In a conversation with IANS, she opens up about her journey in the television industry and also shares how the content has changed with time.
Ektaa elaborated on her journey in the television industry and says: “I feel like a fossil at times. I feel like television has got everything to do with escapism and very little to do with just content, it’s a lot of suspension of reality.
“People want to have really clean entertainment and that is one thing that hasn’t changed on television but a lot of new age stories are coming up and this is one thing that I have learnt. My journey has been nothing more than almost 26 years of doing something that I probably love and believe in.”
Ektaa started her career at the age of 17 as an intern with ad and feature filmmaker Kailash Surendranath. After facing a number of failures, her 1995 sitcom, ‘Hum Paanch’ was her first success in the industry.
So, it was not a cakewalk for her and how she look at the ups and downs, she replies: “I feel every year, a new trend comes, a new writing pattern comes and one has to innovate, sometimes you know escapism on TV is a big form of entertainment and then few years later it becomes relatable, all the shows starts taking over. Everytime this happens there’s a change of taste, you are coming home everyday and there’s a difference in the entertainment you are consuming.”
“I feel I have to innovate and when I do that I feel there’s a new era and a whole new type of audience I open up to. I think, for example when I did ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ with big sets and clothes, then I did ‘Balika Vadhu’ – a new era has arrived and then i did ‘Pavitra Rishta’ to update myself, to basically reinvent the audience and their choices. I wanted a relatable look with an aspiration, then it was opposite, then I did ‘Bade Acche Lagte Hai’ . It was a different kind of escapism. I realised that every few years ‘I had to reinvent’.”
After making her mark in the television industry, Ektaa launched her digital platform ALTBalaji in April 2017, recently it has completed five years and given some remarkable projects among which the latest one is ‘Lock Upp’. The producer talks about how OTT has changed the entire scenario and influenced the television content.
“OTT itself has so much experimentation because it has so much of specification as far as the audience identification goes and then the content gets into exactly to the target audience. Unlike TV which is more like one size fits all. So, they both come from a different mindset. OTT and TV are not eating into each other’s market, nor are they helping each other change or becoming catalysts in each other’s growth.”
–IANS