Meet the ‘leap lungers’ of TV industry

‘Leap’ is quite a dramatic word on TV.

Once upon a time, Ekta Kapoor decided to play with the ‘leap’ strategy and lo behold, it worked for almost all her shows in early 2000s. Be it Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki or Ksauttio Zindagi Kay, numbers swept with new characters joining the bandwagon post a generation leap.

Now, in recent times, things have been a dilly dallying situation with a lot of shows falling heads down after a jump.

And the side effects of leap is seen mostly when a show kick starts with a kid, touches million hearts and then sees an adult taking force. Sadly, the emotional bond a child manages to break fails to bring the same number with a grownup actor. Maharana Pratap, Gangaa, Ashoka and Mahakumbh, being recent examples.

But here’s a production house that is enjoying the taste of leap even when their prodigy kids managed to amaze the world with their performance.

Well we are talking about Guroudev Bhalla and Dhaval Gada.

The makers, who launched Udann (Colors) with talented star Spandan Chaturvedi in the lead role, were left in a fix when a leap was planned. Apprehensively, they took the plunge, and Meera Deosthale today is taking forward the legacy with much aplomb. The numbers interestingly also remained constant.

More recently, Naamkarann (Star Plus) which had lovable kid Arsheen Namdar playing Avni, took a leap. Rookie actor Aditi Rathore was given the weight of running the show on her shoulder. And once again, the makers are smiling with the numbers rising and the popularity reaching new heights post the leap experimentation.

Naamkarann, that is being helmed by Mahesh Bhatt opened to great expectations but dropped in numbers drastically. In November, there was a buzz that the serial will be packed off by the channel.

Before the leap, the BARC ratings show it managing to get 3985 and 4223 numbers (Week 7 and 8) and now the daily in the last two weeks has achieved 4995 and 5182 numbers (in 000s impressions).

Woaaah! That’s quite a positive graph. And this has made the industry insiders hail the makers as the ‘leap lungers’.

Fascinating title, isn’t it?

When we called Guroudev, he smiled to agree and say, “It’s a happy achievement for everyone in the team. And I must add it would not have been possible for us without the channels’ support. Both our young kids were powerhouse of talent, and these new actors have taken it upon themselves to not let the hard work go in vain. And it could not have possibly happened without the perfect casting and how the creative team worked hard to maintain the standard.”

Talking further about Naamkarann, the producer said, “Recently we faced a dark phase wherein our show was written off. Having managed to come out of that and see an improvement in numbers is very encouraging. Mahesh Bhatt’s conviction and our team’s hard work have finally been paid off. I am only hoping that we see the numbers go up every week. Leap has worked for us and we have earned the sobriquet ‘leap lungers’.”

Wish you great luck!!