The working in the television content space is rather baffling…none can really hit on a formula or a method that would determine which show will be lapped by the audience or dissed to a bin.
Some makers do cash in on popularity quotient of stars to gain immediate eyeballs, a similar phenomenon employed by 4 Lions Films’ produced Iss Pyaar Ko season 3 on Star Plus.
Television’s popular son Barun Sobti’s return to the fray with the project coupled with non casting of franchise face Sanaya Irani, bringing in Shivani Tomar as the female lead, ruffled feathers of show loyalists and grabbed headlines prior to hitting airwaves.
Expectations were high, but the show opened to a disappointing lukewarm response in the beginning weeks, not managing to rake in promising rating figures.
The show is not even on the top ten list. Given the massive fan following of Barun, we are sure Star Plus and Producer Gul Khan (Four Lions) would have expected a better opening. While many might argue that any show should be given 6-8 weeks to stabilize, today channels don’t really give so much breathing space, given the competitive nature of the space. The problem with a low opening is that the climb to the peak gets even tougher.
To be fair to the makers, they did pull all stops and tried to give Barun a Bollywood type entry holding the crashing Shiv statue, however, we guess what worked against was the 80s film look which was too passé for the generation next. We reserve our comment about the story and track for a little while.
So can it be assumed that the entire online anger against Gul Khan for replacing season 1 lead Sanaya with Shivani Tomar has worked against the show? It might have worked in the extent of the online craze urban crowd, TRP audiences in hinterland are not really net savvy. Having said that, many Barun fans on whom Star might be apparently banking are online and maybe many of them liked his pairing with Sanaya as well. So can it be that Barun’s fan following surge was cancelled out by fury over Sanaya’s replacement? It’s a point in contention.
We sure hope that the romance between Barun and Shivani Tomar will lift the ratings as chemistry between leads is the key to the franchise and that is yet to happen, so you so never know maybe things will quickly turn around.
Creatives have already scurried in and chopped Barun’s brooding avatar to a chocolate boy one. The changes have come fast and one can only hope that it would work for better.
Iss Pyaar Ko is a popular franchise, but it has to deliver something special to create a mark this time around.
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