||Bonding with so called 'Intellectuals' #CC 29 (IO) - Page 107

Who is your target audience?

The audience pyramid is becoming bigger and bigger.

Thirty years ago, if you walked into a chawl, there would be three television sets in 30 houses. Today, you'll see television sets in all 30 houses. The viewers have increased, but of a certain strata.

Sadly, the educated and upper classes have stopped watching television shows because of the availability of the Internet.

So increasingly, we have to write in a manner that appeals to this strata. If we get too intellectual, they will switch off. And they are our advertisers' market.

Take the number one show of today, Diya Aur Baati. It has a fantastic theme. This girl is married a halwai (sweetmaker) but she wants to get into the police force. And he's helping her fulfill her dream.

People have really connected with that.

Every girl in that chawl is going to think that she wants to do something with her life but she's shackled in life because her parents will probably want to get her married off, and she's probably going to have a monster mother-in-law. She knows how her life may turn out but she dreams of having a husband like that.

So we have to write within the parameters of what people would like to watch.

At the same time, you can't be too repetitive. People may watch Duplicate 1 and Duplicate 2 but they won't watch the third one. And that's where television writers are going wrong -- they are only sitting and doing maths. That doesn't work beyond a point.

How difficult is it writing Balika Vadhu, which has been going on for six years?

It's very tough. We keep weaving new ideas in the main storyline. We know the audience will not accept certain things. For example, Anandi will never do something that is unethical because people look up to her. So we can't play with that.

But within the parameters, we can play with the story -- the social problems that come to her, how people try to manipulate her and how she emerges heroic.