When you run a marathon, you have to set the pace, knowing your own stamina. Some sprint ahead right from the firing of the starting gun and lead the pack all the way to the finish line. Others plod along, happy to be just completing the grueling run. And yet others gradually fall behind as the pace gets too difficult to handle.

Viacom18 president – general entertainment Alok Jain belongs to the first category. An avid marathoner and tennis player, he has within his first year at the broadcasting major set a scorching pace reaching a milestone by coming up with a TRP topping non-fiction show Laughter Chefs. He’s hoping that fiction shows Megha Barsenge and Mishri will follow, though it’s early days yet. And he’s extremely sanguine about the network’s Marathi and Gujarati programming initiatives which he has been re-inventing along with the respective teams.

Indiantelevision.com editorial head Mishaal Wanvari had a quick chat with Jain - who is also a fan of Nobel Prize winning psychologist and author Daniel Kahneman - on a range of subjects.

Excerpts:

On his first-year at Viacom18.

It’s been amazing. It did not feel like one year at all. It has felt much longer than one year.I have worked in regionals quite a bit; last six years in Star. So Hindi was a new piece in terms of language and market and I felt that it was an extremely exciting market. The scale at times and the ecosystem is very different. A lot of exciting things have happened for us across markets and it has been a very satisfying experience.

“I f you go full throttle without fear of failure, you can create shows like Laughter Chefs”

On how he managed to crack the comedy code in Hindi with Laughter Chefs despite not having focused on Hindi entertainment. (Laughter Chefs achieved the No1 spot in nonfiction comedy and broke records with 13.6 crore viewers across TV and digital)

Very frankly, we did not expect that the show will do so well. We feel,that comedy is a genre which always either works and, if it does, it works very well, otherwise, it falls flat. Comedy shows don’t fall in the middle.The genre has always been high risk, high reward and it is also difficult to crack. Not many content creators have been able to do so and there is not much competition so  there was a vacant wide space that the consumers really wanted. We took the risk and succeeded. If it hadn’t worked, we would have kept trying comedy in different formats. We are very gratified that it worked.

What also worked for us is that the team is fantastic and are excited about non-fiction, They really liked the concept and really wanted to make it. Culminating from desire to vision – great team, great support system, great production house saw this show into a success. Sometimes in the creative space, if you are not afraid of failure, and go full throttle without taking the middle path,it works better and you can create shows like this.

“O ur attempt is to keep looking for shows which are seamless from a consumer experience across screens - small screen, big screen.”

On reality shows and specifically expectations from Khatron ke Khiladi this year.

So I think Colors has always been a brand which has offered variety. We have fiction, we have reality, we have non-fiction and,even in fiction, we do a variety of stuff. We have attempted to do stories which are different. If you look at several years, non-fiction has been home for Colors. We have Bigg Boss which year on year does excellent,We have a calendar which works very well for Colors and now we have got this show Khatron ke Khiladi which we are very excited about. It has some great contestants and fans are already engaged with it.

“C olors has the largest opportunity to create impact, shape society with shows like Megha Barsenge”

One the two new fiction dramas  – Mishri and Megha Barsenge.

Megha Barsenge is a very unique story. Colors has been very iconic in putting the light on stories which convey various social issues, issues from the ground, from the countryside. We have the largest opportunity to create impact, shape society and we should not miss this and with shows like Megha Barsenge we hope to achieve this and spread awareness across various states. Mishri is also a very exciting show with a lot of emotions of love and joy to display, it has done very well and audiences have loved it.

“W e thought we need to really freshen up the channel.  We did it with Riteish Deshmukh in Bigg Boss and it worked. “

On Bigg Boss Marathi on Colors Marathi.

Certainly, see,for Colors Marathi, we started the journey seven to eight months back when we thought we need to really freshen up the channel. What has worked in the past doesn't work in the future, So I think one of the big attempts has been to get Riteish on the show. He has been a big name in the Marathi industry especially with the kind of body of work he has done, and he's all he's been very excited about Bigg Boss. He's been on the Hindi show once or twice as a guest, and he loves it. So we approached him, and he was very excited. There was a meeting of minds and hearts, and then we found a way to do it and to set it up very differently. We are glad that our attempt to set it up differently has worked. 

“W e wanted to make sure that the Gujarati audiences get the same quality on Colors Gujarati that they would get on Colors Hindi.

On the Gujarati side where two new shows were announced in the past month.

For Colors Gujarati, most of the content has been about trying to push the envelope. It’s about connecting with the Gujarati audience and culture. Hindi has always had a lens that it should be massier than any other states. For Colors Gujarati, we have taken topics very specific to Gujarat issues and Gujarati people. The big thing that we have done is that we made the production quality of the Colors Gujarati shows equal to Hindi. We wanted to make sure that the Gujarati audiences get the same quality on Colors Gujarati that they would get on Colors Hindi. This has been a great start for us.

On how producers and creators should approach Colors with their offerings.

Colors as a platform has tried all genres of shows from comedy to horror to romance. Any new fresh story which is for a world realistic of 2025 and not 2020 or 2015 is welcome.  Audiences are very smart and they know what they are consuming, They are very quick to decide whether to stay with a show or a movie.

I think we are very excited that we have been able to push the envelope forward. We have been able to do and accomplish things which have not been seen in the past several years across the industry. We are very excited about shows which are going to come. Our attempt is to keep looking for shows which are different, new stories told in today's time and which are seamless from a consumer experience across screens, small screen, big screen.