He’s the man behind one of India’s biggest reality TV shows. Meet Deepak Dhar, the MD and CEO of Endemol India, the production house that creates Bigg Boss.
What goes into making Bigg Boss?
We have a team of 400 people constantly present on site. The team works in eight-hour shifts. We even have story producers, bloggers, everybody on our pay roll so nothing that happens in the house is missed.
This season, the contestants are less controversial…
You can’t just keeping pulling the same trick out of the bag. Anything done too many times gets boring. We were just looking at locking interesting people, controversial or not.
Do you agree having Salman Khan as host is also a major draw?
We are grateful Salman is taking the journey ahead. He brings some sanity to the madness. He scolds, encourages and motivates contestants. He monitors the tapes and offers suggestions that we are happy to execute.
How are the tasks designed?
The team brainstorms on the different kinds of tasks that can be given to the contestants. The tasks are also designed to test endurance levels of the contestants and to bring out their competitiveness.
Which were the story lines that your team expected, but didn’t happen?
When we were considering casting Puneet Issar on the show, we thought that his towering personality could intimidate fellow contestants. But Punit showed his emotional, soft-spoken side.
And what happened that you hadn’t predicted?
We did not expect Deepshikha to be voted out in the early weeks of Bigg Boss 8.
