If Balaji Telefilms is expert at spinning family yarns, Optimystix is a pastmaster at tossing out formatted shows.
They are the ones behind Indian Idol which is currently the talk of the town. Sanjiv Sharma, Vipul Shah and Rajiv Vyas, the trio who head the four year old company, share the experiences they had in producing the popular show h with Indian Idol, another of their shows has quietly made inroads on Sony. And this is not one of their format shows but a daily soap Ye Meri Life Hai. "Format is our strength but we want to do all kinds of shows, specially a soap which is of a popular genre," informs Vipul who conceptualised ye meri life hai. The soap which started off with a college background soon changed into a family drama replete with love, sacrifice and duty. "If we continue with the college capers the characters will become stagnant. We always wanted to shift the focus from college to the protagonist's family and career," elaborates Vipul.
Though YeMeri ... began with a bang, it did make the rival channels jittery, the soap couldn't sustain its initial hold. It was jostled back and forth by the channel so many times, thanks to Indian Idol, that viewers lost track of it. Earlier, the soap was aired from Monday-Thursday at 10 p.m, later it was shifted to 10.30 pm after Indian Idol on Thursday. Eventually, it became a three-day soap. Once Indian Idol goes off the air, Ye Meri ... is all set to go back to its original schedule. Whew! Aren't these changes affecting them? "Well, it was a collective decision," says Vipul evading the question. Probably since Indian Idol is their production, they don't have any hang-ups about the inconsistency. Refusing to be drawn into a potential controversy, Vipul suffices with, "The TRPs may not be great, but the show has created a brand image."
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