She brought the family together at dinner time with her hit prime time shows on television. Now film and TV producer Ekta Kapoor is striking up a personal conversation with each one of you through her web series and a Netflix-type app. Saturated with TV, she is now breaking format. By Rinku Ghosh
Ekta Kapoor is enjoying her creative freedom these days. She is back on the drawing board, reading stories, hearing scripts, devouring them, chaperoning talent and is reinventing herself with a passion. She is a ball of energy these days, waiting to exhale on the digital space with her original content, something that she has done in fits and starts in both television and films as a producer. Many would say she set the template and formula for commercial television so deep that she herself found it difficult to budge an inch within its repetitive confines. And kept going as along as the dough came in. Now she has broken free from her mould and is willing to take a risk in the digital space, experimenting with ideas and giving free flow to her voice. If she has delivered to the masses, she is all set to create a categry of “thinking masses.” Excerpts:
When did you first think about entering the digital space, considering the lineup of AlT Balaji seems to have been well-incubated and put togetherIJ
Not that early actually. It was in 2015 that I decided to enter the digital space largely because people around me told me that it was a young medium and that I did not know or understand it. But I am a story-teller and would do that given a slightest chance anywhere, on any platform. I respect all kinds of audience and would like to offer something for everybody. People wouldn’t know this but I did the TV show called Naagin and produced Udta Punjab the same year. How could I, therefore, not explore the digital space, assuming it allowed a wider arc for story-tellingIJ Not doing something is worse than doing something and then failing. So I took the plunge.
I may fail but then I have the liberty to make mistakes and pay for them. I want to be like an ostrich... focus on the job at hand, meet people, hear ideas and if something clicks, go for it. I am not going to analyse and see if it works on TV or on the big screen or on the net. If the story is good (I have come across an amazing talent pool) and if me and my team are interested in it, I will put it out there and if there is an audience, they will come and watch it. I cannot over-think or strategise because then I would panic and get tense. There is nothing I can do but deliver my best.
What exactly drew you to the digital spaceIJ
The personal connect you make. We have different viewers for TV and films. But when it comes to digital, it’s you and your mobile and a dialogue between the two. You decide what you want to see. It’s like your music playlist; you don’t tell everybody what songs you hear. It’s your own journey with each song reminding you of a person, a moment, an event, a mood. The digital platform is akin to this playlist. There are various shows on offer but you choose the one you connect to.
What research have you put in to compile the bouquet of web seriesIJ
Actually I have not done much of research because any type of research would tell you what has already happened but not where the whole dynamic is headed. I work instinctively.
How would you define entertainment viewership in India todayIJ
It’s definitely polarised. I think everyone has an individual taste and is proud to express it. I might not watch Narcos but I might watch Riverdale. Netflix provides me both. So I will sign up for it simply because it has my choices and allows me the freedom to ignore what I do not like. Besides, the days of the single-TV family, using a programme to connect in a common space, are waning. Now each family member is in his/her isolated, exclusive zone, hooked on to entertainment in his/her phone. Then there’s somebody like me who watches Orange Is The New Black because it is about a different kind of woman power. Simultaneously, I also watch Scandal which Sameer (Sameer Nair, AlT Balaji group CEO) says is not to his liking because it is very massy. Which White House is not like that, he tells me. But I will go for a platform which accommodates the democracy of choice. That’s what AlT Balaji is all about.
You have crafted the TV space over a decade now. Does this new content-sharing platform mean you are movig away from that mediumIJ
I love television and have given a lot of years to it. Having said that, if I am not able to delegate programming and execution now, then I have certainly not been capable enough in that medium. I have some superb writers for my top-rated shows and yes I am delegating more than I should. luckily for me, a lot of my shows is so well-set and my writers are so good that I don’t have to brainstorm with them.
Will the television content, therefore, flatten outIJ
I don’t think so because within the TV format too segmentation has begun. The fantasy-loving audience that watches Naagin (by the way some urban viewers are hooked on to it too) won’t watch Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, which has a different audience.
Once the digital shows take off, there will be overlaps too. In daily soaps, we focus on key characters everyday so that they become a part of our family lives. But after 20 episodes, that also becomes exhausting in an age of shorter attention span. How many people can commit to an every day watch over a sustained period of timeIJ So for the audience that watches two shows at the same time, watching three or four internet shows that are quick and snacky is more interesting. This is the overlap that will power the switchover to digital and bring in varied storylines. If I am a kind of viewer who doesn’t want to fix a time slot and likes to tuck into my own comfort zone, I would binge watch on my phone. Numbers will never be a problem because there is an entirely new demographic of phone consumers to tap into.
So instead of targeting the 28 Indian states I would make all the 108 countries my market by capturing the cellular audience.
Were you at any point of time disappointed with TVIJ
Yes I have been. It’s not that I wanted to stick to a hit formula. I did try to vary content but the TV audience rejected it. I was particularly affected by the way some women rejected Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Ye, which was about a woman who was undergoing a separation in her middling age and was trying to stand up and move on in life. Imagine the plight of a woman for whom the marital relationship is the only axis and who finds that everything that she believed in till that point of time was a lie. Many women in India are familiar with this scenario. Yet when I showed her as a survivor and finding companionship, I got a lot of negative feedback from no less than women themselves. They just couldn’t accept the fact that she was leaving the husband despite her travails. They wrote to me and asked what would happen to her children. And I was very careful to depict that there was an emotional and mental connection with the other man rather than the physical. Yet women in India couldn’t take it. Guess what the reviews were like: “I can’t watch it with my husband, aisa to hota hi hai har aadmi ke saath, mard hai toh chalta hai....”
There wasn’t any empathy for our protagonist. I had really wanted to change the mindset of women who watch TV just a bit. But they weren’t ready. Yet I supported my protagonist. It is not that we producers do not want to change stereotypes or try something new. Who wants to get boredIJ Imagine the pressure of thinking about 1000 episodes and not getting to do the things you like. Digital is 20-30 episodes flat and a real story is done.
If I get many million viewers and if I can make that many programmes on the web, I do not need TRPs which come from two million or 10 million viewers. I just need a couple of shows that are watched by half a million viewers, another couple of shows that are watched by another half a million …that way I get my two million subscribers. So yes, I am like a kid in a candy shop and I am having a blast.
What about your filmsIJ
Half Girlfriend is coming up now. Then there are two more films.
Considering digital content is more democratic, are you fearing some sort of policing and monitoringIJ
Most of the programmes on AlT Balaji have a lot of heart. There are no sexual overtones, nothing offensive, not even in the gay show. That one has a beautiful line, “Every great love has a story in it.” This love story has a real problem. And it is this that I am more concerned about than the physical representation.
Photos: Pankaj Kumar