Hyderabad : Hindi Satellite channel ”Colors” has recently claimed that their most popular show ‘Balika Vadhu’ has become the longest running daily drama series on Indian television with maximum number of episodes and also declared the same to Media through an appropriate press release.
In fact Mr. Raj Nayak – CEO of Colors also endorsed the same stating that ”we are proud to celebrate the milestone of being the longest running fiction drama on Indian television. This landmark achievement could not have been possible without our viewers’ unending love and relentless support and the hard work of our creative team and our producers.”
In addition to that Ms. Manisha Sharma, Programming Head, Colors, said, “After entertaining viewers through a record-breaking no of episodes, ‘Balika Vadhu’ is now ready for a brand new chapter to unfurl in the lives of Anandi and her children.”
However, tvnews4u.com had its own doubts over the channel’s claim, as we recently came across an update from the most famous and veteran Telugu director Mr. Dasari Narayan Rao that his serial ”Abishekam” has crossed 1900 episodes and heading to cross 2000 episodes in couple of months.
When we stumbled upon these two facts, we went ahead and did a small verification to check how far the claims of ‘Colors’ on ‘Balika Vadhu’ being the longest running fiction drama in the Indian Television (Indian Television according to us means all national and regional markets) is factually true.
After due verification with the channel and market sources it is understood that Telugu daily serial ”Abishekam” which is aired on Telugu satellite channel ”Eenadu TV” at 2.00pm on every Monday to Saturday, produced by Dasari Narayan Rao has completed 1911 episodes as on date (6th March) However, the Wikipedia page of Balika Vadhu shows that the program started on 21st July 2008 has competed 1831 episodes as on 28th February 2015. Going by this fact as on today(6th March) ‘Balikha Vadhu’ should be completing 1836 episodes only.
With this we could very well understand that ”Abishekam” on Eenadu TV is running ahead of ”Balikha Vadhu” at least by 75 episodes and it disserves to be longest running daily drama in Indian and Telugu Television history and hoping to cross the 2000th episode mark before the end of this year.
It is really unfortunate that ‘Colors’ went on to declare such tall claims without even verifying the fact that their own partner channel (ETV Group) in Telugu market is superseding their claims. Moreover, if their claim was limited to Hindi daily serials alone, then they should have been specific in declaring it as the longest running serial in Hindi, rather than calling it as India Television which comprises all National and Regional markets too.
Hence tvnews4u.com took note of 11 years leap in the story of Balika Vadhu from their recent media reports and did an article out of it alone, carefully avoiding the claim of ‘Colors’ on ‘Balika Vadhu’ as longest running show in India and resultant was this new fact finding article.
will ‘Colors’ come out with a justification for their claim….? Let’s wait and see….
