Adgully Exclusive | Channels are scared of experimentation: Venita Coelho

Life for Venita Coelho has been nothing short of an adventurous ride, one that has seen many ups and downs, many successes and disappointments.

At a time when satellite television was making a serious mark on Indian television, Coelho eased her way into the industry.

Coelho started her career with UTV, and since then she has never looked back. And with Zee too coming in her portfolio, her journey as a writer and director was set for take-off.

What followed was a series of successful shows, which ensured that Coelho is here to stay. The high point of Coelho's career came with the popular soap "Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin. Coelho was the one who scripted the mega-serial, which saw Sony top the TRP charts in early 2000s.

Coelho did her initial studies in Kolkata, before moving to Mumbai. As a writer, she always had it in her to make her presence felt on the television channel.

Writing has been close to her heart and that's why she has scripted some of television shows as Anamika - a five episode thriller, which was for the 'Thriller at Ten' slot on Zee TV.

Why! even she has contributed for a French channel, a program called The Thief and the Prince.

And after being top at the helm of affairs in the industry, she decided to it's time to hang up the boots and pass on the things that she has learnt over the years.

And that's why she had decided to write a book on Indian television industry itself.

In "Soap! Writing and surviving television in India", Coelho explains why there is a serious lack of imagination in TV writing and how the scene can change for the better.

"The book, "Soap! Writing and surviving television in India" as the name suggests is the about surviving in the industry. I believe surviving part is far more difficult aspect of television than writing," she explains.

"Writing aspect too is difficult as you have to come up with new and innovative concepts each time and you are just given four to five screenplays a week. But worse than that is the system," she adds.

"The kind of feedback and interference from channels where you write and rewrite umpteen times, where the producers don't pay you, where you deal with the system where your credits are arbitrarily assigned or dropped, where your ideas get stolen. It is very difficult to survive that aspect of it. Part of the book is about writing for the industry and part of the book is about just surviving in the industry," she says.

So what was the inspiration behind the book?

Well Coelho says she simply wanted to share her experiences. "I had reached a point where I was completely disillusioned with television and I was ready to quit. And when I decided to quit I realized I had spent so many long, hard and difficult years in television, learning so many lesson. I didn't want these experiences to go to waste.

"And I saw that the young writers that I mentored were going through the same cycle that I had, learning the same lessons the hard way. This is a book which I wished I had when I just started out my career as a writer," she says.

And with the quality of television content gown down day by day, Coelho feels that the "golden era' cannot be replicated. "Gone are the days when we used to have programmes like Buniyaad and Hum Log. Agreed those were the times of a single channel universe, Doordarshan, so it could captivate the audience with shows which were more of realistic," says the St Xavier's College, Kolkata alumni.

"But today there are so many shows, the competition is very high. I don't think the channels can ever have the luxury of experimenting with shows. So no the golden era of old shows cannot be revived but yes similar shows can be done as a certain part of channel programming," she adds.

Television these days seems to be following a herd mentality.

"Yes I think the way television functions what it has slowly done it has reeled out all the out of box thinkers. It has become such a big business that it is very difficult to take risks. Just the programming head cannot change that, the change has to be supported by the entire system," says Coelho.

"Right now it is so dictated by the marketing and economics, all of these people have to also agree that this kind of change has to happen. You are looking at a systematic change or an economic change. When there is no money coming in that is when big changes start to happen. I am hoping that channels that are not doing well will be compelled to do a different kind of programming," she adds.

Coelho believes one of the main reasons, why Indian television is reeling out shows that lack the grip is due to lack of intelligent writers. Besides, writers are not given the freedom and channels need to ensure that they too are on the same page.

"I don't have a problem with family sagas but the same things can be written much more intelligently. Well for starters, certainly positive role models can be put out. Why can't we covering the same ground of family politics to better story content, to better presentive more rounded characters to messages that are positives? The same theme can be done so differently," she says.

"I have full respects for writers who are in this field of television writing ' it's one of the toughest jobs to do. Writers are not the one who dictates content any longer, it is the channels. Channels need to see things differently and writers need to be supported," she adds.

"I think the problem is when you turn out the volumes of programming, it is a lot. One month you are doing 12 episodes, which is equivalent to two or three full length feature films. That means it is a lot of screenplay writing.

"And just because of the sheer volume, a lot of mediocrity creeps in. So out of the bulk of stuff, 80 per cent of the things you see on TV will be mediocre but if TV could only give up the 20 per cent that is well written, I would have no arguments with television. However no one is trying to do that," she explains.

Coelho feels it's time intelligent script writers come into picture and encourages youngsters to enter the television industry. "Children these days are very smart and are not as innocent as we were. Television needs sensible people who can run the industry. And change it.

Television could be the most powerful medium (in India). We need thinking channel heads who look beyond TRPs," she says.