Transformation of Ektaa Kapoor from producing family-oriented to bold content

The recent allegations put Ektaa under the spotlight with regard to her streaming platform and her transformation from a television producer known for family dramas to a digital producer who has recklessly leveraged the medium of streaming.

Mumbai: Producer Ektaa Kapoor and her mother Shobha Kapoor have been booked under the POCSO act owing to the obscene content involving minors on the streaming platform ALTT owned by Ektaa.

This is not the first time the producers have had a brush with the law. Earlier in 2020, an FIR was filed against Ektaa in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The complaint raised allegations of insult to the army personnel in Alt Balaji’s XXX web series.

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The recent allegations put Ektaa under the spotlight with regard to her streaming platform and her transformation from a television producer known for family dramas to a digital producer who has recklessly leveraged the medium of streaming.

Ektaa, who is considered one of the sharpest minds in showbiz, entered the industry at a very young age. She interned with the advertisement and feature filmmaker Kailash Surendranath. Soon after learning the ropes, she obtained financing from her father, Jeetendra, and turned producer under her banner Balaji Telefilms.

Her initial projects were failures, with six of her pilot episodes being rejected. The sitcom ‘Hum Paanch’ brought her first success. She continued to hold her fort in the new medium of television for the next five years until she struck gold with ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ and ‘Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii’, the two shows which forever changed the landscape of Hindi television.

During the late 1990s, television shows were mostly weekly or fortnightly shows. At the cusp of the millennium, Hindi television ventured into daily soaps which signalled the boom of the television economy at the same time as the dot com bubble burst.

‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ and ‘Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii’ turned out to be the flagship shows of Balaji Telefilms, and triggered a new wave in the medium of television, that of the melodrama daily soaps.

Once she established her stronghold on television, Ektaa ventured into the medium of films with titles like ‘Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta’ with Govinda in the lead, followed by ‘Kucch To Hai’ and ‘Krishna Cottage’ providing a bridge for the actors from television to diversify into the medium of films. However, the one that got her the most attention was the sleazy comedy ‘Kyaa Kool Hai Hum’.

She also produced a period crime drama ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’ and the highly experimental ‘Love Sex Aur Dhokha’ directed by National Award-winning filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee.

In a way, ‘Kyaa Kool Hai Hum’ was the origin story that would dictate what would work on ALTT, 12 years later. Ektaa always capitalised on a new medium with content that would set the tone and template for the road ahead.