Koffee With Karan, the talk show helmed by Karan Johar with impishness, irreverence and insouciance, is doing what it does always: Garner the headlines. The incestuous talk show mostly with Bollywood A-listers or the occasional up and coming star from the South, has always produced a line or two that the sensational rags are after. In the past, among its major controversial episodes was the one featuring, ironically two non-Bollywood personalities --- Indian cricketers Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul. A couple of fun comments landed the duo in a soup that they were suspended and even sent from Australia, where they were playing in a series against the Aussies. A case was registered against them for making misogynistic comments. As it happens, a Jodhpur court today dropped the charges against the duo.
The show from that season went on a hiatus for 3 three years and has been revived only this season from July 7. And right from the first episode of the season, which featured Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt as the guests, there has been no dearth of snapshots that trigger outrage among the public for different reasons.
But triggering controversies is one thing, and getting viewership is another. Has Koffee With Kiran, which has now moved to an OTT platform --- Disney Plus Hotstar, to be precise --- from TV (Star World) grown big? In its seventh season, is the show justified in making the shift to digital only streamer?
Streamer claims good numbers
Right after the first show, the streamer put out a press release in which it claimed: "Koffee with Karan became the highest watched show and subscribed under Hotstar Specials. The maiden episode, featuring electrifying Bollywood duo – Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, recorded the biggest opening on day 1, across all seasons of the show."
As is the case with streaming platforms, this claim from Disney Plus Hotstar is independently unverifiable. But it does not seem an improbable claim. For, the audience for a show like Koffee With Karan --- typically, English-speaking, urban crowd --- have moved on to OTT platforms. The show itself is in a chatty English-Hindi style. It made logical sense for the show, which is decidedly provocative, titillating and controversial, funny and silly, to move to a streamer where such things are not looked askance at.
This season, the questions are, even by the standards of the show, are more explicit and daring. Karan has been naughtily pigeonholing his guests on the topics of suhaag raat to sex playlist and threesomes.
Gaurav Banerjee, Head - Content, Disney Plus Hotstar & HSM Entertainment Network, Disney Star, said, "the idea behind transitioning a show to the streamer was to take it to a larger audience. It underlines how our viewers wish to get to know their favourite celebrities up close in a candid and fun set-up."
So, the shift seems to have worked. Even though we may not have the numbers to prove that, the controversies it has generated do not, however, lie.
All publicity is good publicity
In the new season, the show, which starts streaming every Thursday from 7 p.m., has had four different episodes so far. Apart from Ranveer-Alia one, the three others featured Jahnvi Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Vijay Devarakonda and Ananya Pandey. This week's upcoming episode will feature Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor. Basically, at least one participant in each episode will have a film waiting for release or just released one.
Alia Bhatt has Darlings ready on OTT. Jahnvi had Good Luck Jerry waiting to stream. Akshay just had Samrat Prithviraj out. Vijay and Ananya will have Liger release later this month. Ditto for Aamir and Kareena, whose Lal Singh Chaddha will hit the theatres on August 11.
So, the participants, in a sense, are also incentivised to say something sensational that will be picked up by controversy-hungry media. After all, the oldest dictum in filmdom is: All publicity is good publicity. Old or new platform, some formulas are the same.
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