Joydeep Ray / Ahmedabad October 12, 2004
Soon there would be end to the climax to the Sony Entertainment
Television's successful soap 'Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin. Soon, Jasmit
Walia alias Jassi, will transform herself to be one of the most
beautiful women in the small screen, claimed Tarun Katyal, executive
vice-president of SET.
Saying that SET has already decided not to stretch the serial
further, Jassi would come out from her existing features by end of
this year and the serial will end in the next six months.
"We are not going to stretch the serial endlessly for the sake of
minting money out of it and so by December, the viewers will be able
to watch Jassi's transformation and by March, next year, the serial
will come to an end."
"We are also looking for working further with Mona Singh, who is
Jassi in the small screen, one of the most popular television
character nowadays," Katyal said, on the sidelines of Indian Idol,
talent search contest.
Saying that after Jassi Jasisi Koi Nahin, Indian Idol would be going
to be one of the significant advertising revenue earner for the
Channel, Katyal said that SET has already tied-up with six major
corporate houses for advertising during the 14 episodes of Indian
Idol to be on air since late October till February, next year.
Among the six big banners which would be buying time slots for
advertisement to be on air during telecast of Indian Idol, Airtel,
Nokia, Procter & Gamble and Marico Industries are the major ones.
However, Katyal denied to comment when asked how much revenue SET is
targeting to earn from telecast of much-hyped Indian Idol, for which
SET already has spent a significant amount of money for buying the
rights.
Reacting on arrival of new entertainment channels including Zoom,
promoted by the Bennet Coleman & Co, promoters of The Times of
India, the former Star Plus top-brass said, "There would be more
investment in the Indian television industry as more and more people
are coming up with new channels but there is not much space to
accommodate every new one.
The channels which will be innovative, creative in nature and do not
have lack of new ideas to reach more and more households with their
programmes, only will survive and we should be ready to see
premature death of few entertainment channels in near future."
He also said that with the increased competition in the
entertainment television channel segment, even the existing channels
like SET would have to hike investments to survive.
"But investment not only in money terms but also new ideas are to be
invested. In that direction, we are now busy at spin-off of one of
our popular serials, CID and we are also going to relaunch 'Aahat,"
Katyal said.
comment:
p_commentcount