New Delhi: Ekta Kapoor may be the queen of saas-bahu daily soaps, but she isn’t one to play safe. In the era of small-time crime, Gen Z’s lack of attention span, brain rot and OTT rut, she is taking the biggest risk of all—bringing back Smriti Irani in the OG show Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi to Indian television.
It is 2025. India has changed. Viewing cultures have changed. So have entertainment platforms. But the real test is this: Have Indian families gotten over their bahu fixation?
Ekta Kapoor’s gamble will give us the answer.
“The decision to bring back the show in a limited-episode format is intentional. It caters to modern viewing habits while retaining the emotional depth and social relevance that made the original iconic. This is not about replicating the past. It is about using the legacy to start new conversations and engage audiences who still crave substance,” said Tanushri Dasgupta, EVP, Digital and TV, Balaji Telefilms.
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is what made Ekta Kapoor the powerhouse pioneer that she is today. Balaji Telefilms has a net worth of $ 10.73 billion with revenue of $ 4.53 billion. Over the years, she has been feared, cheered, and also mocked for her decisions by the national and global media. But she has been the unapologetic queen of entertainment-entertainment-entertainment.
“She’s always on,” was the headline of a Time magazine article about Kapoor in 2001.
In the 2000s, dinner plans were rescheduled, landlines would go silent, and families settled in front of their television sets at 9 pm. Kyunki saas bhi bahu thi was the Ramayan serial of the new generation. The iconic soap that ran for 1,800 episodes in eight years will be reprised 25 years after it first aired in 2000. It is a full circle moment for Kapoor, who started out in her teens to create a watershed moment in Indian television that no one saw coming. And she did it with women, specifically, saas and bahus. With a multi-year content deal with Netflix, a second season of her hit TV serial, and upcoming folk thriller VVAN – Force of the Forest, Kapoor has made her point–there will be no other content-making queen quite like her.
“ It was the tagline of 9 baj gaye kya on Star Plus (is it 9 pm ?) After Ramayana, it was Amitabh Bachchan in Kaun Banega Crorepati? And Ekta Kapoor’s serials and that made streets empty as people were hooked to the characters she had created,” said Faizal Akhtar, who worked with Balaji films.
The serial – with its bahu bling and guile – was Kapoor’s claim on the core of Indian families. Both the changing and unchanging parts.
Rise of TV’s big names
Kapoor created Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, and followed it up with Kasautii Zindagii Kay and Kkusum in the next year. As a young businesswoman in a field dominated almost entirely by men, Kapoor was aware of every new hook, episode planning, and scene that was going to be in her shows. “She used to sit for narrations back-to-back, working odd hours, sometimes post-midnight edits. She had this insane ability to jump from one story world to another without mixing up beats,” said Akhtar. It was her attention to detail and work ethic that helped Kapoor create blockbuster shows, one after another.
“If something is going to Ekta Kapoor, it has to be 100 percent ready, with every base covered. That is the core value system we all operate with at Balaji Telefilms,” said Dasgupta.
Kapoor’s one-woman show, unmatched to this day, had a rocky start. Six of her pilot episodes were rejected, and she lost Rs 50 lakh. But 1995 turned the tide, when Mano Ya Na Mano was picked up by Zee TV, and her music-based show Dhun Dhamaka was selected by Doordarshan. The same year, she created Hum Paanch, a sitcom about five sisters with distinct personalities, which became her breakthrough moment.
Time magazine called her “an unmarried writer who has melded the Harlequin-style pulp romance novels and sentimental Hindi films she loved as a lonely child with the very adult business of television. As a result, Ekta, 26, has become the subcontinental equivalent of David E. Kelley, creator-writer of Picket Fences and Ally McBeal.”
That was in 2001. And she was just getting started.
It was as if Kapoor tasted blood and would go on to have almost 35 TV serials, most of which would dominate TRPs, almost destroying any other competition. After her saas-bahu serials took off, Kapoor changed direction and even created ‘young love’ serials like Kahi Kisi Roz and the thriller, Kaahin Kissii Roz.
Dasgupta joined Balaji Telefilms a little after Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi had been announced, but casting and auditions were still ongoing. “Until then, when you thought of the media, you thought of journalism. These shows made us realise the scale of work happening in television, from creative to production to post-production. Suddenly, everyone wanted to come to Mumbai and work in the industry. It opened up a whole new world of career opportunities for young people, and it continues to be one of the highest-employing industries today,” said Dasgupta.
Each show also launched massive ensemble casts, many of whom went on to become the faces of Indian television. “She gave a platform to female actors of the time, and in fact there was such variety that the male characters started to look like cardboard cutouts. But in subsequent episodes, and shows, Kapoor also modified that,” said screenwriter and director Vaidehi Sancheti-Abhyankar.
It started with Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thii, followed by Kahani Ghar Ghar Kii and later Kahiin Toh Hoga and Kahin Kissi Roz in the late-night slots.
Actors like Smriti Irani, Sakshi Tanwar and Shweta Tiwari became household names and celebrities. These soaps travelled beyond India too. People in Afghanistan were hooked on ‘Tulsi’. Soon, a new generation of actors like Anita Hassanandani, Aamna Sharif and Ankita Lokhande joined the bandwagon. The serials also expanded to channels like Sony and Zee TV, creating an undisputed TV empire.
Something else shifted in Mumbai entertainment. The alphabet ‘K’ became the algorithm of success, and that was Kapoor’s gift to the industry. Call it superstition, numerology, or just dumb luck. But the chase for K spawned a herd mentality. For years, producers and directors began their movie titles with ‘K’. Everybody wanted to clone Kapoor’s success formula.
Kapoor’s takeover of primetime television also opened up job opportunities for an entire generation of actors, but notably, women. Till then, films were the only source of recognisable fame and glamour. With the advent of the K-serials, television acting careers became glamorous and were sought after.
“Suddenly, TV actors were doing toothpaste ads, detergent campaigns, public appearances—just like film stars. Their perceived integrity and morality was so strong because of the roles they played, that audiences trusted them beyond the show,” said Akhtar.
Also read: Congress mocks Smriti Irani’s return to TV. ‘Everyone returning to original professions’
Turning rituals into ratings
Long before creating spyverses and horror franchises became the norm, Kapoor was creating ‘maha episodes’, where characters from two different serials would come together for a wedding or some other momentous occasion. On 19 June 2006, Kahaani had a crossover with Kkavyanjali. In 2007 and 2008, the series had a crossover with Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. From making generation leaps to merging storylines in shows, Kapoor kept her audiences hooked, night after night.
“These serials gave time to Indian housewives. Earlier, the remotes would be with the men of the house, watching news at 9 or maybe cricket. But now, the women demanded the remotes, and slowly, the entire house started watching these shows,” said Sancheti-Abhyankar.
The shows were addictive and aired one after the other. Indian households were glued to their television sets as Kapoor’s characters laughed, cried, schemed, and even aged. Kapoor also gave TV some of its most iconic moments. “Before it was flowers brushing against each other, then came the opening of the dori of the blouse in K-serials that indicated romance and sexual tension between couples,” said Sweksha Bhagat who helms the flagship series writing course at Whistling Woods, and has written scripts for TV hits Kulfi Kumar Bajewala, Peshwa Bajirao and Chakravartin Ashok Samrat. It created a template of TV writing that has continued to date.
These serials sparked fashion trends across India—whether it was Urvashi Dholakia’s bindi and dark lipstick as Komolika in Kasauti Zindagi Kay, or Smriti Irani’s traditional sarees and gajras as Tulsi. Salwar suits became stylish, and kurtas the uniform of the ideal man.
Family households in Kapoor’s serial, from Gujarati to Marwari and even Bengali, broke away from the quintessential Punjabi depiction prevalent in films in the 1990s and 2000s. Festivals became days-long affairs, and teej and Karwa Chauth became pan-Indian celebrations. “While it wasn’t textbook ethnography, it was definitely pop-cultural anthropology. Balaji figured out how to turn rituals into ratings,” said Akhtar.
Naagin craze
A decade later, Kapoor changed gears and brought in the once failsafe formula of Hindi films to TV—the shapeshifting snake. With her show Naagin, which premiered in 2015, actors started vying with each other to land the role of the protagonist. Gossip columns and Reddit threads blew up after the end of every season, as speculations were made about which actor would play the next naagin. Mouni Roy, Tejasswi Prakash, to Surbi Jyoti–every popular TV actor has played the shapeshifting snake in the snow. The last season ended in 2023, and a new one is in production.
She knew the hit formula of old India and exploited it to the hilt.
The inside joke in Balaji Telefilms is that Kapoor’s young, 20-plus team was making old, conservative TV serials. As they hit their mid-40s, they are making racy and risque shows.
The films division of Kapoor’s company made films like Love Sex Aur Dhoka (2010), which was the first of its kind glimpse into the internet boom in the decade, and followed it up with the sex-horror flick Ragini MMS (2011).
Die-hard fanbase
The hallmark of Kapoor’s creative process was crafting content that kept viewers hooked, not just for the next episode, but through every ad break. “ The writers had to write keeping in mind the ad breaks. If there were three ad-breaks, there had to be three ‘hooks’ that made the audience glued to their seats, and also have a cliffhanger in every episode and every week,” said Sancheti.
Despite criticism for its over-the-top moments, it was the careful blend of drama and timing that drove the show’s TRPs—often above 7 and at times reaching 22.
“She made it okay to write for the masses. That wasn’t considered ‘cool’ once. But Ekta turned it into a business model. She taught us that massy doesn’t mean mindless. It means impactful, repeatable, relatable,” said Akhtar.
When Mihir, Tulsi’s husband, died in an episode, the TRP touched 22.4, beating even Amitabh Bachchan’s appeal in Kaun Banega Crorepati, which aired on Star Plus too. “I remember people protesting outside Balaji’s office, demanding he (Mihir) be brought back to life. The last time a nation responded in such an emotional manner was probably Bachchan sir after his accident on sets of Coolie,” said Faizal.
Mihir, played by Amar Upadhyay, was eventually brought back to life by Kapoor.
“Ekta Kapoor anticipates what the audience needs and creates something that becomes the DNA of all the templates of her content. Whenever there is a clutter-breaking moment, it ends up coming from Kapoor and Balaji,” said Bhagat. What started with television was followed by her OTT channel, Alt Balaji, launched in 2017. “When other streaming platforms were trying to be niche, AltBalaji created content from Mastram for tier 3-4 cities and villages,” added Bhagat.
Almost two decades later, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is set to return at 10:30 pm. “Its comeback tells us two things: One, the audience still craves familiarity and emotion-driven drama. Two, in the age of fragmented OTT content, TV still has its own grammar and loyal audience. This is not just a rerun; it’s a reminder—of how powerful shared cultural memory can be in entertainment,” said Akhtar.
To bring the bahu back in an age of mytho-fiction, action-thrillers, and anime is nothing short of a leap in the dark.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)