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One, there are the trend
followers who follow the safe and proven way to success… two, there are
trend-breakers and trend-makers, who become path-pavers with their out of the
box ideas and dare-to-experiment courage and enthusiasm.
While most of our Television
channels belong to the first category, aping one another’s proven TRP earning
methods, a new channel suddenly emerges amidst them, totally going against the
usual flow, challenging the usual norm of all GECs and paving for itself its
own unique identity and becoming a hallmark in itself.
Yes, that is no other channel
than Life OK.
Star One revamped into this new
channel, not just had a new name and logo, but also a completely new look, new
methodology and a unique philosophy of the channel- “cherishing what you have.”
This newest venture of Star Entertainment Media Private Ltd. is not just
refreshing but highly experimental. The greatest and deliberate breaking away
from usual Star GECs is that Life Ok neither has a tag of Star nor its logo and
thus has departed from the Star branding and has created a niche of its own.
Before this, we had hardly seen
an entertainment channel coming so powerfully with a philosophical and social
message to its audience through every layer of its exciting and powerful
storylines and content. Be it Saubhagyavati
Bhava ? highlighting the crude reality of domestic violence, which is still
very pertinent in our Indian socio-cultural set up and creating social
awareness with the message ‘Say No to Domestic Violence’, or Shapath, which
subtly encourages youngsters to ‘be in the system to change the system’, instead
of being an objective onlooker criticizing the country’s maladies. ‘Meri Maa’
is a tribute to the eternal mother-child relationship, while ‘Tum Dena Mera
Saath’ questions the importance of materialistic pursuits as opposed to the
simple pleasures in life. The channel also has a light hearted show, ‘Zindagi
Kahe – Smile Please’, reminding us that the core essentials that keep a family
together is not wealth but values and love for one another, while in “Main Laxmi
Tere Aangan Ki” we see an ambitious girl in an aching dilemma to choose between
her head and her heart in pursuit of her ideal mate and an ideal lifestyle. A
newer show, ‘Amrit Manthan’ polarizes two sisters with different value systems
and goals that will finally break or make their lives and their relationship
with each other. Also soon to come from March 18th is ‘Sach Ka
Saamna’ with Rajeev Khandelwal where contestants face fiery questions, exposing
blatant and shocking truths from their lives. Also in pipeline are some more
exiting and new programs that will soon hit your television screens, each with
a different flavor and the same underlying message that if you cherish what you
have, you will find that your Life’s OK!
Covering almost every possible
genre right now, be it a Thriller/Drama in Saubhagyavati Bhava ? or sweet
romance in “Main Laxmi Tere Aangan Ki’ and “Tum Dena Mera Saath’ blending in
social and family values or ‘Devon Ka Dev – Mahadev, a fiery, passionate and
grand love story in a mythological soap based on Shiv and Sati’s divine love, Life
OK has in its kitty something to cater to every kind of audience.
The channel has got Mrs. Madhuri
Dixit-Nene making an appearance almost after every show, as a ‘Sutradhaar’ to
deliberate on the social message or the ideology hidden in the show, making the
audience more socio-culturally aware and not just leave them with a feel-good
factor about the shows. This has never been tried before in any entertainment
channel and Life OK should be called a pioneer in setting this trend.
If we talk about being a
trend-breaker-and-trend-setter, we cannot miss mentioning ‘Hum Ne Li Hai
–Shapath’ which is worth calling a real trend-setter. While so far it was
commonly thought amidst the
Entertainment Television sector that a Suspense Thriller is never the suitable
topic for a daily soap structure, Life OK has proven this hypothesis wrong and
has gone on to churn out episodes after episodes of tightly packed and neat
suspense drama on a daily basis that keeps its audience riveted to their seats
and never feel a minute of boredom. Some trend-setter, we cannot deny…!!!
Not just in content, but in
another aspect too this channel too has proven itself to be a trend setter. A
GEC channel with an aggressive digital presence and marketing strategy, Life OK
is extremely active and interactive on Facebook, Twitter and also has its
website at www.lifeok.com Never before had a
Hindi-GEC channel pushed so hard and yet so successfully on the digital media
for its branding and marketing.
The biggest welcome relief comes
in not having a single show on the usual ‘Saas-Bahu’ Jhik Jhik that so
dominates the other popular or not-so-popular cable channels, whether regional
or national. It is definitely a welcome break for audience who has by now
almost finished their tears and flooded buckets weeping over the helpless
daughters-in-law by the vamp mother-in-law. Well, before Life OK, who could
have thought a popular and high TRP fetching entertainment channel without the
saas-bahu melodrama? Here again Life OK is a pioneer, so to say.
In every show of Life OK, the
audience is not only kept engrossed with thrilling and ever-enthralling
storylines but are also constantly brought face to face with hard questions
with regard to life and whether we are wasting our today-s mourning what we don’t
have or living to the fullest, cherishing what we have and thus seeing our Life to be OK or
more than OK…!
With three shows packed in every one
hour and with the shortest breaks in between, the channel’s prime time keeps
its audience glued to the TV screen like no other channel and the virtual and
interactive audience involvement is unparalleled and unprecedented.
Out of my own curiosity, I have
been personally interacting with the young and the old all across the country
and have found to my delight that this new channel has not only become popular
among its audience almost immediately after its launch on 18th
December, 2011 but it has also got its audience deeply involved with each
character and their reel lives and have created a furor among the former,
leading to much enthusiastic debates, discussions and guesses as to what their
favorite protagonists’ outcome would/should be. One of the most popular shows
amidst the entire range remains Saubhagyavati Bhava ? where Karanvir Bohra displays
some finest and impeccable acting skills as the psychopath and sadistic husband
using domestic violence against his innocent and docile wife Jhanvi in order to
acquire her love and devotion, and it was an immediate hit among the audience.,
creating much debate as to what the end of Viraaj (Karanvir) should be and what
step should be correct for the tortured Jhanvi. One student from Pondicherry,
Shalini (name changed) says, “I don’t understand much of Hindi and so I don’t
watch much of Hindi serials but I never miss a single episode of ‘Saubhagyavati
Bhava ?’
Another viewer tweeted about
‘Devon Ka Dev – Mahadev’, “Your show MAHADEV has brought passionate intense
& divine LOVE into my life..with MAHADEV & SATI..best love story ever
told..!!”
One of the strategic eye-catchers
is the innovative and vibrant promos of the shows. One look at them and one can
realize that promos have been conceived and shot with equal care just as the
shows themselves. Arati (name changed) from Kolkata says, “I don’t get much
time to watch Television but one look at the promos and I really feel greedy to
watch the entire shows of Life OK.”
With a bunch of young
enthusiasts, the core team of Gaurav Banerjee, Ajit Thakur, Content Head Sanjog
Gupta and Programming Head Dimpy Dey, are out there to make a new path-breaking
instance of Television entertainment that caters to all age group and various
sectors of the society. And we know Life OK is not just here to stay but give
many rival Hindi-GEC channels a run for their GRPs. Just as Star India CEO,
Uday Shankar, once said in an interview, “…(Life OK) is not a weekly game alone
– it is building a brand for the future.”
And we say, what a brand…!
what amazing shows… ! And what unprecedented courage and risk-taking strategies
moving on to successfully being a path-breaking pioneer… that’s Life OK for all
of us, tele-buffs!!! So do tune in and catch the wonderful shows… every day… and thus making your Life a lot more OK…!!!
