Many UK viewers have been questioning why the musical talent show ‘Voice Of India’ was not launched simultaneously with India last month.
‘Voice Of India’ which is STAR Plus’ new ratings winner has been produced by Gajendra Singh, who has previously been behind the successful shows ‘Antakshari’ and ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ (on ZEE TV) and ‘Antakshari – The Great Indian Challenge’ (on STAR One).
‘Voice Of India’, which was previously cheekily titled ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa’ has already seen its fair share of controversies. ZEE Network threatened legal action against STAR over the name of the show, which resembles the name of its own long running property ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’.
Ashish Kaul, senior vice president of ZEE Telefilms said, “Gajendra Singh has been one of our most efficient employees and he conceptualised both ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ and ‘Antakshari’, with ZEE as a valid platform. We respect individual growth and have no problems with his movement to STAR. Yet, we have seen that ‘Antakshari’ has a lot of similarities to our programme. And now, they are coming up with a copy of our ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ with the same name. To add fuel to the fire, they are roping in the same judges and the same anchor. Gajendra has worked with us for such a long time that he is now just creating duplicates of our original shows and STAR is giving him all the support. So, we are planning a legal action against them.”
Nevertheless, STAR Plus has seen a popularity surge for the programme and has surpassed the ratings of ZEE TV’s flagship shows ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ and ‘Saat Phere’.
Prem Kamath, Head of Communications & Marketing, STAR Plus, told Screen India, “Voice Of India has seen a phenomenal growth of 60 per cent in the four weeks since its launch, and Kasturi which came on a slot dominated by ZEE’s flagship ‘Saat Phere’ has overtaken the soap within seven weeks of its launch.” For the week ending June 9, STAR’ ‘Voice Of India’ has a rating of 4.3 while ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ has 4.1. ‘Kasturi’ has averaged 3.8 while ‘Saat Phere’ has averaged 3.6 for the week between June 4 – 9.
Due to legal issues involving Indian sponsorship and advertising on the programme, ‘Voice Of India’s’ launch in the UK was deterred. The programme has now been scheduled to launch in the UK from the start in August.
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