MUMBAI: International lifestyle channel Discovery Travel & Living has lined up three unique shows this month to launch a ‘Sunday Special band’. With these new shows – Things I Hate About You, Faking It and American Chopper, the channel hopes to rake up their viewership on Sundays.
Explaining the thought behind the shows, Discovery Communications India director, marketing, Aditya Tripathi said, “Research shows that our key target audience of upscale families in the age group of 18-45 generally stay home on Sunday evenings and find that there is very little they can watch at that time.”
“So, we’ve come up with some real off-beat programmes. Like the first show, Things I hate about you is like a reality show in which each episode a couple, armed with personal video cameras, documents one another’s most irksome habits and irritating behaviour which drives them crazy. The video evidence is then presented to a panel of judges who determine, once and for all, who is the more difficult person to live with.”
The second show, Faking it, which airs Sunday 9 pm, presents stories on people who take on the challenge of transforming themselves into someone entirely different. These “fakers” are pulled out from their natural habitats and are given four weeks to master a foreign skill well enough to fool a group of industry judges. For example, a computer nerd becomes a fashion model, a soccer player transforms into a salsa dancer and a studious college professor reshapes himself to work as a male stripper.
In this four week period, the “fakers” are guided and trained by a group of professional mentors. The episode culminates with a final test in which the “faker” competes with three other experienced peers before a panel of judges who are then asked to identify the “faker”.
The third show, American Chopper, slotted at 10 pm, has all the tension, tirades and triumphs of a custom motorcycle-building father and son team, Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. The programme shows their contrasting styles and fiery exchanges and how the two work together, fusing their skills and passions to meet seemingly impossible deadlines and build incredible theme bikes.
When queried on details about commissioned local programmes, Tripathi said, “We have commissioned two India specific series, one on Indian cities and other one on Indian food. They will be ready towards the end of the year.”
Tripathi asserts that the channel has received tremendous advertising response. Several upscale products and services are active on the channel and the advertising revenues and secondage are increasing swiftly, Tripathi avers. Some brands currently on the channel include: Nokia, Samsung, LG, Visa, HSBC, Microsoft, Hyundai, Motorola, L’Oreal, GM and De Beers.