By providing a platform for Pakistani serials in India, the Zee network has addressed a long-held grouse among people on the other side of the border — about how Bollywood had finished their film industry.
Though a trickle compared to the Bollywood films that flood Pakistan, the phenomenal viewership for the handful of Pakistani television serials that have been aired on Zee’s Zindagi channel, since its launch on June 23, is bound to encourage Pakistan’s entertainment industry, which is trying to get back on its feet against huge odds. Whether it was just fatigue with the same old saas-bahu fare dished out by heavily dressed actors living in palatial homes or the latent thirst for what has mostly been ‘forbidden fruit’ — as the laws do not allow direct downlinking of Pakistani channels into Indian homes — there is no denying that serials like Aunn Zara and Zindagi Gulzaar Hai have breathed new life into television viewing here.
ViewershipThe viewership cuts across age, gender and class divide as the routine fare on offer — on both Hindi and regional channels — appeared to be clones of each other.
