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COVER
STORY: GAME SHOWS
Enter
the Clonepatis
As Sony
signs on Govinda, a deluge of quiz shows triggers prime-time dreams. Viewers
see money, channels see revenues.
By
Ashok Malik, Himanshi Dhawan and Arun
Ram
Beyond
faith, festivities and fireworks, Diwali is the Indian gambler's night
out, the time of the year to dance the foxtrot with Dame Fortune. This
year's Diwali, Thursday, October 26, was in some ways then the appropriate
setting for an intrepid participant to gamble away a fortune on the third
episode of Zee TV's Sawal Dus Crore Ka (SDCK). The young man had
an admittedly difficult choice: walk away with Rs 10 lakh or go for the
crore. He took the chance, muffed it up-and was down to a mere Rs 1 lakh.
 |
| MONEY
MOGULS: (Clockwise from right) Bachchan, Suman, Kher, Koirala, Govinda
and Kumar. |
Only a week
earlier, almost to the very minute, Star Plus' Kaun Banega Crorepati
(KBC) and its host Amitabh Bachchan had given away Rs 1 crore for
the first time. The timing was interesting, given it was KBC's final episode
before SDCK, hosted by Anupam Kher and Manisha Koirala, went on air. Normal
people would call it a coincidence but to those who specialise in reading
meanings into these things-and the television industry has an abundance
of such folk-it signalled round one of Crorepati VS Clone-patis, the prime-time
prize money bout.
Depending
on how you look at it, SDCK is the "biggest quiz show in Indian history"
or the biggest "me too" event since Punjabi Chinese cuisine.
Critics scoffed at Zee, asking aloud if it could be sued for copyright
infringement for producing such an approximation of KBC-itself the Indian
version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Kher, star of such films
as Saaransh and Mr India, was roundly thought to have a Bachchan complex.
More seriously, the role of Koirala-who at a reported Rs 5 crore a year
is being paid Rs 1 crore more than co-host Kher-was mystifying people.
One television producer called her "a superfluous doll".
Nevertheless,
the executives at Zee were satisfied. Such shows are not for the aesthetically
pernickety. They are about "vicarious greed, big stars and bigger
bucks". The quiz show has replaced the (comatose) stock market as
the middle class' favourite "get-rich-quick" scheme.
The mood
only got stronger when, on the evening before Diwali, Sony signed on Govinda
to host, channel executives say, "a show with a much larger amount
of money and higher entertainment value". Negotiations were on for
over a month but the little man's favourite film star had been hemming
and hawing, reportedly over the price. Sony CEO Kunal Dasgupta confirmed,
"We have signed on Govinda for an 18-month contract. It may be for
a game show, an entertainment show or a movie." Independent sources,
however, insist Sony's quiz show will be telecast from mid-December and
Chhote Miyan Govinda is being paid Rs 20 crore to take on Bade
Miyan Amitabh.
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