‘DD Sahyadri’ gearing up for Prime Time competition
In spite of competition faced from private channels, Doordarshan Sahyadri channel is trying to make its presence felt, among section of people, living in some cities and rural areas of Maharashtra. Till now, Doordarshan had not tapped the prime time slots for their serials, during the past several years. But, now they are all set to introduce nine new serials, on different subjects and with well known artistes, during the prime time 8pm to 10 pm.daily.
Among the new serials, prominent among them will be ‘Maati Kokanchi Naati Janmachi’ which is targeted at youngsters from Konkan. Then, there are other social issues presented through story based serials like ‘Pashanpati’ and period serial ‘Sushilecha Dev’ based on the novel of Waman Malhar Joshi. There will be family serials like ‘Vachanbaddh’, ‘Goshta Umaltya Manachi’ and ‘Sangarsh Milanacha’ to inspire the women. To entertain the children, there will be an interesting serial like ‘Bunty Television.
We also understand that actress Aishwarya Narkar will also be presenting series of stories through her new serial ‘Chitrakathi’, based on the literature of well known writers, under the banner of her new production company ‘Aishwarya Arts’. For those, who love to watch detective serials, DD Sahyadri will be presenting interesting murder mysteries, detected through their serial ‘Anakalniya’. Now, it will be interesting to see, how these serials will compete with other ongoing Marathi serials on private channels ? But, one thing is sure, that DD Sahyadri is ready for it, as the subjects they have picked up, are very interesting .
Now, talking about the new arrivals on private channels, there was big hope from Bharat Jadhav show on Colors channel. But, their initial episodes were not very appealing. They need to focus more on good scripting.
In ‘Majhe Pati Soubhagyavati’ there was a lot of time wasted in preparing Vaibhav Mangale in the make up of an actress, for the photo shoot. The scene, in which Vaibhav hesitating to be free, in presence of actor Ashok Shinde , for the photo shoot, wasn’t very convincing. Being a professional actor, there was no need to show him feeling shy, in front of another male actor. One could understand his awkwardness in presence of the hair dresser, but not the male lead actor. Moreover, it is observed that the exchange of dialogues between Ramesh Bhatkar and Ashok Shinde, are repeated several times, with the same expressions given by both.
What was interesting to watch during the week, was the gripping story split in three episodes, in ‘Asmita’ on Zee Marathi. But, showing the parallel investigation carried out by ‘Asmita’ to prove her ‘father in law guilty’ in the murder of her father, only diverted the interest from the ongoing case of fake Income tax Officers.
Live telecast or Limited telecast?
Last week, on an invitation from MNS chief Raj Thackeray, many celebrities from Mumbai had responded, by taking part in a debate on proposed ‘Mumbai Development Plan’ by the state government. It was called a non political debate. Almost all Marathi news channels started showing the Live Telecast of the so called meeting, attended by prominent personalities like Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Farhan Akhtar, Javed Akhtar, Salim Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Bharat Dabholkar, Dilip Vengsarkar, well known architect and town planner P.K.Das and many other artistes from Marathi entertainment industry.
But, after the introductory speech of Raj Thackeray, Mr. P. K. Das was called upon to brief the participants, on how wrong was the proposed plan. But, surprisingly, the so called live telecast, was suddenly stopped by all these channels. Later, when some of the channels showed the reactions of the celebrities, it became clear that they were in agreement with what Mr. P. K. Das had said. But, what P. K. Das said about the plan, was not known to the viewers. But, through the statements made by some celebrities, it became clear that they had opposed the proposed plan, especially the construction of car shed in city’s green belt in Aarey Colony.
In fact, what Mr. P.K.Das’ presented through visual display on screen and what he had suggested, was disclosed by other news websites later; but, the TV news viewers were deprived of this most important speech of Mr. Das. Instead of showing his speech, the news channels gave preference to the news on AAP party politics, which was not so relevant to people in Mumbai and Maharashtra. And, that was a big disappointment for the Marathi TV viewers.
Sometimes, while watching the advertisements of Hindi TV programmes on some Marathi channels, we fail to understand, why such programme ads are shown on Marathi channels? It is a clear indication that the Hindi entertainment channels are trying to invite more and more new Marathi viewers, to see their programmes too ? If it is so, then our Marathi entertainment channels, will have to offer quality entertainment, so as to retain their viewership .
With the new colorful look taken by an existing Marathi channel, our Grand old Doordarshan’s Sahyadri channel is also preparing to make its presence felt. It is understood that Mr. Mukesh Sharma has till date, successfully managed to introduce many new interesting Marathi entertaining programmes. And, they are receiving good response, to some of these programmes which were introduced during the past few months. But, now the news is that something more interesting will be offered by the national channel, for Marathi viewers. So, do switch on to this channel too, for a change.