Channels need celebrities or celebrities need channels?

This question does not have any absolute answers. Television may never be as glamorous as the 72mm silver screen. The television stars may never be as comparable to the recognition that a movie star gets. Be it in terms of money or adulation or success. But one thing is for sure, the current movie superstars may like or not, they cannot ignore the potential of their presence on television.

The pioneer for this scenario is the eternal Indian megastar Amitabh Bachchan who transformed the way movie stars look at television. Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) though a desi version of the American hit show ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’, back Amitabh Bachchan back in the reckoning and also started a genre of reality shows on Indian television where there’s no looking back. The success of Amitab Bachchan sparked off a slew of shows involving movie celebrities such as Anupam Kher and Manisha Koirala in ‘Sawaal Dus Crore ka’ and Govinda in ‘Jeeto Chappar phad ke’. Though not even half as successful as KBC, it did not deter television producers from trying out new formats and shows involving celebrities.

Gone were the days when movie celebrities lead a secret personal life with information coming through on a handful of gossip magazines. With no blogs, facebook, twitter or news channels, the only way people got to see their favourite superstars was in movies. Thus to maintain the aura and inquisitiveness, movie stars desisted from TV, and rightly so. From the present generation, I guess only Aamir Khan has that interest among viewers since he does only movies.

Times are changing and so should people. With so much information society, actors have to be in the public domain to build a fan following. Now if Amitabh Bachchan can be on TV, why not the others. Thus we had bollywood badshah Shah Ruch Khan hosting the second season of KBC. It was also successful in its own right. ‘kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hai’ followed it, again hosted by SRK. People openly accepted the movie stars giving channels better TRPs. Akshay Kumar jumped on the bandwagon with the desi version of Fear Factor, Khatron Ke Khiladi (KKK)’. Shilpa Shetty hosted the Big Boss followed by Arshad Warsi in its second season. Amitabh Bachchan returned after a gap in television with the season three of Big Boss. Salma hosted Dus Ka Dum for Sony last year and now hosts the fourth season of Big Boss. And Priyanka Chopra taking over from Akshay Kumar in KKK3. In the interim, Abhishek Bachchan too unsuccessfully tried his hand at reality TV with Bingo Nite

Channels say that the stars attract viewers, which is right but I beg to differ on the pint that it increases viewer ship of its other shows since viewers want to know more about the channels. It bring sup a question that ‘people watch channels or do they watch the show’? for examples, KBC 4 is being telecast now on Sony compared to Star Plus earlier. And it has got a great opening. Thus it proves that people watch the show rather than the channel.

The other question is the amount of money the celebrities charge. AB, SRK and Salman Khan are rumoured to be charging an eight figure amount per episode. Analysts wonder if the channels even manage to break-even with those kinds of expenses. Not matter the amounts of ad time they spend with premium ad rates, it is difficult to recover the costs. The need of the hour according to channels is to differentiate the content with a celebrity show to add to the product mix. For the celebrities though, it’s a win-win situation. Not only do they get phenomenal compensation but also increase their popularity among viewers and acting as a springboard to promote their upcoming movies.

From the current scenario, it seems that channels need celebrities more than the other way round with celebrities laughing all the way to the bank.