'Kaun Banege Crorepati - KBC was the first non-fiction show to make it to the 9 pm slot.
Prior to that - we had 'soap opera'. Even prior to that a few Doordarshan serials were pretty good.
'Buniyad' was among my favourites. It dealt with the theme of partition. 'Udaan' was another winner. This was about the story of a success preceded by principled fight and hardwork of a cop - Kalyani. No, thankfully it was not based on the life and times of Kiran Bedi.
When KBC came Amitabh's career was on the slide.
Siddharth Basu, India's original Quiz Master - was the man behind the questions in KBC too. As the show went successfully for first few months - one evening we met Siddhart Basu in Delhi's famous mutual admiration club - IIC.
As an Amitabh fan - I quickly asked him during cocktails - "How did you feel being second Prakash Mehra, reviving Big B's career"? He smiled - I remember most of girl friends in Shillong and Kohima fell for that one.
Around the same time - Basu told 'India Today' : - "It is not just another quiz game. It's really about human drama. About hope and disappointment". The sentence appeared well rehearsed by PR guys.
Nevertheless, "lock kar doon" or "Computer ji Lock Kar dia jae" - were the new phrases popularised by Amitabh. The power of it was intoxicating and perhaps as 'influential' - as he had told his father (Dilip Kumar) in "Shakti" --
"Aap ka ye baat bhi mein yaad rakhonga".
That too was Gen Z factors of that era.
KBC in Star TV had given run for money competitions to Zee's popular serials - 'Amanat', 'Koshish' and 'Mehndi Tere Naam Ki'.
Sony had —'Heena'—and Star none.
Kavita Chaudhary played cop Kalyani in DD-serial 'Udaan'
She was also famous as "Lalitaji" for an ad. Kavita Chaudhary became a household name across India in the late 1980s by playing "Lalitaji," the iconic, no-nonsense housewife in Hindustan Unilever's commercials for Surf detergent.
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Unlike Zee and Sony, viewers believed 'Star TV' has been seen as an upmarket channel catering only to the English-speaking elite. In media circles around that time - ex IAS officer's daughters and sons - also became TV journalists and anchors. NDTV and Star TV News - belonged to well connected jugadu children.
There were Deepraj Dutts and Rain Desais.
Around the time, Sumantra Datta, who handled advertising and sales in Star TV said -
"The channel realised that it needed a unique differentiator. A killer programme with killer content."
KBC based on UK-based Celedor -run 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' became instant hit across as many as 26 countries.
Zee TV was frustrated, and it tried 'Jackpot Jeeto' with Anupam Kher and Manisha Koirala. It failed.
Before the show was on screen - Anupam Kher played 'Amitabh' of real life. "I will go to Amitabh and take his blessings just as Amit ji had gone to Hemvati Bahuguna before contesting and winning Allahabad election".
Many years later, other ambitious stars in Bollywood also tried their luck with KBC. It failed again.
Back to 2000 - when 'India Today' reported :
"Call it experiment, call it strategy. The fact is that business is all about bottom lines.
To recover the money spent, Star is targeting to sell a maximum of 10 minutes advertising time in every hour-long episode. It expects to recover Rs 15 lakh a minute which adds up to Rs 1.5 crore an episode and a grand total of Rs 195 crore for the 130 episodes.
Considering that the entire expenditure on KBC is Rs 75 crore, that makes Star TV the real crorepati with a profit of Rs 120 crore."
In circa 2000, I was deputed by the Press Trust of India (PTI) for a month-long Defence Correspondents' Course (DCC- 2000). Nearly 40 of us went around Indore, Mhow, Jodhpur, Srinagar and Mumbai for interaction and to get on-field experience of functioning of Army, Air Force and Naval officers.
Virtually in every camp and every mess during dinner - KBC would be on the large screen and military officials and all others would be discussing the quiz programme.
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