Regional Tadka--- PR (Screenindia.com)

Remakes, clearly, are the flavour of the season. Most of the recent Bollywood hits including the blockbusters Bodyguard, Singham and Ready have been South remakes and the trend has percolated down to the small screen. The only difference is that TV is more nationally integrated in the sense that it is not restricted to the South. Successful serials from different languages are being tried out in Hindi. Some like Sasural Genda Phool and Pavitra Rishta have hit bullseye while others like ...Dor and Rakth Sambandh were rejected outright.

However, Indrajit Ray, Chief Creative Officer, TV Content, UTV, which produced both, ...Dor and Rakth Sambandh, defends the poor ratings, saying that ..Dor aired on Star Plus did notwork conceptually with the viewers. "It was about a girl who after marriage continues to financially support her mother's family by giving her salary to them. The viewers did not accept it and felt that once she is married, her sasural becomes her family and she should look after their needs," he explains. As for Rakth Sambandh, he maintains that it may not have found favour with the audience initially but towards the end it garnered a good rating considering it was aired on Imagine TV, which itself is not among the top channels. "Also it got affected by Zor Ka Jhatka, for which the other primetime shows had to be shuffled around. That was a programming decision," he points out.

That, however, hasn't deterred UTV from remaking more shows. They have been working on a yet-to-be-titled show based on the Tamil hit Metti Oli. The story about a father who is determined to educate his five daughters despite financial constraints has been in the making for long and is yet to find a slot on Sony. "It will be aired by the end of this year," assures Ray. In the meantime, the production house is readying another remake of a Telugu soap Sravanttu that is slated for Star Desh. Starring Karan Vir Bohra and Sriti Jha, the serial revolves around a middle-class girl married into a rich family. She is happy that her dreams have come true, only to realise that her husband is not what he seems to be. He harasses her and makes unreasonable demands. As Ray says, the serial borders towards the dark and "is a huge experiment".

One channel that has a good track-record in these 'experimentations' is Zee. From fiction shows Pavitra Rishta and Dil Se Diya Vachan to reality shows like Dance India Dance, which was initially aired on Zee Bangla as Dance Bangla Dance, to the recent Star Ya Rockstar based on Zee Marathi's Yuddh Taryanche Swapna Swaranche to Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, which started off in Hindi and has clones of it on all its regional channels, Zee has done it all. "That's the merit of having a big network," smiles Ashish Golwalkar, Non-Fiction head, Zee. "It's easy to take cues from a successful show though Dance India Dance has a completely different format from Dance Bangla Dance except for the title," says Golwalkar.

"There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to adaptations," concurs Sukesh Motwani, fiction head, Zee, though the main criteria is that it should be a great story with universal appeal. For instance, Thirumathi Selvam that caught their and Ekta Kapoor's (she is producing the show) interest is the story about an uneducated girl whose parents want an educated bridegroom for her. The hero was a garage mechanic. "It was exciting when we heard the story and we decided to remake it with certain changes. We set the serial against a Maharashtrian backdrop and it worked well," says Motwani. However, their other remake, Dil Se Diya Vachan, despite a stellar cast of Neena Gupta and Ravi Mankane, couldn't generate good ratings and was taken off air within six months. And, though the channel has no other remake planned in the immediate future, they are not averse to it. "It depends on what the channel wants at any point of time," reasons Motwani.

Remakes, after all, come with its own merits. The concept is tried and tested though not fool-proof. In a remake you already have the characters fleshed out and the story is pre-decided. All one has to do is change the look, the milieu and culture to suit the northern sensibilities. As Saurabh Tewary, ex-programming head, Imagine TV, says, "You can take the best material of the original and structure your serial." This obviously is a big help for the content creators because usually producer-directors don't script a serial beyond 20 episodes even though they have a broad outline. "We wait and watch which character gets a positive response and accordingly develop it," says Dheeraj Kumar, Chairman, Creative Eye, which has in the past remade the popular South soap Kavyanjali as Ghar Sansar.

So, it shouldn't come as a surprise when a slice-of-life light-hearted serial like Sasural Genda Phool that has proved itself in Bengali replicates its success in Hindi, that too in the extended prime-time 7 pm slot. "No other serial in that slot has got a rating of 5," observes Kumar.