MUMBAI: From film to television to digital, the Bengali entertainment industry has been one of the strong bastions in the country over the years. But it hasn’t been a hunky dory ride always. SVF, eastern India's undeniable entertainment king, has played the role of a game changer for the entire industry. While its digital arm Hoichoi has completed its one year anniversary and the film and distribution business is creating new records, the television business still counts as highly important.
Though the “Yashraj Films of the East” holds more fame for its film business, its television business has also fared well in the last decade. The big shot production house started its television content production in 2008. Since then it has produced many Bengali TV shows and worked with all three big broadcasters, directors and co-founders of SVF, director Mahendra Soni said in an interaction with Indiantelevision.com.
Soni said that as TV works in a cycle, the number of shows on-air changes from time to time. While SVF started with two shows Bandhan and Durga, it reached up to eight shows at a point of time. However, the focus isn’t on quantity. Currently, they there are three shows on air, two with Star Jalsha, one with Zee Bangla.
“We do television only when we have some exciting stories because our shows have been very different than the usual shows you would see on GECs,” Soni said. He cites the example of Potol Kumar Ganwala, one of its top shows, released a couple of years ago, which is being remade in Hindi now. Other than that, the production house has a number of shows which have crossed into other languages. Speaking about the future, he said there are five shows in the pipeline - two with Colors Bangla, one with Zee Bangla, two with Star Jalsha.
The experienced executive of the Bengali TV industry said good stories prevail over everything and that there cannot be a particular genre which works better than others. However, he mentioned the entry of BARC into TV measurement has impacted TV content making in the last three years. Mythological shows and fantasy drama are being made in large numbers.
“Television is very important because you can reach out to so many people at a time. It is a very different kind of storytelling and lot of pressure and competition which you love as a producer and storyteller,” Soni said.
However, the production house is a little sceptical about reality or non-fiction shows. “Lot of great properties (in non-fiction space) have already been created by international companies. So, until and unless we get something exciting, we are not going to do non-fiction at the moment,” he commented.