Telling the world

The Hero Indian Super League's football semifinal between Chennaiyin FC and Kerala Blasters FC recorded the highest number of online video views (1.1 million) ever witnessed in India for any single sport.

Star Plus general manager Gaurav Banerjee stated, “Story selection is very important. We must ensure that the social context of the adapted work is relevant to our time and place, and if we can, then there is no reason why adaptations shouldn’t work. While Star Plus started the trend with an adaptation of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ in 2000 (KBC), I personally thought that ’24’ was very well made and the production values set a very high standard.”

Star India COO Sanjay Gupta said, “Till a decade back, football was largely followed by an older audience. But with change, especially in the way the Internet has come in, the awareness of youngsters about football and Premier League in particular has grown astronomically. Earlier, apart from pockets in Bengal, Goa and Kerala, football ­ essentially interna tional football -was followed only by the affluent. Now you see SEC A to SEC E kids following it."