Meet the Daekho TV team

Sometimes they impersonate your nosy neighbours or the passengers on the bus you always want to avoid sitting beside. Sometimes they are singing and dancing away. 

Their expressions and gestures are hilarious, even the tone of their voice makes you break into a laugh. 

You may have seen these faces at least once while scrolling through your newsfeed and laughing along with hundreds of other viewers to their funny and relevant videos.

All of them belong to Daekho TV, an entertainment platform and a concern of Qinetic Network, which makes spoofs, skits and parodies based on everyday life experiences, movies, songs, viral trends, etc. 

Initially, the idea was to only create funny content – recreate viral trends, add spice and Daekho's own twist and present them more interestingly. 

Now there are other channels beside Daekho, such as Daekhopedia and Appi to showcase content that is targeted to not only generate guffaws but to also spread social messages embedded in them. 

When a victim posted on social media about her horrifying experience at a gynaecologist's chamber, Daekho quickly responded with a video to showcase the harassment.  

At present, the team has a pool of enthusiastic young programme producers, content creators, video editors, cinematographers and recently we got to meet some of them – Maliha Zerin, Ishrat Zaheen Ahmed, Thiri Than, Rakin Absar, Shayanto Shaker Muhib and Sharly Rahman – for a chat.   

Ishrat Zaheen Ahmed, a programme producer who also takes part in the videos, shared with us the story of Daekho. "When I joined the team, it was a very small one. Not all of us were content creators or came from similar backgrounds, but all of us were creative and willing to do something different." 

Daekho's first big hit had Ishrat in it, dancing away in Hatirjheel as part of the then trending 'Kiki Challenge'. "I was just randomly dancing away!", she reminisced. 

From there Daekho began to move forward, producing one hit video after the other. 

Notably, the team produced parody songs like 'The Quarantine Anthem', movie spoofs like 'Ho Dorai' and skits like 'Types of students'. All of these were big hits on social media. 

As the channel's popularity increased and its social media reach began to increase, bigger brands began to approach them and they began to produce more sponsored content more professionally.

When a brand gives them an offer for a product placement through a video, the team generates ideas, prepares a script and sends it to the client. After it is confirmed, they work on creating the video. 

From brainstorming ideas, creating content to adding visuals, all members of the team have a role to play in the creative process. 

Rakin Absar, who also has his own Facebook page called 'Mr Absar', is a content creator for Daekho TV. "The content we create comes from our personal experiences. We have been progressing towards smarter content and we are trying out new things."

"Sometimes our banters during team meetings create more ideas. It is a fun process that we have come to embrace," he added. 

Maliha Zerin has been working on Appi, an all-female platform by Daekho which tries to shed light on pressing issues faced by women in the country. 

"One of our biggest hits was the video on the gynaecologist fiasco where I performed along with Karina Apu. We felt that we live in such a time where talking about things like female health conditions should no longer be taboos. We wanted to make sure our message gets heard," she said.   

Thiri Than works as the DOP (director of photography) and cinematographer in Daekho TV and he has worked on most of the content created so far. In his words, "I am the one behind the camera who makes them dance!" 

His team arranges the storyboard and works throughout the process of pre-production to post-production. Recently they started a segment called 'TechMishali' where they review gadgets, phones, bikes, etc. 

The Daekho TV members shared with us that they do not create content for the masses, or niche viewers, they want everyone to like their videos. 

They do not intend to hurt anyone's sentiment or appear as being insensitive to others' emotions. They just love making people laugh and try to reach out to people as much as they can.