16-hour work hours, no creative inputs: Did Radhika Madan speak the uncomfortable truth about TV industry?

Radhika Madan who began her career with the daily soap, Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi, was a teenager when she started work as an actor. When asked about why she decided to make the switch as an actor from television to films, she spoke about how actors have to work for 40-50 hours at a stretch. The actor added that scripts were sent to the set minutes before the scene was shot. There was no scope for the actor to discuss the scene with the director of offer any creative inputs because there was just no time.

Unfortunately for Radhika, her debut soap was an Ekta Kapoor production and the comments ended up sounding like a criticism of the small screen czarina. Ekta ruled the small screen for years with daily soaps that she churned out from the stables of her production house, Balaji Telefilms.

However, Ekta is not the only villain here. There are multiple producers and channels churning out episodes day after day to earn revenue. Perhaps Radhika’s sarcastic tone was uncalled for but is there really a polite way of saying that the daily soap industry is a dysfunctional work environment?

More importantly, Radhika isn’t the first or the only actor who has spoken about finding it impossible to sustain the pressures of working in a daily soap. Well-known actor and general secretary of CINTAA Sushant Singh said in an interview in 2019, a few years after Radhika quit television. “No one follows any rules when it comes to working hours… Recently, we got a complaint from an actor where producers made him shoot for 24 hours and were only paying him for the 12 hours mentioned in his contract. We have been trying for years to have fixed rules for this, but no one follows any rules regarding shoot timings. It’s jungle raj, that’s the only way I can describe it,”

In a 2019 article on the difficult lives of daily soap stars, actor Vikas Manaktala said, “My first day of shoot was 22-23 hours long.” The actor added that if you are working in a daily soap, you should stop keeping count of working hours. Another actor on the same show anonymously added “How would I look good on screen when I am not even getting five hours of sleep? I have to be on set at least two hours before for makeup. No one takes accountability for those extra hours.”

Many of Ekta Kapoor’s proteges and now friends have disliked Radhika’s comments or the tone in which she spoke, and Ekta herself called the criticism sad and shameful. The interesting part, however, is that it has not prompted anyone to discuss whether there needs to be some introspection or change in the way daily soaps are churned out in India. I spoke to a former colleague and friend Harini* (name changed on request) who has continued working in television and is now a producer with another leading Hindi GEC. Harini says that not a word Radhika Madan said was wrong, but no one will agree with her publicly because they can’t afford to offend Ekta.

Though there are more laws in place now and unions to ensure fair working conditions but producing seven episodes a week necessarily means long working hours, and a nonstop work schedule. She mentions an interesting fact though. As much as we criticise daily soaps or episodic content, multiple leading OTT platforms like Disney+Hotstar, Voot and even Amazon Prime are now venturing into producing short series on their platforms instead of just focusing on big-budget tentpole shows.

Though these won’t have hundreds of episodes like a daily soap, this new form of content could be designed to run longer than the current web series do, and feature actors and producers who are currently working in television. Disney+ Hotstar’s show Aashiqana was a huge success, and this has opened up a whole new avenue for television producers and actors to work in the digital space.

Harini says, “It all comes down to revenue, unfortunately. Daily soaps budgets haven’t increased over the years and ratings have also fallen on the whole. But people are still watching these shows and they generate revenue so there it’s unlikely that programming on GEC channels will completely change anytime soon.”

However, once we have finished reprimanding Radhika Madan for finding fault with an inherently unfair and often unsustainable work-life balance, perhaps we need to also pause and think about the future of the daily soap. With so many more forms of content emerging thanks to social media and OTT platforms, perhaps television shows will also be forced to reinvent themselves and focus on the quality of writing and production. Maybe the day will soon come whenwe say, Kyunki soap bhi kabhi daily tha.