be telecast twice a week, Mondays and Tuesdays at 9 pm. Unlike most other soaps on rival channels, the half hour show is being innovatively slotted, a programming strategy undertaken thus far only by Sab TV.

    To debut the same week and in a similar style is Paresh Rawal’s Bhagwan Bachaye, a comedy constructed on similar lines as Rawal’s earlier production Shubh Mangal Savdhan, the reasonably popular comedy show that wound up mid 2003. Bhagwan Bachaye will air Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9 pm. Both Malini Iyer and Bhagwan Bachaye will precede Karishma – The Miracles of Destiny, the Karisma Kapoor starrer that was expected to set the ratings on fire, but has thus far not managed to stoke up much warmth. Karishma though has picked up slowly in the TRP stakes and the channel expects the two forthcoming soaps to lure in more viewers for Sahara’s primetime.

    Promotions for the Sridevi show are set to rival those that marked the first launch of Karishma, though officials are loath to put a figure to the promotional activity. At least 150 hoardings have gone up across the country, most replacing the earlier Karishma ads. Between 150 to 200 cinema theatres in India currently airing the Sanjay Dutt starrer Munnabhai MBBS have the Malini Iyer promos running, as Sahara TV president Satish Menon believes that the movie watching public would be potential keen viewers of the Sridevi soap.

    A fresh on air campaign is ready to kick off next Monday on Sahara Manoranjan, succeeding the teaser campaign that had Malini as a sihoutte on a green background, with the tagline ‘Malini Iyer aa rahee hai’, while 60 30-feet cutouts of Malini Iyer are shortly going up at vantage points in 10 cities, says Menon. This is in addition to a massive postering exercise launched to familiarise the viewer with Malini, and a mobile van exercise targeting Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and the rest of Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai) that will have dishes downloading satellite signals to enable passersby to view the channel as well as promos of Malini Iyer.

    An innovative tack are Malini Iyer tablemats with contests printed on them, distributed to nearly 850 to 900 restaurants throughout the country, as also hoardings that have been taken up down South for the first time as a Sridevi show is likely to generate interest in a territory otherwise averse to Hindi soaps.

  • “I see no original work on television today” : Sanjay Chhel

    “I see no original work on television today” : Sanjay Chhel

    Director, writer and lyricist Sanjay Chhel is popularly called the king of one-liners. His terrific sense of humour which never fails to tickle the funnybone reinstates the enviable niche he has carved for himself in the world of comedy. His down to earth demeanor makes it hard to believe that he has to his credit some of the most memorable serials on television like Naya Nukkad, Filmi Chakkar, Philips Top Ten, Mast Mast Hai Zindagi and Dekh Tamaasha Dekh to name a few.

    His work in Bollywood includes blockbuster films like Rangeela , Yes Boss, Daud, Kacche Dhaage, Pehla Nasha, One Two Ka Four, Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaye , Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and Halo which won a National Award in 1996. Recently, he has taken over the director’s reins for Yahoo, another comedy written by him .He has also penned the lyrics for songs in Khoobsurat, Halo, Kya Dil Ne Kaha as well as the hugely popular Nikamma Kiya Is Dil Ne which has been rated as the largest selling number of 2002.

    Currently, he is working on the script of Humari Bahu Malini Iyer, a sitcom which will soon be launched under the Sridevi Productions banner on Sahara TV.

    Excerpts of a tete-a-tete he had with indiantelevision.com’s Agnes Sebastian –

    When and how did you get bitten by the writing bug?
    I am an ardent fan of theatre and had written many one act plays during my college days. I began my career as a scriptwriter with a regional channel in Ahmedabad before the satellite invasion took place. Since then, I have worked on many television and film scripts.

    What are the essential requisites of a good writer?
    A writer should be able to conjure interesting concepts and characters. He should be able to churn out stories that reflect society. He should be innovative and should have the courage to experiment and the conviction to accept failure in his stride.

    Which medium do you prefer writing for – the small screen or the silver screen ?
    Personally, I prefer writing for films as writing for television has many disadvantages. Firstly, there is no review of work as a result of which the quality of work suffers. Also, a lot of work goes unnoticed on television. In the case of films, the writer gets due credit and instant recognition. The work gets documented , thus there is archival value of the work which unfortunately does not happen in television.

    Writing for television is like writing daily reports for a newspaper whereas writing for movies is like writing literature.
    “The Indian audience is dull. We are conservative and not educated enough to enjoy sitcoms“

    What does writing for sitcoms entail and how different is it than writing for soaps?
    Comedy is very serious business and more than talent, it requires hard work. It is primarily the art of presenting daily life in a precise yet funny manner. To write a funny script one needs to think out of the box and understand the audience he is addressing. A surprise element is absolutely essential and clichés need to be avoided. As far as writing for soaps is concerned, one needs to be closer to reality and address situations that actually occur in real life.

    What is your opinion of the sitcoms currently on air?
    I seen no original work on television today. Nobody is willing to take a risk or go against the tide. A writer should innovate and experiment such that he goes for subjects that bring in a breath of fresh air and are tangential to the ones that currently dominate the world of television. The same old jokes are being retold time and again. Unfortunately, a sense of humour is completely lacking in television today. Moreover the Indian audience needs to relax a bit.

    What do you have to say about channel interference in a scriptwriters arena?
    I have heard of scripts being turned around to suit channel preferences. This is unfortunate as a script is a work of art, a creation that should not be tampered with. The usual victims are primarily the newcomers in the field who have no say.

    Fortunately for me, I started writing for television when I had already established myself as a successful film scriptwriter . So I haven’t faced any such problem so far .

    What kind of remuneration can television scriptwriters expect?
    In our country, the remuneration of a television scriptwriter hugely depends on his star value and the number of hits he has delivered. I wouldn’t be able to quote the exact figure for a newcomer in this field but am sure it’s not much.

    ________________________________________________________________________

    “There is a dearth of good actors / actresses in the comedy genre.“
    ________________________________________________________________________

    How many scripts are you working on currently?
    On an average, I work on three to four scripts simultaneously as we don’t have the luxury to decide which script is going to work and which isn’t. A scriptwriter has to be prepared for all kinds of unforeseen circumstances and be tuned to the happenings around him. I write for a minimum of four to five hours every day and take ideas from the every day happenings, newspapers and books.

    Who decides the success of a script?
    Though there is no doubt that the director plays an important role in the execution of a script, in the case of sitcoms it primarily depends on the actors. There is a dearth of good actors / actresses in the comedy genre. Currently there are only a chosen few who have the wit, timing and the chemistry required to project humor to the discerning audience.

    What in your opinion is lacking in television today?
    What comes on television nowadays lacks life. It talks of a world that doesn’t really exist.

    As far as family dramas go, I cannot express my views as I don’t watch them. I feel I have enough problems of my own and don’t need to take on their additional woes as well. As far as sitcoms are concerned, I feel that the Indian audience is dull. We are a conservative audience and are not educated enough to enjoy sitcoms.

    Also, the channels are conservative and are not willing to give new talent a chance. As a result the audience is tired of seeing the same old faces with similar antics, we need new actors, new faces to do justice to the script.