Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai Producer Rajan Shahi Meeting Impractical Demands From Actors, Talks About Financial Crunch

The troubles for TV professionals have only mounted up because of the lockdown. Now that the Maharashtra government has given permission for shoots to resume producers are being cautious about what goes on air and in working out a system for shoots in tune with the guidelines.

Producer of TV shows like Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, Yeh Rishtey Hain Pyaar Ke, Rajan Shahi in the light of the recent debate on payment systems, shoots getting halted and other unfortunate incidents revealed that the TV industry had been facing issues for nearly a year now.

Talking to Pinkvilla in a candid chat Rajan revealed, "Honestly, for more than one year, on TV as producers, we have all been going through a financial crunch. It is because of the shows not working, because of advertisers, revenues not coming in. For one year we had to redesign, rework with a lot of constraints.”

Several TV shows have been called off during the lockdown putting even more pressure on those resuming to fetch TRPs. To this effect Rajan feels that everyone in the industry needs to get used to financial pressures and facing cuts especially the actors in the higher pay brackets.

"When we collectively are dealing with both financial and creative pressure, it is the time to fight for survival, work proactively as a team. Every department in the industry needs to know the ground reality. Sometimes, people who don't know the real facts or don't want to look at the facts, feel that everyone is doing so well, there is so much money," he added.

Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai producer who is working on a system to resume shooting for his shows revealed that it has not been easy and this ‘new normal’ might be here to stay. He also admitted that he has also met with some impractical demands from a particular actor who wanted his fee doubled.

"I won't name the actor but when my team called that actor and told him that 'you have to resume shoot' he demanded 'double per day' and put more conditions which were impractical. This was totally going against the contract already signed. Actor demanded double per day, and his talk with my production was that 'don't even call us if you want to negotiate'. At the same time, I have so many brilliant actors, my team, production team, workers, technicians, my unit members who have come together to proactively help and support me to take the things forward."

Rajan Shahi said that no one can right now put themselves on a pedestal and say ‘I call the shots’ as actors, producers and all other departments need to get together and ensure the survival of their shows.