Taaza Khabar starring Bhuvan Bam became one of the most watched shows on OTT alongside Farzi and The Night Manager, with 23.5 million views and the content creator turned actor is delighted. “Since it was my debut on OTT, I had to make a mark. But I never thought that it’ll reach out to such a massive audience. To see my name listed with such personalities (Shahid Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapoor) gives me courage to put in more efforts,” he shares but is quick to add that it wasn’t that smooth to make the show.
“We truly believed in our script but maybe the industry didn’t feel so. A lot of people during the process of casting or just putting together a team didn’t take us very seriously.” Bam says he realised it soon enough into making the show that no one just gives you your dream role or a dream project. “You have to first prove yourself. Not everyone gets equal opportunity.”
Ask him why the industry was not very eager to support him, despite him having a huge social media following and Bam says, it’s because short form content creation is different than creating content for OTT. “Not everyone could’ve trusted me with big cheques required in order to create a show. It was a challenge for me to show the platforms as well as the audiences that I could pull this off. The struggle was hard to get this show off the ground. Everything from finances, to creatives liberties to every small nuance, we had to go through many numbers and many meetings where things didn’t go as we hoped it would,” he shares.
However, after the success of the show, things became easier. “Post the show, I have gained the trust of my audiences and the platforms as an actor/creator who is versatile. Those who wouldn’t respond to me my calls earlier, now do acknowledge and respond (laughs). Seriously ab log samajte hain that I can do more and be more,” shares Bam as he puts an end to all the wait and reveals that season 2 of the show is being written. “I assure that it’ll be even more exciting than the previous one,” he ends.
