Some times silence says a lot.  It has been over 10 days since the  release of the  much awaited Surbhi Jyoti and Barun Sobti  starrrer web series Tanhiyaan  on Hotstar and neither the channel nor the actors/ production house( Four Lions)  have spoken much on the same. Normally when any new show  launches   there is lot of  hype created to drive initial  eye balls which  surprisingly is quite low key  here .    

Also HotStar is now leading the new web series trend of encouraging  binge watching  all  10 episodes of Tanhiyaan were downloaded in one go . In such a situation ideally   there should have been lot of pre release hype to bolster the initial binge run.   As a product gets time lapsed, it starts to lose its freshness for online viewers prefer to check out  launch date of content   they wana check out

 

Can it be that channel is not confident that that product will get the required number of hits, to justify the added marketing and PR cost and if after all this hype numbers don’t come they will be left with bad press as well.   A hit pairing of  Barun and Surbhi should have been the perfect launch pad for HotStar to kickstart it’s original   programming  slate as other rival  platforms  are all  set to come with their slew of original shows  as well. The channel  had also zeroed in  on a Valentine day  launch so the surge in web viewership should have been there. 

 

However a  source from this digital wing of  Star India  says  they wanted the   product to speak for itself . “We knew Barun’s popularity was enough to sell the show.”

 

All said and done, a press release  from HotStar giving out the initial viewership pattern will make things much more clearer. The best part of  the digital medium is that thanks to addressability, we can clearly know who is winning the ratings war as opposed to  TRP system on TV which has always been questioned.  

The success of Tanhiyaan is more important  to Barun for Surbhi already has a new Star plus show Koi Laut Ke Aaya Hai  in her kitty.  Barun on the other hand has no TV show and his film career also seems to be on the hold. He also  was part of the web sequel of  Iss Pyar Ko Kya Naam on HotStar.

- Anil Merani