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Tuesday, Jul 01, 2008
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National

It pays even if you don’t win

Winners of music reality shows have faded into oblivion
Lesser known contestants fare better later

New Delhi: Even as television channels gear up for an all new season of music-based reality shows, promising new superstars year after year, the past winners have faded into oblivion, unable to live up to the hype generated by these shows.

According to music director Ehsaan Noorani of the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy group, music shows are all a battle for TRPs and advertising.

“Talent rarely plays a defining role in the end results. The real talent gets eliminated for reasons not related to singing,” he says. “The shows promise creating superstars but instead produce singers who end up doing stage shows,” Mr. Noorani adds.

The country’s first Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant enjoyed his moments of fame with ‘Mohabbatein Lutaunga’ (Aapka Abhijeet Sawant) and ‘Marjawa Mitjawa’ (Aashiq Banaya Aapne) but then disappeared from the limelight. His successors Sandeep Acharya and Prashant Tamang fared even worse as they have hardly been heard of, after winning the crown.

Similarly, Debojit Saha and Aneek Dhar (winners of Sa re ga ma pa challenge 2005 and 2007 respectively) hardly found any mention after the shows were over.

Commenting on the trend, music-director Aadesh Shrivastava, who will be seen as a judge in Zee’s Sa re ga ma pa Challenge 2009 says, “The winner in these shows are not the best of singers. Hence they rarely get opportunities in Bollywood. It is the other talented but lesser known contestants of the show who have fared better.”

The observation is not misplaced as the challengers to winner’s crown like Nihira Joshi (finalist, Sa re ga ma pa 2005) and Rahul Vaidya (second runner up Indian Idol 1) amongst others have made strides towards Bollywood.

Continuing struggle

“The actual struggle for a contestant starts once the show is over. To succeed, one requires a lot of willpower and perseverance and only people willing to make the effort succeed,” says Jatin Pandit (Jatin-Lalit fame) citing examples of Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal, themselves products of music shows.

“The contestant gets instant fame and success but there is a process for getting mainstrean success and they (the participants) have to understand how to sustain this pressure if they are to succeed,” says Mr. Pandit. — PTI

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