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Zee's on a launching spree. After the recent Teen Bahuraniyas, its now ready

with a new show, Parivar - Kartavya Ki Pariksha. Produced by Miditech Pvt. Ltd., this weekly to be aired on the 7.30pm slot is the saga of an absolute daughter Radha (new face Deepti Devi) who sacrifices her love, her personal life for her mother and her siblings. The star cast includes Mohit Sharma, Kapil Soni, Alka Ashlesha and others.

Parivar - Kartavya Ki Pariksha is a story of a girl, Radha, who comes from Pune. She is a dutiful daughter, a protective sister and a diligent nurse and has all the qualities that a man would look for in a woman. All her friends and colleagues have got married but she overlooks her personal desires for her family's requirements and demands. As a nurse she works very hard to support her mother, takes responsibility of her brother, Avinash, who is incidentally married but lives in his own world of fantasy. She guards her younger siblings, Ankita and Yash, who are kept away from the harsh realities of life. But in return all she wants is love and affection from her family that she never gets. Radha's simplicity and caring nature has attracted her childhood friend, Mohit, who cherishes a deep desire to marry her.

We spoke to Deepti, the leading lady who is of course excited about her show, "It's definitely not a saas bahu soap. The show explores each and every relationship that is important in our lives. There are a lot of emotional strings attached; her relationship with her brother, her sister and her parents. She earns a meager salary and wants some very basic things in life. As the track unfolds, she finds her true love." This actor is not a novice to the TV medium. This theatre artist has to her credit serials like Avaghachi Sansar on Zee Marathi and a few episodes on Sony's Man Mein Hain Vishwaas.

Speaking at the launch, Ashvini Yardi, Head of Programming, Zee TV, said, "'Parivar - Kartavya Ki Pariksha' is a refreshing change on our prime time slot. It also reinforces Zee's programming strategy to offer thoughtful messages through our programmes and delivers complete entertainment to our audiences. It is a story which reflects a character of candid girl whose life is full of struggles and she bears everything single-handedly."

Let's see the good kartavya this show does and how it fares in audiences' pariksha!

http://www.tellychakkar.com/y2k7/apr/4apr/news_zee.php

By ASHWIN PINTO
Indiantelevision.com Team

(7 April 2007 6:00 pm)

The Fiction Plans: It will make five shows this year. The first one Parivaar, which is a daily family soap Monday- Friday, goes on air on Zee TV later this month at 7:30 pm. "We are also working on a soap idea for Star One which will roll out within the next three months. We are also jointly developing a fiction project in the sports space with Disney. We are working on a show for Sab. We will also have one on DD. It has taken a year of talking to channels and exploring different possibilities to get to where we are today."

Sony, he notes, has over the past six months been working on different formats to see what will work the best. It is open to fresh thinking on the fiction front and this is where Miditech is looking to help out, says Alva. He is also looking to strengthen the relationship with Star, which has gone through a rough time over the last few years. The aim now is to take the relationship to the level where it was six years ago.

One area Alva rules out working on are English fiction shows. That is because the quality of writers is not there. "I do not think that there is a large enough market for channels to make a substantial investment in it. If you do not make the necessary investments then it does not compare favourably with the American shows."

He is, however, looking at making regional fiction shows. That is a new area for the firm and the challenge for Miditech is to erase the perception in some quarters that Miditech's main strength is in the non-fiction realm. The budgets for the shows will be more or less on par with what is being seen today. Since Miditech is just starting to re-enter fiction nobody right now will pay a premium for it.

"Some fiction formats that we do in mainstream can be applied to regional languages as well. The challenge is that the budgets are much lower than mainstream. The other challenge is to get the right kind of talent together that understands the operational issues involved."

A stronger focus on writing: Alva says that Miditech is looking at writing for shows in a different way to other firms. "The writers in television are undervalued. They are not paid properly. They are not given the respect that they deserve. You have a scene in the industry where writers work on 10 different shows at the same time. You have a writer writing five episodes a week as a result of which he/she becomes brain dead. He/she justs churns out dialogue like a factory.

"We want to change this. Galli Galli Sim Sim has a team of 15 in-house writers just for it. They do not work on anything else. This is the model that we are looking to duplicate across different fiction projects. Writers need to work on one project so that they can breathe life into the characters as they understand them inside out. It makes a great difference in the content.

"We are trying to get channels to agree with this line of thinking. We tell channels that 10 per cent of their budget should be dedicated to writing. It does not matter if they cut down on other aspects like costume design. We are explaining to the channels why more investment in writers will be beneficial in the long run. Ideally each show that we do should have a team of three to four writers working together. This is how it works abroad on shows like Friends. The team has fun chatting.

"They share ideas and that is how creativity is fostered. One must remember that after all, even a moronic director cannot mess up a fabulous script beyond a point. In a crowded environment, if a show wants to stand out and make a difference, then the writing has to be unique."

At times, the three centres compete with one another for projects. This way synergies come in. The talent pool gets wider. You do not have a situation where one set of people works on multiple projects. He also notes that internal competition makes people sharper. "We first compete with ourselves before we compete with other firms."

Miditech is looking to have production centres in Chennai and Kolkata as well this year. As far as overseas is concerned Miditech has a centre in Singapore. It is also looking to set up centres in Indonesia and Malaysia. Miditech is also investing Rs 250 million this year in its move towards high definition.

The Non Fiction Realm: Alva says that the number of hours done this financial year will more than double from 400 last year to around 1,000.

In terms of reality, he says that Miditech is looking to take the Cricket Star format global. It is working with Investors In Cricket in this regard. It is also developing concepts for other sports like hockey, football. This Alva says this is a good time to look at other sports, especially with cricket having cooled thanks to the World Cup debacle.

Indian Idol is being scaled up this time around. Global auditions are being done in Dubai and London. The aim this time is to make it stronger from the reality point of view as opposed to the Studio front. The aim is to recreate the magic of the first season. It is also doing Airline for the BBC. It is looking at reality ideas for Sab and for Sony on the weekend. One reality show will air on Sab from June. It is also looking at a lifestyle show for NDTV.

Miditech also has a format library of 45-50 international shows like Survivor, Farm. It is talking to broadcasters regarding adapting these shows. He feels that celebrity versions of the earlier mentioned shows have good scope in India. "Whether it is Peter Mukerjea or NDTV coming out with channels there is good potential for us to use this library."

Relationship with NGC, Discovery is getting stronger: It is also doing shows for Discovery and National Geographic. This relationship has been going from strength to strength over time, For Discovery Travel and Living it is doing a reality show called Hotel. This takes a look at the workings of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. It looks at the efforts that go behind the wall of calmness into making guests stay more comfortable. Camera crews over the last six months have been embedded in the hotel.

"We got fantastic access that is very difficult. It is a fly on the wall reality show. You can have a big rock star coming to stay. You can have a big wedding. You can have an irritating billionaire guest who is fussy about small things like the way tea is made. How does the hotel staff accommodate this? It took a year to get clearances and shoot. We are now in post production."

Miditech is also working on a pan Asian adventure series for NGC's Adventure One. It deals with adventures like a Yak safari in Tibet, scuba diving in Thailand. This goes on air next year.

Miditech is also making documentaries. It did the recent HIV film with NGC featuring Ashley Judd. With Discovery Miditech is doing a documentary on the Metro subway and how it is transforming Delhi culturally and the technology that was used. It is also doing a show on Varanasi in terms of what makes the city work. This is more a business film than a tourism feature. For NGC it is making a film on Kashmir in terms of Megastructures.

Regionally it does a lot of stuff for Zee Kannada. It is doing a talk show called Spandana. It is also looking to work with Vijay TV and Sun, especially since their DTH platform is launching later this year.

Volume deals are the way forward: With so many new lifestyle and entertainment channels coming up how is Miditech looking to take advantage of this? Alva says that it is looking at doing volume deals with channels. "From a business perspective what I see increasingly happening is that larger production houses like us will enter into volume output deals especially with the new entrants.

"Having a deal with a channel for say 500 hours of content helps us to plan and invest in people on a long term basis as opposed to doing one show and then seeing people leave. The channel has a guaranteed supply line of quality content. We are talking to many broadcasters in this regard. I am not interested in making content for a channel if I am not one of its top three suppliers. Doing a one off show will not help us."

Holding on to rights is difficult: At the Frames convention last month one point that was made was that content producers need to retain some rights in order to exploit it across different platforms. Alva says that as of now he does not see this happening in India.

That is because broadcasters are global. They are also becoming present on different platforms like the Internet. Therefore they want the rights for all platforms or it is not viable.

http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k7/apr/apr90.php

Parivar is small-screen's Jeevan Dhara

http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=15484