The Comedy Nights with Kapil VS Comedy Nights Live war has been going on for over a long period of time now.
Right from Kapil being called as a coward to Krushna being termed as a monkey, both the teams of respective shows have shown their resentment towards one another. Now spilling the beans over the issue, Colors CEO Raj Nayak considers Kapil himself responsible for the ace comedy show to go off air.
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While talking to a leading daily, Nayak said, "The success of the show meant that we had a person who suddenly became a star and found it difficult to manage his success. He (Kapil) started renegotiating and asking for more money which we gave, but the more important and worrying thing was that he violated his contract by hosting shows on competitive channels in spite of having an exclusive contract with Colors for TV, which we felt was not ethical,"
He also stated that Comedy Nights With Kapil was originally named Comedy Nights but the channel decided to add Kapil's name to it as that would give him a sense of ownership.
According to Raj, the trouble between Kapil and the channel began with the introduction of Comedy Nights Bachao. As a channel, Colors wanted movie stars to feature on Comedy Nights Bachao too as both shows are the channel's property. They too deserved equal promotion, but it didn't go down well with Kapil. "His managers started panicking when in terms of ratings, Comedy Nights Bachao started doing well and better than Comedy Nights With Kapil in some episodes. And instead of working with our creative team and finding ways to reinvent and make the show ratings better, they kept living in denial and started casting aspersions on the channel."
He also said that that the new show was brought in due to Kapil only. Kapil had insisted on doing Comedy Nights with Kapil only once a week, which is why the new show had to be ideated to fill the 10 pm slot on Saturdays. "We didn't do Comedy Nights Bachao by choice. Instead, we requested Kapil not to make his show once a week as it was financially not feasible to us. He said he is busy with movies and doesn't have the time. He did not give us a choice and made his show a weekly and in the process, also doubled his fee... And since we had built the weekend 10 pm slot as comedy, we had no choice but to bring in another comedy show in the slot vacated by Kapil," he said.
In the beginning, Kapil was paid approximately Rs 70 lakh to produce each episode and the show was aired once a week. But as the show topped the TRP charts, the show started airing two episodes per week. In 2014, Kapil apparently started asking the channel to renegotiate his rates. When they didn't agree, he decided to feature in the opening episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati season 8 with Big B on August 17, 2014. The show was telecasted at the same time slot as Comedy Nights With Kapil. Colors then had to renegotiate his compensation, which was hiked to Rs 1.25 crore per episode.
On cutting professional ties with the comedian, Raj says, "He is a nice guy being misled, I guess, by others around him for their own survival. I am very fond of him and feel really sad to see him go. Our best wishes are with him in his future endeavours. I am sure he will experience the difference. There have been fights in the TV industry and the warring parties have even patched up at a later date," he said.
Well, we too hope the bitterness fades away soon!
source: TIMES OF INDIA
