WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY CRAZE ON INDIAN TELEVISION?

Indian television had caught a bug, the money bug. Indian Television began these game shows which offered their participants sums of money once unimaginable to the common man.

        It all began with the Hindi channel Star Plus. Introducing their copy of the American game show “Who wants to be a millionaire”, “Kaun Banega Crorepati” popularly known as KBC. It was hosted by the bollywood phenomenon Amitabh Bachchan. This show was an instant hit and so began the onslaught of game shows on to the Indian Television screen.

        Next in line was Zee TV’s  reply to KBC, “Sawal Dus Crore Ka”. Hosted by two more bollywood celebrities “Anupum Kher” and “Manisha Koirala”. Before the show was launched there was a lot of talk that it would destroy KBC, for it offered ten times more money. But that did not happen. “Sawal” was a huge flop and was soon scrapped. It showed that not only did money matter but also that the show had to be interesting as well, which it was not.

        It was then time for Sun TV to get into the act. With a Tamil runoff of KBC, “Kotteswaran” which did quite well in South India. The competition was  brewing up in South India as well, with other channels starting new shows, but none of them were able to stand up to Sun’s show.  

        A few more new shows came up. Sony TV’s “Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke” which was a fun game show where people could win anything: from money which was of course unlimited, to a car. This show did reasonably well with it’s very jovial presentation in keeping with the host Govinda’s style.

        All these shows kept bringing out special episodes in an attempt to stay fresh. Even the  very popular Hindi music show Close-up Antakshari which has been running for over five years caught this bug and introduced a new round called “Close-up Encounter” where the winner had a chance of winning up to 1.28 crores of rupees.

       

        After this the public was quite bored. Such shows kept coming and going. Jaya TV’s show starting “Kotteswari” a quiz show exclusively for women hosted by the Tamil movie star “Khusboo”. This show was aimed at giving competition to “Kotteswaran”. Star TV’s programme “Khulja sim sim” an advertising show where they gave away money for nothing ! Zee and Sony after scrapping their old shows tried to start many new shows which haven’t yet scorched the air.

        The only people who really enjoyed these shows I guess were the participants who became overnight celebrities and fulfilled lifelong dreams of being on television. But just like dreams they were soon forgotten. Harshvardan Navate is of course the only one in the entire lot to have gone down in Indian folklore as the first Television-Crorepati. As for Harshvardhan, an aspiring IAS student (before the show) was doing advertisements for Britannia and KBC soon after the show. Where is he now?         

Regardless of the number of programmes introduced, the Indian audience has shown that the show has to be interesting, informative and appealing in order to be a success. But today all these shows have faded away or have flopped. But all these shows on some level helped revive their Networks in some way or another.

But showbiz proved one thing. They can sell anything as long as they can make their audience dream.


Rahul.