Saregama Accelerates its Television Business
Saregama India Ltd, the flagship Music Company of India and the entertainment arm of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, as a part of its growth strategy ramps up its Television Content Management team by hiring two senior creative people, namely Rajesh Beri and Siddharth Anand.
Rajesh Beri features in the LIMCA BOOKS OF RECORDS for writing the maximum number of episodes of any serial and the only writer in the country to write 1328 episodes, story, screen play, dialogues and lyrics for one serial solely. He has more than 45 serials to his credit, telecast across all the major national channels like Star Plus, Sony, DD, Zee TV to name a few.
Siddharth Anand comes on board with a degree in film making from Hampshire College in Massachusetts. With directorial projects like “Zinda” on Sony TV, “Hello Pratibha” on ZEE TV, “Shastri Sisters” on Colors, Siddharth has established himself as one of the finest directors in the Television world.
Mr. Vikram Mehra, MD Saregama, said “Saregama is very serious about creating good quality content for television and with Rajesh and Siddharth, two industry veterans, on board we hope to achieve greater highs in the coming time.”
Saregama, besides owning the largest music archive in India and one of the biggest in the World, is also one of the leading producers of Content for TV channels in Hindi, Tamil and Bangla. Today, this business contributes over 35% to the company’s revenue. The company has currently got 7 shows on air and another 3 getting launched in next three months.
June 2001 marked the foray of Saregama in the Television space in South. It has since then produced approximately 4000 hours of TV Content on Sun Network, covering diverse genres like socio mythology, family soaps, fantasy fiction, horror etc. in all four South Indian Languages. Many of its popular soaps and serials have crossed three years of telecast and are still garnering eyeballs amongst the viewers. “Athi Pookkal”, a leading TV serial, launched in the afternoon band of Sun TV and was a phenomenal success, crossing over 1000 episodes. Saregama has also produced several non-fiction shows with celebrity judges such as A.R.Rahman, Vasundhara Das, Shivmani, Lawrence, Mumtaz, Malavika etc. Saregama currently has 8 hours of programming per week on Sun TV out of which two are daily soaps (“Chandralekha” and “Valli”), one is a horror fiction (Bhairavi) and the other a family game show “Chellame Chellam”. Saregama has won several awards for its programs from Sun Network and a State Award for best child artiste for the serial “My Dear Bhootham”. Saregama’s Bangla TV space has seen huge success with “Kon Kanoner Phool” on Zee Bangla, “Raja Rajeshwari” on Mahua, “Apur Katha” on ETV Bangla(now Colors). Saregama also has its own studios at Dum Dum where “Dadagiri” with Saurav Ganguly, “Dance Bangla Dance” with Mithun Chakraborty, “Saregama Lil Champs”, “Didi No.1” etc. have been shot.
Saregama’s debuted on National TV at prime time with “Prayaschit”, a Crime based show for Sony. This was followed by “Police Files” season 1&2 and “Pyar Ya Dehshat”, both 100 plus episodes each on BIG channels. Currently Saregama has 2 shows running on Doordarshan at prime time, “Stree Shakti” and “Jab Jab Bahar Aayi”. Along with TV shows, Saregama is also producing Vignettes based on the Famous Speeches of renowned leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, etc. for EPIC TV. Saregama has been a regular producer of Savdhaan on Life OK. Till date we have produced 175+ episodes and 8 Maha Movies of the said program. Currently Saregama is producing for the Maharashtra Fights Back series, which is aired over the weekend.
About Saregama India Ltd:
Listed on the NSE and BSE, Saregama India Limited, is India’s largest and best-known music recording company.
Formerly known as The Gramophone Company of India Ltd, Saregama owns the largest music archives in India, one of the biggest in the world. The ownership of nearly 50 per cent of all the music ever recorded in India also makes Saregama the most authoritative repository of the country’s musical heritage. Saregama has now expanded into other branches of entertainment – it is involved in publishing, television software and digital content. It also runs studio facilities in Dum Dum, Kolkata making it one of the best end-to-end entertainment houses in the country.
