When season 4 of Telugu Bigg Boss came to an end in the last week of December, the contestants did not let their fans miss them after the show for too long. As the weekly eliminations happened and the contestants left the show, they soon reappeared prominently on social media, especially on YouTube, still entertaining their followers.
Some of the contestants like Lasya Manjunath, Mehboob Dilse, Alekhya Harika and others had already established themselves on YouTube through their respective channels and it was this fame that helped them grab the Bigg Boss chance. However, there are others like Mukku Avinash, Jordar Sujatha and Ariayana Glory, who started their own channels after they stepped out of the show.
Lasya Manjunath, a contestant who already had about 4 lakh followers before stepping into the house, now has almost 8.5 lakh subscribers. Earlier, the content on the Lasya Talks channel was more of home tours, daily vlogs, and baby care among others DIYs. However, now the content has also evolved into interviews with celebrities from latest film releases such as Alludu Adhurs and how her life has been after Bigg Boss.
Speaking to TNM, Lasya says that her reach has grown tremendously after the show and more people are watching her videos. “Since the beginning, I have done videos on things that I have learned from my experiences and shared the same to my viewers. For example, I used to share what kind of food I used to feed my infant child and other videos related to travel and cooking. Now, we are also doing videos on celebrity interviews and about the Bigg Boss house experience, which are being received well by the audience.”
Lasya Manjunath with actors Bellamkonda Sai Sreenivas and Nabha Natesh
Recently, her channel was hacked by some miscreants and with the help of the cyber police, Lasya was able to retrieve it.
The subscriber base for those who started their channels after Bigg Boss has been shooting up. Ariyana Glory, who was one of the top five contestants on the show, started her channel only in January but she has already gained about 1 lakh followers. Another contestant Avinash, who made it to the top 7, garnered over 2 lakh subscribers in a couple of months on his channel. Apart from his presence on YouTube, he has also been getting offers for various roles in movies and television shows, Avinash says. He was seen in the recent Ravi Teja movie Krack as well.
Bigg Boss Season 4 contestant Avinash
While making their videos, the contestants focus on their strong points, creating a viewership for themselves. For Jordar Sujatha, it's the Telangana dialect that has established a connection with her followers. In all of her videos on her YouTube channel ‘Super Sujatha’, she has a girl-next-door vibe with her Telangana dialect.
Jordar Sujatha with Gangavva
Sujatha, who works full-time as an anchor in a news channel, is balancing her time between the job and her channel. So, it's no wonder that we see most of her videos either in the early hours of the day at Ramki Bandi, famous for its dosas, or later in the evening doing interviews. One of her recent videos on the sneak peek into the Bigg Boss house after the show at Annapurna Studios garnered over 20 lakh views.
“After coming out of the Bigg Boss house, several people started recognising me and my work. They are ready to follow us contestants if we provide interesting and informative videos. There are TVs and mobile phones everywhere at the tip of people's fingers. They have everything that they need to watch, so we should keep our content available to them there. Moreover, YouTube gives us a lot of freedom when it comes to content. If I get an interesting idea, I immediately go and shoot it while either coming back from office or early in the morning,” says Sujatha.
For many of these contestants, technical and production support to run a channel is being provided by third parties like Tamada Media or Team Mango Media, who make sure that the process is smooth.
Phalgun from Tamada Media says, “We have been focussing on finding and nurturing talent on YouTube right from the beginning, when we started nine years ago. We support them in terms of complete production, from the shoot to post production and promotion on digital platforms. Everything is taken care of. We help even the Bigg Boss contestants. We try to find multiple avenues where a talent can be produced and put to use."
According to sources, Bigg Boss contestants are not supposed to be associated with any other entertainment channel for at least six months after they leave the show. In such a period, YouTube comes in handy for them and helps them generate revenue while also maintaining their popularity among viewers.