Kohinoorean opportunity

It had the potential to be an Indianized Da Vinci code. I am talking about Sahara One's hyped Kohinoor, a serial launched on prime time. Taking enough creative liberties, the plot wonders whether the Kohinoor diamond the Britishers was a fake. But somehow the promos, the casting and publicity never made the impact a novel concept like this to create tune-ins. Contrast this Sony's desperate marketing attempts to make a creatively spiceless Fame Gurukul succeed. Another bright idea seems to be going down the tube. Where did it fail ?

The TV business is about two things content and marketing. On the content side, one cannot churn out blockbusters all the time but a balanced portfolio mitigates risks. The key decision is " What is the scale I mount my production at ". This is where Star always hits the right buttons. Take KBC for instance. It was a big bet. An ageing superstar, an unknown format and loads of prize money to be sunk in. One needs a horse sense in the media business to know 'when to bet big, and when not to'. And the rest is history and flawless execution ( of course, who can forget Sidharth Basu's quiz questions). Where the content is not great , clever marketing can still salvage to a great extent. Indian Idol, Kavyanjali, Millee are examples. But even the best marketer cannot flog a shoddy product for long. Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi is a classic case.

Sahara should have put big muscle behind Kohinoor. There were hardly any known faces in the cast, whereas they have tried celebrities ranging from Karishma, Raveena, Sridevi earlier. Plus the promos inspite of a great musical score hardly aroused interest. At the end of the day, I believe in the TV business one needs either good content or decent content with stars and good promotion or you outsource the content creation to participants. The last one is what reality TV and Indian Idols are all about.