Hyderabad:
Telugu
TV
artists
and
technicians
in
Andhra
Pradesh
are
demanding
that
regional
entertainment
channels
should
stop
airing
dubbed
serials
as
they
are
deprived
of
work.
The
artists
and
technicians
have
held
protests
like
fasts
in
support
of
their
cause
and
the
issue
took
a
serious
turn
when
some
of
them
allegedly
attacked
the
office
of
a
popular
Telugu
entertainment
channel
a
few
days
ago.
The
protesters
alleged
that
the
channel
did
not
pay
heed
to
their
demand
and
the
attackers
ended
up
behind
bars
over
the
incident.
The
complaint
of
the
TV
artistes
is
that
the
dubbed
serials
like
Balika
Vadhu
(originally
made
in
Hindi),
which
have
become
hugely
popular
with
the
audience,
have
thrown
them
out
of
work
as
not
many
serials
are
made
in
Telugu.
Suresh,
a
leader
of
the
TV
artists
association,
claims
that
these
dubbed
serials
have
taken
away
their
daily
bread.
"Scores
of
TV
artists,
producers
and
others
have
lost
their
livelihood
due
to
the
onslaught
of
dubbed
serials.
We
have
been
protesting
against
this,
but
nothing
concrete
has
come
for
us
so
far," PTI
quotes
him
as
saying.
As
the
artists
held
sit-ins,
with
one
of
them
undertaking
an
indefinite
fast,
some
channels
have
responded
positively
and
promised
to
encourage
local
soaps,
but
many
channels
still
continue
to
show
dubbed
ones,
the
artists
alleged.
Besides
rendering
the
local
artists
and
technicians
jobless,
the
dubbed
serials
also
hurt
local
language
and
culture,
they
asserted.
Veteran
filmmaker
and
former
Union
Minister
Dasari
Narayana
Rao
and
the
Movie
Artists
Association
(MAA)
in
Andhra
Pradesh
have
extended
their
support
to
the
demand
of
the
local
artistes
and
technicians.
The
Telugu
TV
industry
has
been
successful
with
soaps
being
made
in
the
regional
language
until
the
dubbed
serials
gained
upper
hand.
It
has
been
the
complaint
of
local
film
and
TV
producers
and
artists
for
long
against
movies
and
television
content
dubbed
from
other
languages
like
Tamil,
Hindi
and
English.
The
dubbed
versions
caused
losses
to
the
producers
and
made
the
artists
go
without
work,
they
complained.
(PTI)