Sonali Joshi Pitale (MID-DAY; April 1, 2014)

Salman Khan had declared during the promotion of his film Jai Ho in January that he is working on a socially-relevant show. Three months later, the latest update is that all the channels — which the production team had approached — have apparently not shown any interest in it.

An industry insider says, “The production team has done a lot of research on this show which is tentatively titled Paanch Ka Punch. They are ready with the initial content and have been approaching various channels. Initially, they offered it to the same channel which aired the reality show Bigg Boss which Salman hosts. However they were not to keen on another show with the same actor.” As a result, the production team had meetings with another channel, but things didn’t work out between them either.

A crew member adds, “The channel liked the concept, but there were budget constraints. Salman has liked the concept because it deals with social problems, but in a more entertaining way than Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate.” The production team is apparenlty now looking for another channel to come on board.

Namit Sharma, programming head of Zee TV, denied the buzz while the roduction house remained unavailable for comment.