• Kishani Alanki on marking 100 episodes of ‘Conversations with Alanki’

In the online world, meaningful content is sometimes hard to find. Of course, there are Lankan creators working to meet this need. Entrepreneur, actor, and talk show host Kishani Alanki is one of those creators. For over three years, Alanki has tirelessly produced her YouTube-based talk show ‘Conversations with Alanki,’ speaking with a wide host of personalities on a gamut of issues, from the social to the political to the economic.

‘Conversations with Alanki’ is soon to publish its 100th episode and with this milestone in mind, The Sunday Morning Brunch chatted with Alanki about her journey making a YouTube-based talk show and how she approaches her conversations with the different people she speaks to each month. 

The inception of ‘Conversations with Alanki’

Alanki first came up with the concept of a YouTube talk show in 2019. After years in media as an actress, Alanki felt the need to both share her own voice with people as well as give others a platform to discuss current affairs and issues that are important to all Sri Lankans. 

After years as an actress portraying different characters, “the whole point of ‘Conversations with Alanki’ was for me to be myself and have conversations with other people. Having conversations is exactly what I like to do, and through ‘Conversations with Alanki’ I can shed light not just on current affairs but on important topics that benefit society,” Alanki shared of what sparked the concept. 

While the focus of her show is current affairs, Alanki frequently deviates from this to cover issues that she feels are particularly relevant, like deforestation and its impact in the Sri Lankan context, and even to discuss issues others see as taboo like HIV and how we as a society treat those living with HIV. 

“What makes me happy about having these important conversations, whether current affairs or social issues, is that so many people reach out to me and say that they watched the show and learnt so much about the topic; it encourages open dialogue and conversation,” Alanki shared, adding that she was very proud of the impact ‘Conversations with Alanki’ had had over the years. 

“We’ve reached many people in a short period of time. Compared to most other English language YouTube channels with a similar format [not entertainment channels], it has a much higher reach.”

As an English language talk show (although she has done a few episodes in Sinhala based on the guests she was featuring), Alanki sees ‘Conversations with Alanki’ as a bridge to help those living outside of Sri Lanka and those not conversant in Sinhala to learn about and understand some of the issues that impact the country and its people. 

The nitty-gritty of producing a talk show online

Part of what sets ‘Conversations with Alanki’ apart is that she approaches production in the same way that any TV show would, meaning that the quality of an episode is much higher than the other shows in its niche. Alanki works with a team of professionals who use the most up-to-date equipment to produce episodes that are of TV quality. She herself also plays a large role in post-production, working on how to tell the story of the episode effectively through trailers, meticulously crafting captions and seeing every detail of how the episode appears online. 

“Our production is not small-scale at all. We have a professional crew that does the recordings. Most of them are young, but they’re very experienced and the equipment they use is up-to-date and of the best quality,” Alanki said of the technical end of her production. 

This commitment to production is not cheap, with Alanki sharing that the general conception of YouTube production is that it doesn’t cost much, but this is not the case. Hiring professional crews and equipment and running post-production does have a cost involved, and sometimes this cost  can be quite high, which can make finding sponsors a challenge.

In terms of content, Alanki focuses most on current affairs and speaking to personalities who have the authority and expertise to comment on them, but she also does take an out-of-the-box approach when curating her guests. 

“What I want for people to take away from ‘Conversations with Alanki’ is that it is useful, informative, and insightful. I’m not likely to have someone on the show if everyone else is having them and they’re in many other programmes,” she explained.

“I prefer to look for people who don’t always have the opportunity to be on a show. As someone with a background in law, I do have many lawyers on the show and we often talk about the legal system and reforms needed, but I’ve also interviewed many leading politicians and diplomats, including President Ranil Wickremesinghe shortly before he became President.”

Someone who has played an instrumental role in making each episode of ‘Conversations with Alanki’ impactful is her mother, Samanthi Rochelle Perera, who helps her with setting the questions for each episode. Outside of ‘Conversations with Alanki,’ mother and daughter also work together on Radha, a boutique for unique Indian sarees, each of which are one-of-a-kind and hand-picked by the two women.

Of all these conversations Alanki has had, there have, of course, been some that have been more popular than others, and Alanki looked back on which of her episodes had been the most talked about. 

One such episode was her interview with the President which was very popular, and, to her knowledge, was the most-watched English interview Wickremesinghe had ever done. Another very powerful episode was one she did with economist Nishan de Mel, just before the start of the economic crisis, where de Mel shared a lot about what to expect from the crisis, a lot of which turned out to be painfully true. 

Having meaningful conversations

Hosting a talk show is not as simple as sitting down with someone and just talking to them. There is more to it – from research to handling sensitive topics to making guests feel at ease – and Brunch explored just what being a talk show host means with Alanki. 

While her background in law makes dealing with topics pertaining to current affairs somewhat easier, when there are issues that Alanki is not familiar with, she embraces the fact that she doesn’t know and uses this to have a powerful conversation: “I may not know about the topic, but I do know the gravity of the issue. So I ask things like how do we deal with this issue, what needs to change and how. It’s not essential for me to be an expert on the topic but for me to ask relevant questions.” 

Another essential facet of building meaningful conversations is creating a safe and comfortable space for the person you are speaking with. Referring to the episode on HIV awareness where she interviewed a person living with HIV as an example, Alanki explained that part of why that episode had been impactful was because she had been able to create the right environment for her guest to be able to share their experience comfortably. 

On her most vital tip for conducting interviews and having conversations, Alanki shared: “It’s very important – regardless of whether you’re the person doing the interviewing or the person being interviewed – to keep it real. That’s what people want most nowadays. They don’t want something that is rehearsed or staged. They want to hear something real, something different, and being true to yourself makes your conversations go a long way.”