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COVER
STORY: GAME SHOWS
Conspiracy
Theory
The
stakes are therefore pretty high, high enough for R.K. Singh, Zee's CEO,
to start worrying about his future in the days before SDCK went on air.
Zee thought its problems had ended when it signed Madhuri Dixit to take
on the Big B; actually they'd only begun. Dixit had agreed to everything,
from an annual fee, sources say, of Rs 9 crore, to the choice of hairdresser
when she gave Zee the prima donna treatment. Suddenly, Dixit's secretary
and family-the lady herself was in the US-spoke of a bigger fee, then
a share of the advertising revenue or the Internet rights.
In the offices
of Zee, a conspiracy theory began doing a rounds: that friends of Bachchan
had "spoken" to Dixit. It may have been apocryphal but it was
just desserts for an earlier murmur that held that the multi-city public
interest petitions seeking a ban on KBC for "encouraging gambling"
were "engineered" by Zee.
In a blue
funk, Zee re-approached Shabana Azmi-she had been the original choice
but had recommended Dixit. Shah Rukh Khan was "spoken to but could
not give dates for three months." Raveena Tandon was strongly discussed
but eventually not approached. Lara Dutta and Yukta Mookhey were spoken
of as co-hosts in a Miss Universe-Miss World double whammy. Meanwhile,
Shatrughan Sinha and Sushmita Sen made friendly enquiries.
Barely a
week before shooting, Kher and Koirala came on board. That he was the
nth choice did not faze Kher: "It does not matter that five people
refused Godfather before Marlon Brando accepted the role."
The late entry may have left its impact though. "Bachchan rehearsed
for three months," said an SDCK crewperson, "and Anupam had
only three hours." It shows.
Big filmstars
tend to treat television as infra dig. So what explains this obsession
to get on to the quiz show? Sarath Kumar offers a clue, "I can be
myself on Koteeswaran, so that people realise I'm a regular person."
Such sentiments
are peripheral to the larger Star-Zee battle, of which the SDCK-KBC rivalry
is only another dimension, for the slot of India's No. 1 private TV network.
Nevertheless, the joker in the pack is Sony.
Blessed
with a sort of last-mover advantage, Sony's clonepati will outdo everybody
in prize money by allowing the winner to "potentially wipe out Sony's
net worth". The show-in true Govinda style, its working title is
Kismatwallah No. 1 but this is likely to be changed-is supposed
to have a concept "even more Indian than SDCK's zero obsession".
Sources in Sony say quizperson Derek O'Brien, Dasgupta and Govinda himself
finalised the idea. The actor's contribution is "an infinity twist
that will electrify the show".
Sony's Govinda
special is the subject of an innovative marketing strategy. Along with
money, prize winners, and the audience too, could be given flats, cars,
refrigerators. Corporate sponsors are being asked to lend their name to
the No. 1 quiz by providing their products. Maruti, certainly, was speaking
to Sony till the labour unrest busied its senior management. For the participant,
winning non-monetised prizes "could mean paying less tax". This
season, the Diwali hangover will stretch that much longer.
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INDIA TODAY Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta voices the despair of a community that Jyoti Basu forcibly converted into a diaspora in his 23 years of zero-contribution rule. 
