Performances will get better...we are only warming up," says Jhalak producer Myleeta Aga

[farooq.umar07]

Colors’ Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa is one of the most hyped and top rated shows on the channel. But has it lost its sheen? The show opened with 3 TVR and the latest TAM data shows that last week it rated 2.5 (Saturday) and 2.1 (Sunday).

In comparison, when the same BBC Worldwide property had aired on Sony Entertainment Television last year, it had opened above 4 TVR. What makes this lower number even more galling is that Colors has retained Madhuri Dixit as one of the judges who was brought on board by Sony last season. It was announced officially that “Madhuri’s presence did lift the numbers for Sony”, so what really happened with Colors this time? Apart from Madhuri, the judge’s panel also has Karan Johar and choreographer Remo Dsouza this time.

However, when we spoke to producer Myleeta Aga, she had a different take on things, “We have shifted from week day (last year) to a week end format (this year) which is always a tough slot. Plus you also need to take into account that before Jhalak, the slot was giving only 1 TVR to the channel. Comparatively, the dance show has given 3. Hence we and channel are all happy.”

Myleeta also admitted that the contestants (Gurmeet Choudhary, Bharti and others) in the first two rounds did not really do hard core dance which is usually associated with Jhalak. “That will change, we are just warming up.”

In the third week of Jhalak, performances were actually of a higher caliber, but the numbers have not risen rather they have dropped. This can be attributed to the loss of audience interest in the song and dance routine. Even Indian Idol is not rating great guns (1.9 and 2). Producer of Indian Idol, Anupama Mandoloi had accepted that there is a certain fatigue factor amongst masses. DID is the only strong property in this genre which continues to rate 4.7 (Saturday) and 3.6 (Sunday) episodes respectively.