TV Times

TV Times

Lucky Dias warns about Indian Invasion on local TV
By Susitha R. Fernando
Well-known actor and teledrama director Lucky Dias warns that Sri Lankan teledrama industry would soon face a similar plight of the local cinema with the invasion of Indian soap operas.

Commenting on the Sri Lankan telerdrama and the role of the TV stations lucky said "I dare to say if this trend continues there won't be any audience left to see the locally produced teledramas".

The private TV channels which concerns only about the market and the money dish out anything that they could attract the audience. Whatever the rating says at present Indian imported soap has attracted the audience, who are searching for light entertainment but nothing deep. "Today the Sri Lankan TV viewers are so glued to these productions which are fully Indian except their language have forgotten to watch even local news," Lucky explained.

"I am reliably aware that another competitive TV channel to the channel, that most of Indian teledramas are telecast at present, has already made arrangements and ground work has already being laid to produce similar type of dramas. They have even hired the Indian directors, who had directed the dramas that are popular in Sri Lanka at present".

What the result would be is that there would be more and more Indian dramas coming in to the country to be telecast in all the channels. Asked as to what impact would have on Sri Lankan teldrama industry, Lucky said "If this continues what would happen to the Sri Lankan directors and actors and actresses? This is why I call this an invasion. Soon there will be a day where Indian actors and actresses becoming popular actors and actresses while the local cast are awaiting without dramas to act".

Referring to the cinema Lucky said, though in a different way, similar was the Indian invasion on Sri Lankan cinema at the beginning. "Thus today this invasion had gone to the extent that India films are released in Sri Lanka even before they are released in India today. The worst part of this invasion is been strongly supported by some of the media institutes and radio stations by going on massive campaigns and offering free tickets.

Unfortunately this happened at a time where our local directors who had come with international awards and languishing in queues to release their internationally awarded films. In response to who was responsible for this "our directors themselves should be responsible for this."

At a time when Indian photocopy dramas are released here what are our directors doing? What our so called Producers' associations are doing?" Lucky questioned. They are just keeping quite and it was this type of silence that ruined the cinema industry too.

Asked as to what are the remedial measures in his opinion this experienced actor and director said "the existence of any industry including teledrama is dependant on the quality of what we produce. Therefore the directors should be encouraged to make quality teledramas that suits the Sri Lankan audience."
And it is also high time that those who are in these organization such as teledrama producers association and other organizations open their eyes and find solution to these problem.

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