Many businessmen have taken to producing TV serials, because besides being lucrative, it also offers them a chance to mingle with the bold and the beautiful.

Where once TV production was the exclusive preserve of big producers, the day now belongs to the small-time producer. And where people like Manish Goswami and Ajay Sinha ventured into TV production for the love of the medium, a new producer could be here for the money, glitz and the glamour.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that the industry today abounds with businessmen turned producers' who seek the greener pastures of television over their traditional businesses. But very soon many of these producers find that the promises of riches can vanish faster than the blink of an eye, if at all it was there in the first place.

Of course, the pioneers did make their riches in the early days of sponsored television on Doordarshan, and even in the initial years of satellite channels. But these producers also went on to get a strangle hold on available time-slots across the channels. Despite that, small-timers continue to invest in television productions hoping for quick returns.

Take for example, Santosh Kapoor, who ran a successful steel business until recession caught up with him. He had some money he could invest and so what better business than television to make a fast buck? Santosh avers that he wasn't all convinced initially. ``I wasn't willing to jump in television production without proper back support. But when Bhushan Banmali narrated the story of Khushboo, I decided to take the plunge.'' Khushboo is still awaiting a time-slot on Zee.

Santosh Kapoor, however, is not deterred. he is already planning one more serial and a daily soap. After all, the very fact that he has turned TV producer has upped his prestige in his community.

Producer Rajiv Mehta laments that money isn't all that easy in television as is made out to be. An engineer, he ventured into production because he felt there was money to be made. After a number of Saturday Suspense episodes, a serial and also an English feature film, Winds of Change, he says that the returns often don't justify the investments. ``I'm hoping that one day I'll be able to see all the riches that I was told exists in television,'' he says.

Quick returns also lured Ragini Saxena, a garment exporter into television. In her garments export business ``returns were small and slow in spite of a sizeable volume of business''. ``To top it all it was not a creative field. That's why I decided to make a serial.'' Her Phir Subah Hogi is slated to go on Zee in September and is directed by Ravi Kemmu. To produce quality serial she is willing to invest more and cut down the profits initially.

For every producer looking for quick returns, there are those who are in the business for fame alone; their other businesses bring in the moolah ensuring a good lifestyle. K.K. Dhanuka, who has a flourishing chemical and steel plants in Salem, Tamil Nadu, has turned TV producer with a science fiction titled Teesri Duniya. ``I've made enough money to keep up my present lifestyle. What I want now is something special that will make me stand out from the herd,'' he says.