Raj Nayak opens up on Kapil Sharma’s Colors exit

Colors, CEO, Raj Nayak has finally lift the lid on the departure of comedy king, Kapil Sharma after numerous rumours doing the rounds over the past few weeks.

Talking to Delhi Times, Nayak said, “Kapil Sharma was on television for over 10 years, first on Laughter Challenge and then on Comedy Circus before he did Comedy Nights with us. He is a nice person and is extremely talented. We gave him a platform and co-created Comedy Nights with him. It was the channel�۪s decision to call it Comedy Nights With Kapil (originally the show was to be titled Comedy Nights), as we felt that it would give him a sense of ownership and his loyalty to the show would be 100%. We even helped him set up his production company . The success of the show meant that we had a person who suddenly became a star and found it difficult to manage his success. He started renegotiating and asking for more money which we gave, but the more important and worrying thing was that he violated his contract by hosting shows on competitive channels in spite of having an exclusive contract with Colors for TV , which we felt was not ethical.�۝

Nayak also admitted how difficult it was to part ways with Kapil and the ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’ brand after so many years. “In a normal course, no channel would let go of a good show. But it has to also be economically viable and more importantly, business s has to be conducted in an ethical manner. For many reasons, the decision to let Kapil go has been very tough. It has been an emotional show for us. Together, Kapil and our creative team created magic. He is extremely talented, probably one of the best of this genre. We never asked him to go. He was not happy with us and implied that we couldn�۪t have another comedy show on the channel. That was unacceptable to us. He chose to walk out. He is a nice guy being misled, I guess, by the people around him for their own survival. I am very fond of him and feel really sad to see him go.�۝

Colors continues with the ‘Comedy Nights’ strand on Sunday nights, with hosts from ‘Comedy Nights Bachao’ – Krushna Abhishek and Bharti Singh.