Superhero Shaktimaan: In the 80’s and 90’s only two channels were running, one of which was Doordarshan and the other was DD Metro. A few select shows were run on these and they were liked a lot by the people of that era. Mukesh Khanna introduced superhero in India and the name of that superhero was ‘Shaktimaan’. This show was telecast on Doordarshan only and children used to enjoy this show every Sunday. For the children of 90’s, ‘Shaktiman’ is not considered a name but an emotion, but when it was suddenly discontinued, people were surprised.
‘Shaktiman’ became very popular among children in the 90s, but when the news of its closure suddenly came, people did not understand why this happened. This show was a superhit and its TRP was also quite good, so why did the makers stop the running show?
Why was ‘Shaktiman’ closed suddenly?
90’s superhit show Shaktimaan suddenly stopped while it was going on. People did not understand why this happened because this show was quite popular. After many years, Mukesh Khanna told about this and revealed why he had stopped this show. Actually, Mukesh Khanna had explained the reason for this on his YouTube channel during Corona. He said, ‘When Shaktimaan was started, he used to pay Rs 3 lakh to the owner of Doordarshan for telecasting on Doordarshan. He was not getting prime time, he got Tuesday night slot and Saturday day slot.
Mukesh Khanna further said, ‘I had made this show for children and if they did not watch it, there was no point. Children are in school on Saturdays and go to bed early during school weeks. In such a situation, I wanted the slot of the show to be of 12 noon on Sunday because at that time children are at home and can watch it comfortably. Earlier my show used to run on this slot but after its popularity increased, the owner of Doordarshan increased the fare and demanded Rs 7 lakh. I gave that also but after some time they demanded Rs 10 lakh and I was not able to do so. Because of this I had to stop this show.
When did ‘Shaktiman’ start?
The first episode of Shaktimaan was telecast on DD National on 6 September 1997. This show became so popular that even children started trying to fly like Shaktiman. After which, at the end of the show, Shaktimaan i.e. Mukesh Khanna used to come to teach the children. The name of this show was ‘Aakash’ which was later changed to ‘Shaktiman’. Mukesh Khanna had told in an interview that he had gone to big productions with the proposal of this show but no one had financed it. After which he started this show by borrowing from friends and then everyone knows what its popularity was.