ITV

Tag: Vasool Rani

  • Southern channels line up Pongal specials

    MUMBAI: It is festival time down South this weekend with Tamilians celebrating Pongal.
    Tamil general entertainment channel Vijay TV will telecast Leoni’s pattimandram at 8 am on 14 January. At 9 am, a special event with actor Surya will be aired. Vasool Rani special is scheduled for 11 am, followed by an interview with actor Namitha will be at 12 pm.
    On Sunday, 15 January, Sangamam special will air at 9.30 am. An interview wilth actor Sathyaraj is slotted for 10.30 am on the same day. Best of Lollu Sabha is scheduled for 11.30 am and Best of Kalakka Povadhu Yaar at 12.30 pm. The channel will air a celebrity special, Mr Pongal, with actor Srikanth at 6 pm followed by a special show with comedian Vivek.
    On 15 January, Jaya TV will telecast a special episode of its popular game show Jackpot at 8 pm. The comperes from Radio Mirchi – Suchitra, Sujatha, Siva and Deva, will be competing with the comperes from Jaya TV – Prathipa Hari, Sai Rakesh, Sandhya Rajagopal and Priya to reach the top position. The channel will award a Maruti car to the winner.
    On 14 January, DD Chennai will telecast Sirappu Oliyum Oliyum at 8.30 a.m. An interview with actor Asin is scheduled for 9 am, followed by another one with film director Cheran at 10.30 am.
    On 14 January at 12 pm, actor-director Cheran will make an appearance in SS Music to speak about latest film and experiences. Jayam Ravi will meet his fans at 5 pm in Reach Out on the same day.
    On 15 January, actor Srikanth will talk about his forthcoming projects at 4.30 pm. Actor Jeeva is featured in Reach Out scheduled for 5 pm.
    Zee Telugu will air special shows in 14 January from 11 am to 12 pm and on 15 January from 11 am to 11:30 pm. The highlight of the channel’s line up is an interview with super star Chiranjeevi.

  • Sun shines through; rivals gear up

    Sun shines through; rivals gear up

    The regional television space recorded a growth of 4.8 per cent in revenues, according to Tam. The major action, obviously came from the South which witnessed a remarkable number of channel launches in 2005 across languages in various genres.

    Like 2004, the Sun Network dominated the Southern belt in 2005 also, except for the Malayalam market where its Surya TV had to deal with its rejuvenated arch rival Asianet. Kalanidhi Maran had a comparatively silent year, except for the DTH licence and then the reported IPO plans. Some setbacks also came his way. The Sun Network’s efforts to expand its cable TV presence and set up an outpost in the East came to naught when the Essel group’s Siticable came in from nowhere and took over the RPG Cable TV Network. And then there was the continuous resistance it encountered from the unyielding cable TV operators of Andhra Pradesh.

    On the programming front all the southern channels – especially the Sun Network – played the game show card at the fag end of 2005. While the Sun Network launched a gold hunt quiz show Thanga Vettai in Tamil and Malayalam to fight Vijay TV’s Tamil version of KBC2, Jaya TV concentrated on its popular game show brand Jackpot.

    Vijay TV launched its second game show Vasool Rani, targeted at the female audience. Sun is now planning to launch Thanga Vettai in Telugu and Kannada also. Zee Telugu launched an interactive game show Gold Rush while, in Malayalam, Asianet is going the Indian Idol way to launch a mobile-based talent hunt.

    Tamil language TV: Sun TV’s domination continues

    According to market sources, the Tamil language market recorded approximately Rs 2.8 billion in terms of advertising revenue. Obviously a lion’s share, which is about Rs 1.8 billion, went to the Sun kitty. However, a senior television executive from the South points out that, advertisers were seen experimenting a lot in Tamil.

    “In 2005, it was observed that, advertisers who normally preferred Sun channels, showed the guts to experiment with other channels also. Jaya TV, Vijay TV and Raj TV welcomed some new advertisers,” he says.

    Still, Sun channels Sun TV and KTV continued to dominate the market. According to Tam, the flagship channel Sun TV improved its market share to 52 per cent on an average from 2004’s average figure of 48 per cent (CS4+ all day, including weekends). Sun’s movie channel KTV also continued the good show by giving a consistent performance.

    Among Sun’s rivals, Vijay TV, Jaya TV and Raj TV spent the year forging new programming strategies and implementing a few initiatives. Star`s Vijay TV dubbed episodes of KBC2, and The Great Indian Laughter Challenge in Tamil, bringing two successful properties from its Hindi channel Star Plus to Tamil viewers. As the year ended both shows were raking up good viewership numbers.

    Jaya TV, on its part, shed any inhibitions it had about big movie acquisitions this year. Some of the blockbusters the channel acquired include Mumbai Xpress and Sachien. This was seen as a deliberate move on Jaya TV’as part to shake off its underdog image.

    Raj TV, which spent most of 2004 grappling with uplinking issues, went for a makeover in 2005. The channel, which initiated a lot of strategy shifts this year — including getting into long-term deals with production houses — is expecting 2006 to deliver results.

    Telugu TV: the jostling continues

    The Telugu market, which possibly overtook Tamil as the biggest Southern television market revenue-wise, recorded approximately Rs 3 billion in advertising revenues and Rs 1 billion in subscription revenues.

    A market source informs that, Sun’s Telugu bouquet led by Gemini TV grabbed the maximum share followed by ETV.

    “Sun channels altogether have gorwn by about 15 per cent revenue wise, but still, ETV Telugu picked up nicely this year. Maa TV also gave a good show compared to 2004,” says the source.

    The Telugu TV market didn’t offer any variations in the rating picture in 2005 as well. The Sun Network channels Gemini and Teja continued to hog the first and third positions as far as channel share was concerned, while ETV maintained its second position.

    Sun added another channel to its Telugu offering by launching a music channel Aditya this year. A good move content wise, but one which is giving the management some amount of heartburn. Cable operators have been incensed that the Sun Network has been demanding pay channel fees equal to what it charges for Teja and Gemini for Aditya Music and Teja News.

    Obviously, Telugu holds a lot of promise. And not wanting to let go of any of that, the Zee Network re-launched Alpha Telugu as Zee Telugu with a shift in positioning — from being mass general entertainment-based it transformed itself into a channel offering programming with a young upwardly mobile touch. Though the channel is yet to ‘arrive’, it has at last reached a position to identify and groom some of its shows as the future channel drivers. An example is the game show Gold Rush.

    Maa TV ‘nursed’ rumours of partial or complete sell-off as it revamped the channel and went for more movie acquisitions. The channel also brought in lot of interactive shows to its kitty in 2005.

    DD Telugu has been drifting and the year 2005 did not see it do any better.

    Kannada TV: ETV betters position

    The Rs 1.4 billion Kannada television ad market didn’t attract any new entrants, unlike the other Southern markets. Udaya TV continued to dominate, grabbing about Rs 650 million in terms of ad revenues, according to sources. However, ETV Kannada gave a good fight this year and recorded almost Rs 450 million in terms of advertising revenues.

    Malayalam TV: tough fight, more channels

    Malayalam satellite television market, which contributes about Rs 1 billion in terms of ad revenue, witnessed the most number of channel launches for any regional market in India; as many as five channels were launched.

    Sun’s movies and music channel Kiran TV, Asianet’s youth & lifestyle channel Asianet Plus, Kairali TV’s news channel People TV, general entertainment channel Amrita TV and the Christian spiritual channel Shalom TV debuted in Kerala in 2005. The market is awaiting more launches in 2006 which include print major Malayala Manorama’s news channel MM TV, the state Congress party channel and then a multi-lingual channel Bhaarath TV. With People TV now there to take care of the non-fiction wing, Kairali TV safely joined the General Entertainment Channel (GEC) bandagon by launching two soaps in its prime time band.

    One of the most interesting channel fights the Southern television space witnessed in 2005 also comes from Kerala. That is the story of the battle royale waged between Asianet and the Sun general entertainment channel Surya TV.

    Surya TV kicked off the year by employing a flanking strategy as it launched a 24-hour movie and music channel Kiran TV. The strategy worked really well for Sun as the new channel brought down the channel shares of competitors Asianet and Kairali TV. Kiran actually replaced Kairali from the third spot. The Sun launch shook Asianet terribly because even the network was planning to launch a movie and music channel, but had to surrender the first mover’s advantage to Sun.

    Asianet quickly recovered from the jolt and re-strategised its proposed channel Asianet Plus focusing it as to a youth-oriented movie and lifestyle service.

    Meanwhile, Kiran slowly started slipping as it couldn’t provide its viewers interesting movies on a daily basis, round the clock. Asianet Plus used the golden opportunity to establish itself in the market with some low-budget studio-based programmes and some innovative youth shows.

    The main channel Asianet, on the other hand, completely revamped its programming, understanding the seriousness of the situation. The channel successfully established some of its soaps and the strategy also relied on a lot of big movie acquisitions. Yantra Media, a Sun Network-aligned production house, shifted loyalty to Asianet this year and launched the second edition of Sthree, Malayalam TV’s most successful soap.

    Another genre Asianet hared into was comedy, mainly to strengthen its weekend band. Comedy hitherto had been Surya TV’s forte but end 2005 saw it yielding its grip on this genre to Asianet. Asianet successfully established some of its comedy shows like Life is Beautiful, Five Star Thattukada and Comedy Cousins. It should be noted that, the success didn’t happen overnight for Asianet, but through trial and error.

    However, as the year ended Surya TV was looking aggressive and ready to recapture lost ground. It revamped its weekend programming band, taking off some of its unsuccessful soaps and introducing a Malayalam version of its game show Tanga Vettai.

    Fortune surely favours the adventurous and the brave.

  • Star Vijay’s all-women gameshow ‘Vasool Rani’ to launch on 19 September

    MUMBAI: After having stabilised its weekend primetime with the Tamil version of KBC 2, Star’s Tamil language channel Vijay TV has now shifted its focus to the weekday primetime. This time, the channel is mixing the now proven formula of gameshows with Indian television’s traditional offering for evening primetime, the female-oriented programming.

    So, in what can be called an experiment of sorts, Vijay TV is out to lure the female audiences with an all-women gameshow Vasool Rani.
     
     
     

    The Monday to Thursday half-hour show placed in the 9:30 pm slot will launch on19 September. Vijay TV has roped in Tamil’s popular Radio Jockey Balaji as anchor. What the winner is promised with is “a truck load of goodies.”

    The Format:

    The five pre-chosen contestants will be given 1000 points. Before every question, the players have to bid a minimum of 300 points and maximum of how much she holds, before answering the question. A player can bid any of the three racks with objects, which are of different value. The racks also determine the difficulty level of the question. Once the bidding is made, the player selects a particular rack and has to answer the questions asked. One with the least points will be eliminated.

    In the second round, the remaining four players will bid on each other’s points. The right answer will double the points while a wrong answer takes away the points and the two least scorers will be eliminated. In the third round, which is a buzzer round, the two finalists can bid as many points as they want. The anchor will keep giving the clues and the bidding increases. If the player who has bid the highest gives the right answer then she gets to double her points and also a prize. At the end of three questions, the player with the highest points is crowned as Vasool Rani.
     
     
     

    In the grand final, the winner will have to choose between three doors. The participant can just walk through the first door with her prize. Now if she chooses the second door, she will have to answer a question and can either double her fortune or lose all that she has won.

    If the participant chooses the third door, she will lose all her prizes, and gets an opportunity to participate in the next day’s game. If a contestant wins in three consecutive episodes then she takes home the bumper prize.

    Indiantelevision.com Q&A with Star India GM Networks Harsh Rohatgi on Vasool Rani:

    Q Have you adopted any Western format to conceptualise Vasool Rani?
    A No .The concept was developed in house by our creative team.

     

    Q What does the name “Vasool Rani” signify?
    A “Greed & Gratification go hand in hand or do they ??” is the USP of the show.

     

    Q Tell us about the promotions and marketing activities planned for the show
    A On-air promotions will cover call for entries, announcement and special promos including graphic pop-ups.
    On ground: Posters and entry forms were kept at retail outlets gift shops/outlets throughout in Tamil Nadu lure women audiences to participate & watch.
    We will also have an extensive promotion plan leading up to launch of the show.

     

    Q How significant is gameshows in the Tamil television space now?
    A KBC 2 has proved that game-shows are still a popular genre. Over the years, Vijay Tv has done many game shows, and we are getting back to the genre this year. We are quite confident that Vasool Rani will do well for us.