Revisiting The Impact Of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ As It Completes 25 Years
Within one week of this millennium, the face of Indian television changed beyond recognition. Nobody—not even the enterprising far-sighted Star Plus boss Sameer Nair who surreptitiously initiated moves to import Who Wants To Be A Millionaire into this country—could have guessed what was in store for and on Indian television in and from July 2,000 onwards.
The other channels were left looking like honorary denizens of the idiot box( with the stress on idiot). From being a distant third Star Plus simply swept past the competition to emerge way ahead of Zee and Sony Entertainment who didn’t know what hit them until it was too late.
Who would have thought that Kaun Banega Crorepati would change us into a nation of knowledge-thirsty gamblers? Children in their free time no longer play—or watch—Antakshari. They play Kaun Banega Crorepati, and everyone wants to be Amitabh Bachchan. An unprecedented general-knowledge wave took over the country. Kids were on the prowl with questions like what was Kunti’s real name in the Mahabharat and is there life on the battle field of Kurukshetra beyond Mahesh Manjrekar?
Ah, there went our favourite soaps! Kids flicked the switch to Star Plus promptly at 9.00 p.m. Many cities rescheduled their night shows to 10.30 p.m after registering steep drops in the 9.00 p.m collections of cinema shows.
Then came the counter-attack. Through what else? A game show! Sawaal Dus Crore became a sawaal sau crore ka in no time at all. Within a few weeks the show to countermand the Crorepati competition had flopped. You cannot fight Dilip Kumar with his clone Mukesh Khanna. The sets, attitude and even the lingo from KBC has been transposed to Sawaal Dus Crore Ka. Rumours in Mumbai insisted Manisha Koirala dumped Malayalam director Upendra who was waiting on the sets with his cast crew and leading man, to co-host Sawaal Dus Crore Ka. When you’re getting 5 crores for smiling vacuously in a game show why should you strain yourself over 75 lakhs?
Zee tried hard to get Shabana Azmi to host their Sawaal. But she had other plans in 2,000. Laughs Sameer Nair, “Before the year 2,000 Star Plus had an elitist image. After we did a hi-tech game show called KBC, the home-viewing medium was turned upside down.”
Star Plus also had unexpected success with the two post-Crorepati daily soaps Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kyunki …Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, both produced by the phenomenally successful mother-daughter pair of Shobha and Ektaa Kapoor. Both the gharelu home-viewing versions of Sooraj Barjatya’s cinema piggybacked to success on KBC. After KBC,viewers simply kept watching the two new daily-cacies on Star Plus, forcing Zee to invent their own version of that Kahani thing called Babul Ki Duwayen Leti Jaa, written by television maverick Vipul Shah. Needless to say, no one’s duwayen saved the wannabes.
Worst hit by the Crorepati cyclone was 1999’s flavour of the year Movers & Shakers. Suddenly Shekhar Suman was no longer that funny. Quality-consciousness had crept into primetime. The year 2,000 was decisive for national television as well. Finally overthrowing the lingering lethargy from their monopolistic days Doordarshan’s Metro channel finally woke up to the rapidly expanding competition to introduce the 9-Gold primetimer band which went berserk with soaps and sitcoms featuring the crème de la crème of television.
That all of this happened to Indian television in the first year of the new century can’t be a co-incidence. The Satellite gods must be watching. They must have decided enough was enough. Kaun Banega Crorepati was born. Or was that Amitabh Bachchan being born again?
Recalling the inception of the KBC phenomenon media wizard Sameer Nair who was then helming Star Plus says, “I remember walking into the Bachchans’ home Jalsa armed with the VHS of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the original version of KBC. I was absolutely sure it had to be Mr Bachchan. Only he had the clout to enter every household. At that point of time nothing else was certain,Mr Bachchan himself was advised by everyone to not get into television.”
But Sameer persisted. “I left the VHS with him urging him to ‘Push Play’. This was in January 2000. After months of indecisiveness Sameer flew to London with Mr Bachchan in April to witness the shooting of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire firsthand.That clinched it. On the flight back,Mr Bachchan finally said yes, and we were on. We erected a set for KBC identical to the one for Who Wants To Be A millionaire. We didn’t cut any corners.”
KBC was decisive for both Mr Bachchan’s career and for the Star channel. It resurrected Mr Bachchan’s career.
Says Sameer, “We had a viewership of 25 million on 2000. It went up to 90 million on 2010. What KBC did was to reinvent Mr Bachchan’s image. It made him the household favourite in every family. He was the hero of the father and the mother. They introduced their hero to the son and the daughter of the family.I do look back at KBC and Kyunki…Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi with some amount of satisfaction.”
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