Aamir Khan's 'Satyamev Jayate' loses its Kannada audience

Aamir Khan’s latest television show ‘Satyamev Jayate’ may be broadcast in eight languages across the country but one of them definitely won’t be Kannada with the local entertainment industry refusing to relax its diktat preventing the dubbing of television serials.

The actor has already written to the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce seeking that it intervene and allow the serial, whose first show will be telecast on 6 May, to be dubbed into Kannada.

However, his plea seems to have fallen on deaf ears with those opposing the dubbing refusing to yield.

“Out of 58 serials on air everyday, you have so much production, post-production etc. So many people are involved, they depend on this. Once dubbing comes, half the programmes will be imported and all actors will become dubbing actors and lose their jobs,” Ravi Kiran, president of the Karnataka Television Association told CNN IBN.

The channel has reportedly decided not to take any action against the opposition to the dubbing of the show and has also given an oral assurance to the show’s opponents not to broadcast a dubbed version of the serial.

The restrictions on dubbing of films from other regional languages into Kannada has been in force since the 1960s with the local film industry opposing it on the grounds that it could stifle their growth. Subsequently the ban was extended to dubbed television serials affecting the broadcast of many popular shows in the state.

The ban has drawn flak from many quarters asking that it be relaxed in order to make films and serials produced in different languages more accessible.

The actor’s much publicised show is to premiere on Doordarshan and on Star Plus simultaneously but the content of the show has been kept under wraps with its trailers revealing little about what seems to be a combination of a travel and talk show.