Paanchvi Pass going off-air?
Ranjib Mazumder
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 23:59 IST
Tough competition given by the IPL and uninteresting content have been cited as reasons for the curtains apparently drawing on SRK's show
It seems that Shah Rukh Khan's Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai? is breathing its last. Yes, the show is said to be going off air. It will not be extended as apparently the show has not received the desired response that was expected.
The show is slated to go off-air towards the end of July. The set of the show that was constructed at Film City has already been dismantled.
According to sources, the show failed to catch the fancy of the audience right from the start. An industry insider says, "The channel played a gamble by launching it during the Indian Premiere League. Also, SRK was present in the IPL with his team Kolkata Knight Riders.
So, he became almost omnipresent. It hampered the exclusivity of being in a TV show. Moreover, the format did not excite the audience enough."
According to the TAM peoplemeter system, the average rating of Paanchvi Pass is a dismal 2.6 per cent TVR, sometimes even going below 2 per cent, whereas the average rating for the IPL matches was about 4.7 per cent.
According to the sources, even though the channel has SRK's dates for 52 episodes, they have decided to stick by the original contract of 36 episodes and pull it off air soon after.
The team would be coming up with another show next season. Possibly, it would have a new format.
Siddharth Basu, the producer of the denies this, "For Paanchvi Pass, it was always 36 episodes and not 52 episodes."
However, he admits that the show has not got the kind of rating it should have. "It's really a good show and SRK is working fine. We would have been happier if it would have got better ratings. Now that IPL is over, the show is picking up gradually," he says.
"Not true," counters the source, "If it was picking up, they wouldn't have wrapped it up."
Basu admits that they do have SRK's dates. He says, "Our dates are still pending with Shah Rukh. I don't know about the next season. For the next season, the channel has to take a call."
The last episode of the show has been shot with Union Minister of Railways, Lalu Prasad Yadav on May 29. It will be aired during July end, when the season comes to a finale.
Keertan Adyanthaya, EVP & GM, Star Plus, says, " When we contracted with SRK, the show was planned with a season of 36 episodes of 60 minutes each (total 36 hrs of content). But today we have shot a total of 37 episodes and 39 hours of content. Once the season of 37 episodes is shown, we will be replacing the show with another show. This is likely to be a non-fiction show. This is part and parcel of our scheduling strategy for non-fiction shows. All our non-fiction shows are scheduled for 12-16 weeks and then make way for another one." Another soap, Ek Chabi Hai Padoss Mein will be replacing the Paanchvi Pass slot as of now.
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