Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair, who has witnessed highs such as 'Kaun Banega Crorepati', wants to develop a full-blown studio that makes more than just movies
Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
On a flight back from London, Amitabh Bachchan told Sameer Nair that if they replicated the format accurately and got everything right, “faad kay rakh denge [we’ll make it a monster hit]”. The year was 2000 and Nair, who was then programming head at Star Plus, had taken the megastar to the sets of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire in the UK to convince him to host the Indian adaptation of the game show. Bachchan and his family were reluctant, and understandably so. It was a time when the actor was making a comeback to films after a brief sabbatical in the 1990s. And a legend of the 70 mm screen hosting a quiz programme on television was a crazy idea at the turn of the millennium. “I was fixated on Mr Bachchan. His was the only name on my list. I really pursued him,” recalls Nair. Bachchan eventually relented and became the cynosure of all eyes on Indian television after Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) was first aired on Star Plus in July 2000. The rest, as they say, is history.
A media and entertainment industry veteran, 56-year-old Nair has had several highs in a career spanning more than 25 years. His latest bet, Applause Entertainment—a content and intellectual property (IP) creation studio, a venture of the Aditya Birla Group, set up in 2017—is currently basking in the success of Scam 1992, a web series based on the life of ‘Big Bull’ Harshad Mehta. Since the 10-episode show was streamed on digital platform SonyLIV in October 2020, it has been winning multiple awards, including one for Best Web Series at the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards 2021.
“It’s always good to have a big success… one can’t deny that. It’s a logical evolution from where we started. And a validation of what we are doing and what we set out to do. What the show did was it drew a whole bunch of existing viewers to Applause and SonyLIV. More people take us seriously now,” says Nair, CEO of Applause.
A self-confessed Steven Spielberg fan, Nair had been wanting to incorporate something like Applause since 1999. His inspiration was the Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s Amblin Entertainment, a classic movie studio. However, with KBC becoming a game changer and his subsequent elevation as COO and CEO at Star India keeping him busy with revamps and launches, the plan remained on the backburner.
Amitabh Bachchan promoting Kaun Banega Crorepati, a show brought to India by Sameer Nair
(This story appears in the 23 April, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)