The Ideas Man: Ajit Andhare

They are the backbone of any television production. They not only conceive award winning shows but also have the foresight to gauge their potential.They also provide the moolah that keeps these shows alive and kicking for years. In this column, we speak to some of the most vibrant producers who have made shows that have set trends in the television industry and try to find out what makes them tick! With shows as diverse as Splitsvilla, Jai Shri Krishna, Bandhan Saat Janmon ka, Ajit Andhare has hit headlines. Heading a production house called Colosceum, Andhare has created content for soaps to reality shows to documentaries for national and global broadcasters. Ajit Andhare who holds a B. tech degree in Mechanical Engineering is a MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. In a constantly evolving scenario Andhare will play a very crucial role in the days to come. The CEO spoke exclusively to Tellychakkar about his plans and projects. Colosceum is a unique name? Colosceum is a huge amphitheatre in Rome and Italy. The movie Gladiator was shot in a Colosceum. That is what inspired us because we are in the business of entertainment. If you have to think about the most glorious stage in the world there is nothing better than the Colosceum. Those are reality shows that take place without contracts where people don’t get life time contract but actually get life time freedom if they win and otherwise. That is the one thing that inspired us when we were contemplating over names. Some more on Colosceum? We are very young company about just six to seven months old. I too am six to seven months old in this field as that’s when I started the firm but united people over a period of time so may be the entire team in totality has been around for not more than five odd months. We are a young company but we have managed to straddle quite a variety in this period of time. We looked up at the entire business and looked up at each vertical and placed some very talented people at the helm of each vertical. As a result we have been able to mount and ramp up good shows and at the moment we are focused on television. The whole idea is to actually develop comprehensive content which even goes beyond television because TV at the moment is just a medium to deliver content and we can deliver content on other streams whether it’s mobile or web. What’s more important to us is to build capabilities of being able to develop contents and ideas. With the bit of technology and adaptation take it across the different media. We have added the fiction vertical; we have added the entertainment or the non-fiction vertical, documentaries. This theme is already placed. We have a fairly large production set-up which has delivered all these shows. Splitsvilla is the highest rated show on MTV. What is a strategist like you doing in the creative field? (Laughs) That’s the first question anybody would ask me given my background. It looks very disparate at one level but come to think about it as a marketer especially in Indian context if you are doing FMCG what is it that you think, eat, sleep and worry about? It’s the housewives who we sell our soaps and shampoos to. All the FMCG marketers are selling to the housewives that’s the reason you see the commercial the way they are. So all these 12 years I have been thinking about the housewives and what is it that the entire TV runs on it’s about the housewives. So I have not found any disconnect in the two at all. The only difference here is between the soaps I was making there and now here. For marketing perspectives you need to know about the consumer insights, you need to know the woman, the housewife and you need to know what appeals to her and if you understand that bit you can craft consumer products and even creative concepts and entertainment ideas. Having said that I am not alone over here. I am backed by a very strong creative team which is very well acknowledged in this industry. When I was in Unilever I came close to this industry while conceptualizing this entire IP of Smart Srimati. At that time itself I was quite drawn to this industry as they say if you have a bit of creative side then you can really fit in. I have done that stuff we have already mounted one full season, we have conceptualise the whole property from ground zero and that kind of gave me good transition and that’s the reason when I came in and started the company. The first project we pitched in for went back to my previous employer. They being a large company we had to pitch the show to them and we had the stiff competition from the very best in the industry like Endemol, Miditech. Tell us about Smart Srimati? It is an extremely popular game show for housewives. The whole world is obsessed with cable and satellites and so they underestimate the power of DD. The numbers that you reach in terms of households is commendable. It’s been a very successful property and that’s why it’s gone in its third season. That’s the reason we pitched for it and came up with a very different idea and now the show has got extended into two shows. The mainstream game show in the night has also gets an added leg. This is how the discipline applies in market you do the brand extensions the same logic applies here the program is extended and has become a twin program. So the evening program is more of an entertainment show where housewives sit along with their families and enjoy the game show while the afternoon leg which is titled Smart Srimati Ki Duniya is more of a lean forward and interactive show wherein housewives will get lot of information like recipes, health tips, small savings, etc. so its really an infotainment for the housewives and the two are connected. This type of stuff is not yet done on DD. The anchor will go and talk to the housewives off the sets as to how they are staying and how has there experience been. We received unbelievable number of calls from the housewives from the remotest regions who want to be on the show. Annu Kapoor has hosted all the seasons. We are very curious to see how people take this. Don’t you think Splitsvilla doesn’t match with Indian sentiments and culture? I totally agree with you as it is actually at the bleeding edge and plays right at the edge of the cultural contours. But that’s the whole attempt which MTV has always made. It has always made stuff defining the next horizon. Internationally this genre is not something which is new. Bachelor and For Love or For Money are the formats where you are exploring essentially what choice does a person make. Here one is exploring the dark side of love. While it is a reality or a dating reality show, it gets into the complications of strategy and gaming. Whether you will be able to hold that or go for love - like Vishal is a guy who goes for love and plays straight and Varun is a protagonist who represents the schemer. It talks about what happens when ‘Love becomes War’ and what depths can people sink to. We have been surprised while shooting it as we had to view the uncut version of the show. The content surprises the maker moreover if it is a reality. It reflects the mindset of the youth as to what these people do, react and believe in. Since it’s not scripted and is reality it reflects the mindset of the target group. You have Jai Shri Krishna at one hand and then Splitsvilla at the other which speaks volumes about the diversity? The idea is that there are various genres in the industry and if you stick to one particular genre then you limit yourself only to that. Somebody like Rajeev Laxman brings in the sensibilities and television background for a fiction show and leads our efforts from that side and he is the mastermind behind Splitsvilla. On Smart Srimati, which is a very different concept and a branded entertainment I personally have gotten into far more and try to shape it. For documentaries we have the expertise of Sanjeev who is a very renowned documentary maker. For fiction we have got Vinod Rangnath who has written about 3000 episodes who has been associated with IndianTelevision.com for Qalam. If you put together a team which has the expertise required for that subject you will be able to churn out fairly successful work. As long as you have people who know about the subject that’s the reason we treat ourselves as a platform and it’s a platform for people with different sensibilities to come together and if you come together with that you will be able to mount and ramp up fairly quickly which is very different as most of the other people confine themselves to just one area because they are largely led by the specialty of the owner entrepreneur. Our approach is different the way we have gone about this is very different. What do you have to say about the classic war between DD and satellite channels? The choice of the channel is related to your target audience. In case of Smart Srimati the involved marketer is ‘Wheel’. Being a low budget product and has to connect with the low to the middle- class. Therefore if you have to reach those low and middle income households DD is the best vehicle to run that kind of a show. There has to be a strong marketing logic behind the choice of the channel you partner with. However since the show appeals to housewives there is no reason behind it not working on any other channel. So we are working in that direction as well we are talking to various channels and the programming heads are also very interested in the concept. You just don’t need to engage housewives with a saas-bahu show as one can also give them an entertaining game show. Very soon we will bring the concept on the satellite channel. What do you have to say about your late entry in this field? It has given us advantage but also put forward a lot many challenges. You can study their history as to how they have gone and their approach. When you are able to look at the work of various production houses and their progresses you can make informed decisions. However the biggest disadvantage is that you are a very late entrant. If I had entered 10 years ago I would be in a much better position but the flip side is that this is a good time to start. That was the time when from single channel DD we entered into three channel set up when all these people were born and now it has grown to six or seven channels set up so this is the second wave of TV and we make the most of this. There is a huge demand of content across all the verticals. If you are able to cash in on this aspect you make up for the losses and will become a force to reckon in time. Would it be right to say that your driver show is Smart Srimati? On the contrary I would take a lot of pride in naming Splitsvilla as technically this is the first show that went on-air. That was the first time our logo came on-screen the moment that we all rejoice. While we got the assignment of SS much earlier than any other show but ironically it is the last show that’s going the last on-air. Jai Shri Krishna is the biggest battle you can undertake which is with the great lady(Ekta Kapoor). Today with Sagars at our side we are competing fairly well the ratings of the show have been commendable and is driving the show forward. Now again this too is a driver show for us. Its upto the channel to decide on the driver show, we are the content developers. What do you feel about the kind of shows we have on TV? It’s a very simple marketing fact. People are watching these shows who are deciding the kind of shows they want. Would you market what they want to them or what you like to them? One who wants to watch a different show is outnumbered. Marketers don’t have a privilege to choose they have to sell. If you start selling the products which are not catering to those women how would you get your product sold? What you saying would eventually happen when Indian television moves from the clutches of a single TV household. Abroad people have choices as they have a TV in every room. Where a mother is watching a regressive show, her daughter would be watching a progressive show. Some of the newer channels are trying that as well. Aren’t you planning to come up with a progressive show? We are a very young company thus not in a position as yet to exercise our discretion in what we want to do and we don’t want to do. We want to focus on as much work as we can do and come to a point where we can perhaps exercise that luxury and make choices. Why just Colors and DD? We are doing a lot of work for the international broadcasters. We have a very interesting concept for Al-Jazeera. The channel is going to broadcast its documentary on singing policemen where these cops in Bihar are actually singers and we call them karaoke policeman. Another concept is dead-man walking which is about people who are living but dead on papers for almost 40 years and he has to prove that he is not dead and we have got the rights to telecast it on the biggest broadcasters of Japan called NHK. What do you have to say about the current spate of reality shows? I would say reality shows are more risky. If a mainstream reality show is not getting the ratings it becomes very risky as you invest a lot for a short duration. Whereas, a soap is safer in that sense as there are lot more variables to play with. You can change the track. If a certain reality show is not working what can one do? It’s already been structured and the cast been finalised. We can bring in a similar track as that of a popular show in our show. Isn’t the primetime slot everybody’s priority? It is hard to go there as a new kid on the bloc and tell them that I want to do a primetime show for you. I think we have tackled it fairly well. All our shows are primetime shows. Talking about Jai Shri Krishna we partnered with the right kind of people thinking that if we can’t pull out on our own lets go with the partners. With this we hope we believe that we will get a primetime slot where in we can air a show solely produced by us. We need luck on our side and trust of the broadcasters. Which is your favourite TV show? My favourite show will be Saregama but it has become a populist now. They earlier used to celebrate revered musicians like Naushad and they had Sonu Nigam and Shaan and had that traditional feel to it. Now it is diluted by a lot of mainstream considerations like throwing in celebrities and you are tampering with the soul of the program but then this is what is in demand now. A marketer has to move on. But I feel proud in saying that we have made a program like that. We should have more of formats coming from India. Five months down the line sitting on a business of Rs 50 crores. What is your success formula? We have taken each show as a challenge and worked on it very hard. We have thought through our approach, challenges, competition and problems that we will face. We are very aware and clear about our plans and our feet are very much on the ground. Somewhere a relationship will help you and somewhere an idea will help you. At the end of the day business is a combination of idea and relationship. With more and more channels the relationship aspect might also become less and less important and then it becomes a complete level playing field. If you have good ideas than you can manage some place under the sun. What’s next in the pipeline? We have a comedy show lined up as far as fiction is concerned. There is Jadugar which explores the paranormal magic and is formatted. Another show in the making is Vaatshala which is like Splitsvilla and the war is between Men and Boys. Again a formatted show called Qaidi no 9211 which is picked from Jail Break in London. Then we have Muqabla, Ma Ki Youth where in a daughter makes over her mother. We also have indigenous shows as well. We are also working on documentaries and small films but it’s too early to talk about it.