ITV

Tag: Comedy Classes

  • Hindi GECs to celebrate New Year with special programming

    Hindi GECs to celebrate New Year with special programming

    MUMBAI: Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) are all set to welcome 2016 with a host of special programming. From Star Plus, Zee TV to Colors, while some have lined up special shows, some others have kept their line-up unchanged for New Year’s eve.

    Let’s look at what the major Hindi GECs have in store:

    Star Plus

    To make New Year’s eve special for viewers, Star Plus will be airing the sixth edition of Big Star Entertainment Award 2015. The award function will be aired on 31 December at 7:30 pm.

    Star Plus has roped in Vaseline as the presenting sponsor for the show and Panasonic smart phones as the co-powered by sponsor. Some of the other brands that have associated with the special show are Godrej No.1 and Reliance.

    Colors

    Colors will be playing it safe on 31 December and will be moving away from the traditional award night airing on New Year’s eve. Instead it will be airing the Stardust Awards on 10 January at 7 pm.

    Though the channel has kept the programming line-up unchanged on 31 December, it plans to introduce new twist & turns on its current shows. Therefore, under the label of 31 New Year Dhamaka, Colors will start its prime time from 6:30 pm with its shows namely Ishq Ka Rang Safed (6.30 pm), Thapki Pyar Ki (7 pm), Sasural Simar Ka (7.30 pm),Balika Vadhu (8 pm), Udaan (8.30 pm), Chakarvartin Ashok Samart (9 pm), Swarigini (9.30 pm), Meri Ashiqui Tum Se Hi (10 pm) and ending with Bigg Boss Nau New Year special at 10.30 pm.

    Zee TV

    On New Year’s eve, Zee TV’s primetime dramas namely Ek Tha Raja Ek Thi Rani and Tashn-E-Ishq will welcome 2016 with a star-studded evening showcasing performances by popular faces of Indian television.

    With each of Zee TV’s shows seeing twists & turns, the new primetime on 31 December will be from 6 – 11 pm.

    It may be recalled that to mark the end of this year, Zee TV aired Jashn-E-Umeed 2015  on 27 December, a two hour special celebration episode, which was aired from 5 – 7 pm. The highlights of the year gone by was presented through thematic acts and hilarious gags by the most popular faces of Indian television.

    Sony Entertainment Television

    Sony Entertainment Television will welcome 2016 by raising a toast to movies, Bollywood actors and music with the telecast of the Guild Awards 2015, which will be aired on 1 January at 8 pm.

    The channel has roped in Renault as the presenting sponsor, whereas Lux and Quick Heal have hopped on board as the co-powered by sponsors.

    Life OK

    Life OK will be ringing in the New Year with a two-hour special called Comedy Classes – Hansi ka Shree Ganesh on 31 December. Along with the regular cast, other popular comedians and celebrities from tinsel town and television will also be seen in this special, which will air at 10 pm on 31 December.

  • TV channels celebrate the colourful festival

    TV channels celebrate the colourful festival

    MUMBAI: It’s that time of the year when you say, ‘Bura na maano, holi hai’ and smear your friends’ faces with vibrant colours. It’s that time of the year when you drop your inhibitions and get drenched in the colours of the season. 

    TV channels, over the years, have been a reflection of the type of content the audiences can relate to. From the popular saas-bahu on Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) to your cartoon characters, all have celebrated festivals in tandem with Indian audiences.  

    On Holi, several channels in the entertainment space have rolled out special shows to spread the festive vibe. 

    One of the leaders in the GEC market, Zee TV celebrated the colourful festival this year with Holi Bemisaal- Jamai Raja Special. Bringing together the entire Zee family, the Holi special showcased television’s favorite on-screen couples frolicking in the spirit of Holi on 1 March at 5 pm. 

    Amidst the dramatic twists and turns and action, television’s favorite couples enthralled the audiences as they performed to some memorable Holi numbers in this entertainment extravaganza.

    As for Colors, it was a double treat for the viewers as the channel showcased an hour long holi special maha sangam episode of Shastri Sisters and Sasural Simar Ka on 2 March at 7 pm. 

    On the other hand, Star Plus’ sister channel Life OK will showcase an evening filled with extravagant celebration. Adding a sprinkle of stardust to the viewers celebration this year, Life Ok’s Holi Hai… Life OK hai brings you breathtaking performances by actor Arjun Kapoor and the Baby Doll singer Kanika Singh. The duo along with the star studded cast of Life OK will be seen burning the dance floor.

    Hosting the festival of colours along with a dash of music, dance and comedy, will be Karan Veer Grover. The stage will be set on fire by Elli Avram and her special water act. The event will air on 6 March at 8 pm. 

    Sony Entertainment Television (SET) too is integrating the festival of colours in one of its popular show – Itna Karo Na Mujhe Pyar.

    Kids channels are also not shying away from the festival. With Holi around the corner, Pogo is showering kids with loads of colour, prizes, movies and excitement. The channel has lined-up the Filmy Holi Aayi Re stunt from 5 to 8 March featuring the best of Chhota Bheem movies and specials to entertain kids throughout the festive weekend.

    The celebrations begin with a four-day line-up featuring Chhota Bheem with Bollywood celebrities. Tune-in to Bang Bang with Bheem, Dholakpur ka Singham, Bade Dilwale Bheem aur Indiawale and Bheem aur Salman ki Kick from 5 to 8 March at 11 am.

    Last but not the least, kids stand a chance to win exciting Holi-themed prizes like Inflatable Pools, Water Sprayers, Digital Cameras and much more by participating in the Filmy Holi Aayi Re contest.

    To top it all, Zoom celebrates Holi with the stars. The channel will be hosting the annual festivities on the day itself (6 March), in the presence of well-known television celebrities and Sunny Leone.

    In an on-going contest, viewers are encouraged to tune in to the channel between 9 am to 12 noon and 4 pm to 7 pm daily and ‘Guess the Celeb’ to win exclusive passes for Zoom’s Holi Party 2015.

    Moreover, viewers will need to keep a close eye on the channel during the timeslots and identify the celebrities which will be shown on the screen. The face of the celebrity will be coloured and a new face will be shown every 15 – 20 minutes. 

    Once identified, participants will have to give a missed call on 088205 88205. Participants with the highest number of correct answers get a chance to win passes to the Zoom Holi Party 2015. Hundred such lucky winners will be able to celebrate one of the biggest festivals in India with their favourite celebrities.

  • Broadcasters’ New Year gift to its viewers

    Broadcasters’ New Year gift to its viewers

    MUMBAI: If you haven’t decided on your New Year plan, don’t fret. Your all time source of entertainment, ‘the Idiot Box’ will be your medium of happiness. With so many stories in the television basket, broadcasters are gearing to encapsulate them all through a slew of special programmes for the New Year’s Eve.

    Star Plus brings in the New Year with its fifth edition of Big Star Entertainment Awards, a TV and Bollywood awards show on 31 December, 8 pm onwards till 12 midnight. It honours personalities from the field of entertainment across movies, music, television, sports, theatre and dance.

    Audiences will get to witness B’town celebs right from Salman-Jacqueline Fernandez to Sonakshi Sinha-Arjun Kapoor setting up the stage on-fire with their spectacular performances. The awards function will be hosted by personalities of different nationalities – Gutthi aka Sunil Grover from India and Pakistani actor Imran Abbas.

    Rival channel Colors has a special treat planned for its viewers. Got Talent World Stage Live, hosted by the charming Shah Rukh Khan and suave Manish Paul, will entertain viewers as they prepare for the final goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015 with open arms.

    The ‘Got Talent’ franchise owned by Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment, takes entertainment a notch higher as the event brings together outstanding talent not only from India but also impactful global ones. The stage, designed by Omung Kumar, will look stunning as the performances compliment his work of art.

    The talent from across the world will captivate the audience with their special demonstrations involving magic, stunts, dance and acrobatics. Amongst superlative and bright Indian talent whose brilliant and inspiring performances will awe the audience will be of the Prince Dance Group, chhota packet bada dhamaka Akshat Singh, Hip hop sensations Suresh and Vernon Group, aerial performers – Mukesh and Tanya, painter extraordinaire Vilas Naik and many more.

    From the International talent circuit, troupes like Aerosphere will present an aerial Balloon Show, Crystal and Ring Dancer Hu Qi Zhi from China who will fascinate people with her skill, Russian Brothers and Kalutskih Danila and Kirill Brothers will showcase Acrobats and the Craz_E_Crew will perform some incredible stunts. The cherry on the cake, however, will be Magician Aldo Nicolini and Illusionist James Mores who will hypnotize the audience with shocking tricks which will further create an aura of excitement and intrigue.

    Also joining the celebration will be Bollywood bigwigs Priyanka Chopra, Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandes who will perform with much vigour to popular numbers while creating jaw-dropping and wondrous moments. The choreographer extraordinaire who will add zing to the evening is dancing legend Shiamak Davar. The event will be aired at 10 pm on Colors.
    Stringing together loads of fun and excitement for its viewers this New Year’s eve, Zee TV is planning a two-hour special telefilm – New Year Dhamaka on 31 January at 11 pm. It will star Riddhi Dogra, Raqesh Vashisth, Anurag Sharma, Ravi Dubey, Pooja Bose and various other actors who will be seen playing key roles.

    The two-hour film will take the audience through the world of glitz and glamour and the secrets that lie shielded between the buzz of parties and the dazzle of the flashbulbs. It is set against a glamorous backdrop of a calendar girl pageant.

    The channel has roped in Cadbury Oreo as its presenting sponsor and Vaseline Total moisture and Maggi as the powered-by sponsors.

    With most channels airing stage shows, Life OK has something different to offer. The channel is ready to bring in the New Year with a fun-filled joyous ride with Comedy Classes. It aims to make it a memorable one this year as Bharti Singh, Krushna Abhishek, Siddharth Sagar, Bruna Abdullah, Madhura Naik and all other Comedy Classes actors get set to entertain viewers with their own talent.  

    Actors will turn their ‘Achhe Din Institute’ into a News channel making it a unique concept on the show, as they talk about this year’s biggest news headlines.

    Bharti and Krushna will play the news anchors and take the audience through the big headlines related to Bollywood, politics, TV, sports and more playing on ‘The Year that was’. Television viewers will also get to see a dhamakaa performance by the girls of Comedy Classes.

    Last but not the least, Sony Entertainment Television (SET) will air the repeat telecast of Umang Police Awards from 11 pm to 2.00 am.

    Media analysts believe that television viewing is high on the New Year’s eve. Channels showcase special programmes which not only cater to the existing base but also helps to draw some additional numbers. “Events like these bring Bollywood closer to the television audiences and are also highly rated in the entertainment space,” says a media analyst.

     

  • Life OK turns 3; sets for a revamp early next year

    Life OK turns 3; sets for a revamp early next year

    MUMBAI: Star Network had a vision to create its own competition for the leading general entertainment channel (GEC), Star Plus. So while on one side, Star Plus catered to the women in the households, the network wanted to create a channel that catered to the entire family. It decided to reincarnate one of its older channels Star One (defunct youth-oriented) and repackaged it with a new and fresh content. And that is how on 18 December 2011 Life OK was born.

    The network decided that the differentiating factor for the channel will be that it will not fall prey to the regular saas-bahu soaps. Reason, it didn’t want to divide the family but wanted to entertain the entire family and wanted to go beyond entertainment and into social media messaging.

    It began with shows like Saubhagyavati Bhava and Mahadev which struck a right chord with the audiences. And since then there has been no stopping for the channel which has given hits after hits with its crime properties like Shapath and Savdhaan India. So far, the channel has experimented with four reality shows – Hunarbaaz, Laugh India Laugh, Welcome and The Bachelorette India – all of which garnered mediocre viewership.

    However, when the tough gets going, the going gets tough. For one hit the channel gave, it had three failures. But Life OK EVP and general manager Ajit Thakur has always enjoyed failures because according to him without the low, there is no value of a high.

    Now in its third year, Life OK takes 14 per cent market share of the entire pie as it continues to showcase innovative and disruptive content to stay in the game. Not only did it climb up to the number three position by beating Colors in week 22 of TAM TV ratings, it also made naysayers sit and take notice.  

    Talking about this year’s highlights, the channel started the year with its first big-ticket Bollywood event, The 20th Annual Life OK Screen Awards that registered a whopping 9 million TVTs, three per cent more than the 6.9 million TVTs (ratings provided by Life OK) garnered by Colors for its last year’s edition.

    Riding high on the success of Screen Awards, the channel decided to get more Bollywood stars on board and launched Life OK Now Awards which celebrates excellence in the field of film, television and music, every month. The channel has aired only four editions till now.

    This year, it made many ‘firsts’. The channel saw the  birth of shows like Comedy Classes, its first stint with comedy which delivered decent numbers at the ratings chart and Dare 2 Dance, its first reality dance show where the Khiladi of Bollywood, Akshay Kumar came on-board as the host. The channel also introduced an action thriller series christened Pukaar – Call for the Hero which is delivering decent numbers.

    After a successful three year run, the channel’s flagship property Mahadev saw its curtains fall. The culmination of Mahadev paved way for, Mahakumbh- Ek Rahasya, Ek Kahani.

    Not only is the channel proud of its achievements but rivals too have applauded the experiments it has done throughout the year. An official from a rival channel believes that Life OK has established itself in the space. “We didn’t expect the channel to do so well in such a short span of time. It did come out with some great tacks like Mahadev and Savdhaan India. However, this year we didn’t see a huge property coming from it even though it did wonderful at the ratings chart. Nonetheless, we wish the channel good luck for the future.”

    Advertisers too have been appreciative of the channel and have supported it throughout.

    After a successful 2014, it is going to be an eventful 2015 for the channel as it gears up for a revamp. As per sources, the revamp will happen early next year, between January and March.

     

  • Life OK to take ‘Comedy Classes’

    Life OK to take ‘Comedy Classes’

    MUMBAI: With high ambitions and the passion to reach the top, Life OK EVP and general manager Ajit Thakur, plans to achieve it all sans the sure-to-succeed saas-bahu soaps. “Though Life OK is not the staple diet of viewers, but whenever they want something different, they are most welcome,” he says.

     

    After exploring crime, thriller, domestic violence through its shows, the channel is ready to tap the genre, which Thakur believes is not much explored in India – comedy. 

     

    Christened ‘Comedy Classes’, it promises to add a smile on the face of its viewers by taking them back to the classroom. Produced by Optimystix, the new show is a sitcom about an acting school called ‘Ache Din Institute’ with a crazy bunch of teachers and students.

     

    The class consists of mad teachers such as Krushna, the flamboyant, flirtatious and artful acting coach who is a struggling actor himself and does odd jobs for a living. Bharti plays the dance instructor, whose contemporaries include Saroj Khan and Farah Khan. She has invented her own moves and grooves like Bharti-Natyamand Gambra (a mix of garba and bhangra).

     

    The ‘Kanjus’ but romantic old music master Sudesh who never misses a chance to mix two songs to create his ‘original’ compositions and the inimitable Urdu expert from Pakistan, Shakeel Siddiqui, who can speak no more than seven sentences in Urdu.

     

    “We thought we will not make a sitcom with the unknowns, so we have got on-board the four best stand-up comedians to create a big impact,” says Thakur on the star cast.

     

    Thakur informs that a recently-concluded survey conducted by the channel in Uttar Pradesh highlights that Indian men want more of comedy and crime. He believes that there is still so much one can do with the genre as today most channels only focus on either stand-up and drama comedy.

     

    “We wanted to get the genre on board and we got a lot of ideas as well. But since most of them revolved around stand-up, we said no. We finally cracked the code and settled for a sitcom,” says Thakur while adding that 10 years ago sitcoms ruled the Indian television screens with shows like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi (1984), Wagle Ki Duniya (1988) Zabaan Sambhalke (1993), Shrimaan Shrimati (1995), Office Office (2001) and many more.

     

    Optimystix producers Vipul D. Shah and Sanjiv Sharma are confident that with a strong creative idea and powerhouse of talent, audiences will love its new age classes. “Comedy Classes is a very entertaining concept of mad teachers and students who will bring the house down with laughter through their weird classroom sessions,” say the producers.

     

    It won’t be all laughing business, the channel has taken it seriously and at the end of each episode, there will be a small goodness message delivered to the viewers.

     

    The new series will air five days a week at 10 pm from 7 October. It will be facing tough competition with properties like Aur…Pyaar Ho Gaya (Zee TV), Pyar Ka Dard Hai Meetha Meetha Pyara Pyara (Star Plus), Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi (Colors), Maharana Pratap (Sony Entertainment Television) and Chandrakant Chiplunkar Seedi Bambawala (Sab).