After a too-long era of stereotypical storylines, face-change operations, several reincarnations, memory losses, self-righteous daughters-in-law and melodramatic dialogues, it looks like television is finally taking a break from the lengthy soaps that have tickled viewers for almost a decade.

While most of these soaps made couch potatoes out of women audiences, the longer format seems to have taken a beating. The introduction of newer themes, like sport, superstitions, campus issues, crime and adventure on television has made the viewer spoilt for choice.

“It is the influx of channels and novel ideas that has led to the fall of the long-running soap operas. Today, viewers have a choice of switching channels,” says JD Majethia, producer, Shree.

“While five years ago, I would have expected Shree to run for five years, it looks difficult now. One has to come up with a surprise element every three episodes.”

When Woh Rehnewaali Mehlon Ki completed 1,000 episodes last week, many thought it was a milestone to celebrate. Naturally so, because few years ago, the success of a show was measured by how long it would run. Now, larger-than-life sets and tumultuous relationship issues have bored the audiences. “Viewing the same set of protagonists on television and sitting through the same set of storylines becomes mundane and everyone needs a break. We want more realistic settings,” says Richa Sengupta, a viewer who believes it was the novelty factor a decade ago that popularised these soaps. “But familiarity breeds contempt.”

Also, most producers believe that television works best in phases: it started with the era of concept-driven serials like Buniyaad, Hasratein and Saans, after which came the league of family dramas. Now it’s back to the former phase. “Channels are willing to take risks now with fresher ideas. They look for shows which have a well-defined beginning and end,” says Sunil Bohra, producer of Seeta aur Geeta who has a contract of 260 episodes with NDTV Imagine. “After all, it is best to end serials when they are high on TRP. This way the channel’s momentum is maintained.”

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