The History Of Star Life's Predecessor Life OK

Before Life OK this was the channel back in 2001

Star One was a youth entertainment channel owned by the defunct News Corporation which inturn was owned by Star India and FOX International TV channels which are both properties of The Walt Disney Company under the brand Disney Star.

During its run, the channel produced several Bollywood productions including Detective Omkar Nath (D.O.N.), Miley Jab Hum Tum, Shakuntala, Home Shanti Home and shows formerly seen on Star Life like Geet and to some extent Koffie With Karan.

The introduction to Life OK

In 2011, it was announced Star One would be replaced by Life OK from December 18th as part of an attempt to bolster their offering to take on the likes of Sony which was ahead in terms of viewership. With the new channel onboard came a set of original programming.

The channel introduced several shows viewers would have come across in its current form or at the English version which is Star Life like Forever Yours (Your Paakhi) that formed part of the incarnate initial offering alongside other series like Pukaar - Call For The Hero and Dream Girl.

Life OK expansion to Africa, exit in the region and elsewhere

Life OK just like StarPlus and a few other channels expanded to various European markets with Africa fortunate enough to get Life OK as a replacement to Channel V on the StarTimes platform.

Interesting enough, Life OK performed poorly with its audience I mean for a "Hindi" entertainment channel to cater for an English audience made a whole lot of sense especially with StarTimes bulk of Indian entertainment.

In 2017, Life OK was replaced by Star Bharat again still reserved as a youth brand and the reasons for the demise of Life OK were more or less similar to that of StarTimes I mean Bharat also the platform produce a selection of content with reruns of StarPlus series.

Conspiracy theory about Star Life

Although there's sufficient evidence of the channel's connection to Life OK despite both being owned by Disney Star. Pay attention to the wording "Star Life" and "Life OK" I mean it can't be coincidence.

Life OK was often referred to as "Star's Life" OK and as mentioned notice how Life exists on Star Life I mean how would Disney Star have been able to come up with such a name.

I mean the idea of Star Life being based on a reject doesn't seem far fetched I mean Warner Bros. Discovery's Real Time and competitor Zee Enterprise's Zee One were all based on rejects which became relevant to viewers in Africa.

Development Hell: The Pending The Third Season To Star Life's The Evil Eye

The Evil Eye was the first and one of the few attempts Africa got to supernatural on Star Life alongside A Magical Love Story which came amidst a pandemic with the second season was also filmed in such a climate.

Since its abrupt end, some viewers can't stop boasting about the show that it got to a point where they advertised fake repeats and even listed Bengali adaptation Nojor (pictured above) as The Evil Eye season 3.

Ever since A Magical Love Story ended, there hasn't been a site of venomous snake or anything supernatural on Star Life even on Zee World as regional stations are the closest to viewing them dubbed while others are distributed in their original language with subtitles.

 

Amidst the phasing out of these shows sources state that Star Life picked up Bold And Beautiful and The Evil Doom which were scheduled for a late 2021 to mid 2022 release which never came to pass.

Joining that trio was the fake third season of The Evil Eye which is now considered a new season but supposedly on a new Indian entertainment channel that was set to replace Star Life.

This supposed channel was said to focus on Bengali which is similar to Hindi in an attempt to "differentiate" the offering from StarPlus but hey some of the content from Bengali are remakes to the Hindi content and vice versa.

 

The thing about this was Disney Star the owners of these brands already operated a Bengali channel Star Jalsha which is niche I mean every market has their niche. In South Africa, it is Tsonga, Sepedi and Siswati as Zulu, Afrikaans and Ndebele dominate the region.

The question would have to be why trade one group for another if the plan was to replace wouldn't it be better to source areas like Telegu, Tamil and Malayalam as they also reside in the Bollywood community under the Disney Star.

Zee TV had every chance to launch such a channel but instead opted for reruns channel, Zee One.

New Series Alert: Dream Girl And Never Say Goodbye Launches On Star Life, Magnum P.I. Returns To e.tv And Kuiertyd Premium Launches On eExtra With It's First Series Impak

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The stars shine bright once again

Star Life is set to start off 2022 with two new entries Never Say Goodbye (Jaana Na Dil Se Door) and Dream Girl therefore tying eExtra which will also introduce two shows in the next month.

Despite having contrasting personalities, Never Say Goodbye tells the tale of Vividha and Atharva who end up falling in love with each other. However, the differences in their social background cause trouble in their relationship.

The show was produced by Prateek Sharma, Beyond Dreams Entertainment and Inspire Films Private Limited. It starred Vikram Singh Chauhan, Shivani Surve and Shashank Vyas. The show also featues Sara Khan, Smita Bansal, Vineet Kumar and Shilpa Tulaskar in key roles.

Dream Girl comes from Star Life's past incarnate Life OK which follows a young girl Lakshmi from Jodhpur, dreams to be an actress and idolises Ayesha, a famous actress. She decides to leave her hometown and comes to Mumbai with the hopes of achieving her dreams.

The show was produced by Shashi Mittal and Sumeet Mittal, under Shashi Sumeet Mittal Productions. It starred Shraddha Arya and Nikita Dutta as female lead, while Mohsin Khan and Sudeep Sahir as male lead, Kunal Verma and Khalid Siddiqui also plays pivotal role.

Never Say Goodbye airs daily at 22:00 CAT from 26 January while Dream Girl airs 30 January at 20:00 CAT.

Magnum and Higgins are back and eVOD's Afrikaans Premium is now on your TVs

As the festive season draws to a close in 2022, eMedia Investments set of channels are expected to resume primetime viewing by latest 10 January with Magnum P.I. and Impak slated much sooner.

In the second season of Magnum P.I., a missing persons case turns sour when Magnum discovers that his client's wife was linked to a bank robbery. This is a two part special best part the members of Hawaii Five-O invade this season.

Impak which is currently seen through eVOD will soon increase the dose of action on eExtra. As it's slated to air as a triple bill for the soon to be launched Kuiertyd Premium.

Kuiertyd Premium was derived from eVOD's Afrikaans Premium section.

Magnum P.I. airs weekdays at 20:30 from 3 January on e.tv while Impak airs every Sunday likely at 19:30 on eExtra from 9 January.

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#WeAreDrama: Openview Being Bombarded With Rebroadcasts Of The Heir, Kuiertyd Put More Focus On Prime Time And Star Life Will Have To Undergo A Name Change Perhaps "Life OK" To Avoid Confusion With Disney+ Star

Zee TV and eMedia are inseparable
If you think the Indian offering is overcrowded on Openview well matters only get worse from there when two channels from different stables offer the same programming.

The Heir formed part of Zee One's launch schedule and launched days later on eExtra. Both channels are eating from the same dinner but with eExtra playing third wheel to Zee TV it only seemed logical for them to source out other programming.

At the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case or at least not initially as eExtra has Surrender In Love and Naagin with Zee One getting Guddan, Lies Of The Heart and Reach For The Stars.

Kuiertyd bouncing back
Following the launch of eVOD, eExtra has seen a decline in weekend repeats of Kuiertyd. Feeling concerned, viewers reached out to a source who was close to the matter.

According to them, this is part of a review in the channel's offering seeing that repeats don't get high ratings why waste time on repeats. Similar to e.tv, eExtra is working to build their prime time offering.

Remember when Voëlvry aired on Sunday in the form of a marathon. Well it's reportedly set to return under the name Kuiertyd Premium which will compliment the Afrikaans movie slot on Saturdays.

Two series are set to launch in 2022 the first being Droom Velore on e.tv with reruns of the eVOD series Die Put makes way to eExtra likely for Kuiertyd Premium.

Star Life, It's A Beautiful World, Life OK, Love Is Beautiful and Disney+
Disney+ is scheduled to in South Africa by June 2022 so it seems logical for Star Life to edit out the "Star" ahead of time as to not cause a commotion now that it will be folded under a streaming service.

Utsav replaced the "Star" across Europe and it looks like Star Life will be exempted from that as LyngSat list Utsav for all the other channels but not Star Life.

Before Star Life's induction into the market there was Life OK and coincidence Zee One was available in Germany before launching in Africa. Could it be that Star Life will revert back to their predecessor Life OK?

2021 taught me that familiarity can come at a price as seen above. Star India forming part of The Walt Disney Company will likely dig through their archives once again when searching for an alternate brand.

You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can also follow Doodsondes for Kuiertyd updates.

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