How long will you watch toxicity: Alliance producer on competition with Lock Upp
Producer Deepak Dhar has positioned Alliance as an anti-reality show that rejects toxic conflict. He said the Prime Video series was built around camaraderie and hope to test whether audiences want a different kind of reality television.
Producer Deepak Dhar believes Indian audiences have had enough of toxic reality television. His latest show, Alliance, was constantly compared to Netflix's Lock Upp after the two shows launched in the same week. However, Dhar said the similarity ended there. According to him, Alliance was consciously designed as the 'anti-reality show', one that replaces screaming matches and manipulation with camaraderie and hope.
Speaking exclusively to India Today Digital, Dhar admitted that there was inevitable competition between the two shows but maintained that Alliance was built with a completely different vision.
"[We come] with positive beats... a vocabulary that's fresher, more unique, clearly. I am happy my friends have taken a little bit of a playbook out of what we have done over the last many, many years. But I honestly don't see that that's going to last too long, because how long will you watch toxic content? I know there's room and space for that. But I think the world is very different today, and it's not the right way to do it."
How did Dhar come up with Alliance?
Dhar added that the idea behind Alliance came after years of producing reality television, including Bigg Boss. Having seen the genre evolve over the years, he began wondering whether audiences were ready for something that wasn't built around conflict.
He said, "Starting off from the fact that we produce so much of Bigg Boss and captive reality space. We've been the torchbearers of bringing reality into the country much before it was even called reality television. I thought there was one direction that reality has taken, but is there time to explore a new direction? And that's when Alliance was born. It's actually a global format coming out of the Netherlands. So we picked it up, knowing that this is a format that we can really make very differently."
Dhar, who is also the founder and CEO of Banijay Asia, revealed that even before work began on the adaptation, his team laid down one non-negotiable rule: to make it anything but negative or toxic.
"So those were the first things we wrote on a white piece of paper and a whiteboard, saying nothing negative, nothing toxic, nothing of significant conflict. Is there a reality show that is an anti-reality show? That was the starting point of our journey," he said.
Dhar wants to prove things otherwise
He credited his core team for helping bring that vision alive and proving that audiences don't necessarily need hostility to stay invested. "We have demonstrated that people want to watch bromance... people want to watch relationships that have... there's hope at the end of it, and there's nothing toxic about it. People want to watch camaraderie, bonding, and they want to watch little skirmishes but with a very positive dose," he added.
Dhar further said that he wanted to prove reality television could still be entertaining without becoming unpleasant. "I really wanted to demonstrate to everybody watching that not all reality shows need to be toxic. You know who I'm referring to at this point (Lock Upp). But I just feel, you know, you can make something positive and can still be organic, and it can be real," he concluded with a smile.
Alliance streams on Prime Video.
Producer Deepak Dhar believes Indian audiences have had enough of toxic reality television. His latest show, Alliance, was constantly compared to Netflix's Lock Upp after the two shows launched in the same week. However, Dhar said the similarity ended there. According to him, Alliance was consciously designed as the 'anti-reality show', one that replaces screaming matches and manipulation with camaraderie and hope.
Speaking exclusively to India Today Digital, Dhar admitted that there was inevitable competition between the two shows but maintained that Alliance was built with a completely different vision.
"[We come] with positive beats... a vocabulary that's fresher, more unique, clearly. I am happy my friends have taken a little bit of a playbook out of what we have done over the last many, many years. But I honestly don't see that that's going to last too long, because how long will you watch toxic content? I know there's room and space for that. But I think the world is very different today, and it's not the right way to do it."
How did Dhar come up with Alliance?
Dhar added that the idea behind Alliance came after years of producing reality television, including Bigg Boss. Having seen the genre evolve over the years, he began wondering whether audiences were ready for something that wasn't built around conflict.
He said, "Starting off from the fact that we produce so much of Bigg Boss and captive reality space. We've been the torchbearers of bringing reality into the country much before it was even called reality television. I thought there was one direction that reality has taken, but is there time to explore a new direction? And that's when Alliance was born. It's actually a global format coming out of the Netherlands. So we picked it up, knowing that this is a format that we can really make very differently."
Dhar, who is also the founder and CEO of Banijay Asia, revealed that even before work began on the adaptation, his team laid down one non-negotiable rule: to make it anything but negative or toxic.
"So those were the first things we wrote on a white piece of paper and a whiteboard, saying nothing negative, nothing toxic, nothing of significant conflict. Is there a reality show that is an anti-reality show? That was the starting point of our journey," he said.
Dhar wants to prove things otherwise
He credited his core team for helping bring that vision alive and proving that audiences don't necessarily need hostility to stay invested. "We have demonstrated that people want to watch bromance... people want to watch relationships that have... there's hope at the end of it, and there's nothing toxic about it. People want to watch camaraderie, bonding, and they want to watch little skirmishes but with a very positive dose," he added.
Dhar further said that he wanted to prove reality television could still be entertaining without becoming unpleasant. "I really wanted to demonstrate to everybody watching that not all reality shows need to be toxic. You know who I'm referring to at this point (Lock Upp). But I just feel, you know, you can make something positive and can still be organic, and it can be real," he concluded with a smile.
Alliance streams on Prime Video.
Producer Deepak Dhar believes Indian audiences have had enough of toxic reality television. His latest show, Alliance, was constantly compared to Netflix's Lock Upp after the two shows launched in the same week. However, Dhar said the similarity ended there. According to him, Alliance was consciously designed as the 'anti-reality show', one that replaces screaming matches and manipulation with camaraderie and hope.
Speaking exclusively to India Today Digital, Dhar admitted that there was inevitable competition between the two shows but maintained that Alliance was built with a completely different vision.
"[We come] with positive beats... a vocabulary that's fresher, more unique, clearly. I am happy my friends have taken a little bit of a playbook out of what we have done over the last many, many years. But I honestly don't see that that's going to last too long, because how long will you watch toxic content? I know there's room and space for that. But I think the world is very different today, and it's not the right way to do it."
How did Dhar come up with Alliance?
Dhar added that the idea behind Alliance came after years of producing reality television, including Bigg Boss. Having seen the genre evolve over the years, he began wondering whether audiences were ready for something that wasn't built around conflict.
He said, "Starting off from the fact that we produce so much of Bigg Boss and captive reality space. We've been the torchbearers of bringing reality into the country much before it was even called reality television. I thought there was one direction that reality has taken, but is there time to explore a new direction? And that's when Alliance was born. It's actually a global format coming out of the Netherlands. So we picked it up, knowing that this is a format that we can really make very differently."
Dhar, who is also the founder and CEO of Banijay Asia, revealed that even before work began on the adaptation, his team laid down one non-negotiable rule: to make it anything but negative or toxic.
"So those were the first things we wrote on a white piece of paper and a whiteboard, saying nothing negative, nothing toxic, nothing of significant conflict. Is there a reality show that is an anti-reality show? That was the starting point of our journey," he said.
Dhar wants to prove things otherwise
He credited his core team for helping bring that vision alive and proving that audiences don't necessarily need hostility to stay invested. "We have demonstrated that people want to watch bromance... people want to watch relationships that have... there's hope at the end of it, and there's nothing toxic about it. People want to watch camaraderie, bonding, and they want to watch little skirmishes but with a very positive dose," he added.
Dhar further said that he wanted to prove reality television could still be entertaining without becoming unpleasant. "I really wanted to demonstrate to everybody watching that not all reality shows need to be toxic. You know who I'm referring to at this point (Lock Upp). But I just feel, you know, you can make something positive and can still be organic, and it can be real," he concluded with a smile.
Alliance streams on Prime Video.
