New Delhi: Ever since comedian Kapil Sharma's show ‘Comedy Nights' went off air, tongues have been wagging about the actual reason behind the big move by the channel.
Till now, the spat between Kapil Sharma and Colors has been cited as the major ground on which the decision to stop ‘Comedy Nights' was taken.
While Kapil has expressed his disappointment with the channel time and again through different sources, there was no response from the channel authorities over the issue until now.
Colors CEO Raj Nayak has finally come out to reveal his side of the story. In an interview to a leading daily, he sought to set the record straight.
Explaining the whole scenario, Raj Nayak said, “We gave him a platform and co-created 'Comedy Nights...' with him. It was the channel's decision to call it 'Comedy Nights With Kapil' (originally the show was to be titled 'Comedy Nights'), as we felt that it would give him a sense of ownership and his loyalty to the show would be 100 per cent. We even helped him set up his production company.”
He further revealed how Kapil Sharma violated the contract by hosting shows on rival channels. “He started renegotiating and asking for more money which we gave, but the more important and worrying thing was that he violated his contract by hosting shows on competitive channels in spite of having an exclusive contract with Colors for TV, which we felt was not ethical,” Nayak added.
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When asked if the channel deliberately started ‘Comedy Nights Bachao' to get Kapil Sharma off its back, Nayak said that Kapil was the one who ‘forced' the channel to come up with the new show.
“He did not give us a choice and made his show a weekly and in the process, also doubled his fee. He ensured his personal remuneration didn't suffer, but caused a big financial loss to us. The truth is that we were forced to make CNWK once a week. And since we had built the weekend 10 pm slot as comedy, we had no choice but to bring in another comedy show in the slot vacated by Kapil,” explained Nayak.
Notably, Kapil Sharma has made allegations about the channel giving 'Comedy Nights Bachao' more prominence and even diverting celebrities to the show.
Thrashing the reports, Nayak said, “Both the shows were equally important to us. To ensure that both succeed, we kept promoting them with equal weight. We were clear as a channel that the success of either show need not necessarily be at the cost of the other. For us, they were both mutually exclusive.”
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When asked how tough it was for the channel to let go off its tops show, Nayak said, “For many reasons, the decision to let go of Kapil has been very tough. It has has been an emotional show for us. Together, Kapil and our creative team created magic. He is extremely talented, probably one of the best in this genre. We never asked him to go. He was not happy with us and implied that we couldn't have another comedy show on the channel. That was unacceptable to us. He chose to walk out. He is a nice guy being misled, I guess, by others around him for their own survival. I am very fond of him and feel really sad to see him go.”
He also talked of the possibility of Colors and Kapil coming together some day and said that channels has had no issues with him. “My team and I love Kapil Sharma the person and the artiste. We have not had any issues with him. He had issues with us. We respect his talent and would be happy to work with him in the future. The only condition being that he has to have a good set of managers and the terms of engagement should be mutually acceptable and respected,” he said.
