Bigg Boss 13 reruns pulled off air as show reminded viewers of their own situation in lockdown: report

Bigg Boss 13 reruns are no longer on air as the audience did not love the idea of watching people locked down in a house.

Colors TV has pulled the reruns of Bigg Boss season 13 off air as it failed to garner audience. The latest season was among the show’s most watched last year with more fights, love stories and controversies than ever before.

Shehnaaz Gill and Siddharth Shukla in a picture from Bigg Boss 13.

The reruns began from March 23 at 10 pm and were discontinued from April 13. The show was replaced by Dance Deewane Season 1. A source told The Times of India, “Bigg Boss 13 had enjoyed massive viewership a few months ago and hence was brought back, but things haven’t been the same this time around. Viewers’ preferences keep changing and given the current situation, the channel would like to understand want to audiences want to really watch. They aired Bigg Boss as an experiment and the coming weeks will see many old shows returning including ‘Balika Vadhu, which went on air on April 13.”

The report also quoted a few viewers who said they do not wish to watch the show amid the coronavirus lockdown as it’s too eerily similar to their own situation. In Bigg Boss, around a dozen participants are locked up inside a house where they cook, wash, do all household chores, entertain themselves--often with screaming matches and romances.

Various channels are following the Doordarshan model which brought back old 80s and 90s show such as Ramayan and Mahabharata to cash in on nostalgia amid the lockdown. The reruns made DD the most-watched channel and set the TRPs soaring. Zee has brought back reruns of Hum Paanch and even Colors brought back their first big hit, Balika Vadhu.

Taking to Instagram Story, Balika Vadhu actor Avika Gor posted a video that shows her singing the show’s title track, Choti Si Umar Mein, a Rajasthani folk.“Balika Vadhu re-telecast.... I am so overwhelmed,” she captioned the video, thanking her other former co-stars.

Balika Vadhu was aired from 2008 to 2016. The show deals with the issue of child marriage. The cast included Surekha Sikri, Vikrant Massey and Sidharth Shukla.

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