Tag: Viacom18

Kannada KBC to air on Colors Kannada starting 22 June

BENGALURU: Viacom18 has taken over where Star India left off – the Kannada version of Kaun Banega Crorepati – Kannadada Kotyadipathi or KK will start airing on Viacom18’s flagship Kannada GEC Colors Kannada and its HD counterpart Colors Kannada HD starting Saturday 22 June.

It’s a strategic move as far as Viacom18’s Kannada entertainment cluster head Parameshwar Bhat is concerned – Colors Kannada has a strong lineup of programmes for the week. More often than not, more than half of the programmes in Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) list of top 5 Kannada programmes in Karnataka during primetime are aired on it. Besides, on most weeks, Colors Kannada is the most watched Kannada channel based on BARC weekly data.

Bhat needed the weekend programming of his flagship channel to be strengthened – he asked for it and got the rights for KK for his channel when Star India forsake the show after a not very successful season in 2018. Colors will air 41 episodes, of which 4 have already been canned, for the clone that has been tweaked for local Kannada audiences of the globally popular Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Colors has tweaked the fourth season of KK a bit as compared to the previous editions – besides the changes that evolved with each season, the channel has brought back Kannada film icon Puneeth Rajkumar to host the show.

Industry pundits peg the KK cost per episode at Rs 25 lakh or thereabouts. While not confirming the estimates, Bhat is confident that the show will be in the black. And he has his experience with Kannada Bigg Boss to back his confidence. “A property such as Kannadada Kotyadipathi attracts spot advertisers even during the day of the broadcast of the show,” he says. Bhat says that he is sure of them coming in, more so for the weekend, which incidentally, he feels is just an urban phenomenon. For rural folks all weekdays are the same, be they working days or weekends for the rest of the world. He has already roped in Wipro’s soap brand Santoor as presenting sponsor, Eastern Masala and detergent Rin as powered by sponsor and another soap brand – Chandrika Soap as special partner. His marketing is actively working out deals, he says.

Colors has a 360-degree marketing plan to attract eyeballs for KK with touchpoints across on-ground, outdoor, radio, print, cross channel and digital. However, outdoor and billboard promos on the 500 to 600 Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses have been restricted to outside Bengaluru for now. Once the show starts Bhat plans to strategically release ads across media including print. Most of the creative work has been done in-house by the channel’s own teams.

Company speak:

Besides strengthening the weekend slot, there are other reasons for Colors doing the show. Here’s what Viacom18 Head of regional entertainment Ravish Kumar had to say via a press release: “The language content consumers have grown enormously over the years and though their tastes vary from region to region, they all converge at family game-show formats like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The universality of a quiz-show brings about cohesivity in viewing making it enjoyable and enhances captive engagement. Featuring real people and stories that showcase their aspiration and reason to win a substantial sum makes for a compelling content proposition.”

Kumar further added, “Gauging the success of our previous two editions in different languages, we’re confident that Kannadada Kotyadipathi will certainly be well received by viewers as well as the advertisers on our channel, who rely on us to bring only the best of content to Kannada television.”

Elaborating further, Bhat said, “Colors Kannada leads the roster in creating and presenting pathbreaking content for its viewers, and Kannada Kotyadipathi is yet another example of our commitment to be industry leaders. We’re luring audience to a form of entertainment that keeps them engaged as well as invested. While the format of the game remains unchanged, we’re scaling up the production and sprucing our treatment to make it more delightful for viewers across genres and milieu; and are also bringing back on board the indomitable superstar Puneeth Rajkumar who will multitask as a host, a friend and a guide.”

KK is produced by Studio Next, the production house of Sony Pictures Networks. Studio Next holds the license of the format, for all Indian languages and has produced more than 1,800 episodes of the show across nine languages. The latest edition of KK will have an upgraded look and feel including an advanced set, claims a press release

Studio Next head Indranil Chakraborty said, “We are extremely happy and privileged to bring the show to the people of Karnataka with their favourite host, Puneet Rajkumar and in the leading channel, Colors Kannada. We have maintained the same ethos of the show as in other languages, followed strict and transparent process for contestant selection and delivered production quality of the highest standards. Kannada Kothyadipathi will celebrate the great leveller of our society i.e. knowledge”.

June 19, 2019
Zee channels top Kannada, Bangla markets in BARC week 13

MUMBAI: In the Bengali market, Zee Bangla emerged as the leader in BARC data week 13. Big Ganga garnered the second spot in the Bhojpuri market. In the Kannada segment, Zee Kannada dominated the market. Kochu TV secured fifth position in the Malayalam space. Colors Marathi bagged third position in the Marathi market. Sun TV and Star Maa emerged as the dominant players in the Tamil and Telugu space respectively.

Bangla

Zee Bangla, Star Jalsha and Jalsha Movies stood at first, second and third positions respectively. Aakash Aath and Zee Bangla Cinema secured fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Bhojpuri

Bhojpuri Cinema, Big Ganga and Dabangg stood at first, second and third positions respectively. Bhojpuri Dhamaka Dishum and Oscar Movies Bhojpuri secured fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Kannada

Zee Kannada stood at first position, followed by Colors Kannada, Udaya TV, Star Suvarna and Udaya Movies securing second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Malayalam

Asianet, Flowers TV, Mazhavil Manorama, Surya TV and Kochu TV stood at first, second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Marathi

Fakt Marathi, Zee Marathi and Colors Marathi stood at first, second and third positions respectively. On the fourth and fifth slots, Zee Talkies and Star Pravah secured positions.

Tamil

Sun TV, Zee Tamil, Star Vijay, KTV and Star Sports 1 Tamil garnered first, second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Telugu

Star Maa, Zee Telugu, ETV Telugu, Gemini TV and Star Maa Movies stood at first, second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

April 8, 2019

Here’s the line-up for Goafest 2019 presented by Viacom18 and powered by MX Player, the advertising & marketing industry’s largest convention

MUMBAI: Fulfilling its promise to be the apex knowledge sharing platform in India for the advertising & marketing industry, Goafest 2019 presented by Viacom18 and powered by MX Playerannounces its power-packed three- day agenda. The industry conclave, knowledge sessions, masterclasses and ABBY Awards have been brought together in a way to ensure maximum engagement and bring in most value to the attendees.

After a day full of insightful sessions and big wins at ABBY Awards, the celebrations at Goafest 2019 will continue with the after parties. On 12th April, Nucleya will enthrall all at the MTV Beats Swag Night after-party.

A detailed schedule of Goafest 2019 is below:

GOAFEST 2019 SCHEDULE

11th April 2019
Category	Time	Programme
ABP One Lunch	1:30 – 3:00 pm	Lunch
Welcome Drink	2:30 – 3.15 pm	CHAMPAGNE launch
Inauguration	3.15 – 3.30 pm	Inauguration ofGoafest
Discovery presents Inaugural Live Performance & Industry Conclave	3.30 – 4.00 pm	SHAAN unplugged
	4.00 – 6.00 pm	Dr. A. Velumani – Creator & Managing Director, THYROCARE
		Ravi Desai – Director, Mass & Brand Marketing, AMAZON
		Vijay Sharma – Associate Director, Brand Marketing & Heads Digital Media, FLIPKART
		Achint Setia – Vice President Marketing, MYNTRA
Abby Awards by Viacom18	6.30 pm onwards	Publisher & Media Abby's
MX Player Gala Dinner	8.30 pm onwards	Gala Dinner
Star presents After Hours Party	9.00 pm onwards	After Hours Party
12th April 2019
Category	Time	Programme
Welcome Drink	9.30 am	CHAMPAGNE Morning
Colors Marathi presents Knowledge Seminars	10.30 – 12.30 pm	Madonna Badger – Chief Creative Officer/Founder, Badger and Winters
		Gordon Bowen – Founder & Global Chairman, McGarryBowen
		Siddhant Chaturvedi – Bollywood Actor, Crtically acclaimed film Gully Boy&Kalki Koechlin – Bollywood Actress & Writer
ABP One Lunch	12.45 – 1.45 pm	Lunch
ABP One Lunch	12.45 – 1.45 pm	Lunch
Live Performance	1.45 – 2.15 pm	JONITA GANDHI unplugged
MX Player presents Knowledge Seminars	2.15 – 3.15 pm	Barry Wacksman – Vice Chairman & Global Chief Strategy Officer, R/GA
MX Player presents Knowledge Seminars
MTV presents Knowledge Seminars		HarshwardhansinhZala – Founder & CEO Aerobotics 7
MTV Youth Insights	3.15 – 3.30 pm	Navin Shenoy – Marketing Head – Youth, Music & English Entertainment, Viacom 18
Times Network presents Leadership Summit	3.45 – 5.15 pm	Lt. Gen. D. S. Hooda – commander during "surgical strike" in conversation with Maroof Raza – Consulting Editor, Times Now
Times Network presents Leadership Summit	3.45 – 5.15 pm	Virender Sehwag – Renowned Indian Cricketer in conversation with Swati Joshi, Principal Correspondent, Times Now
Broadcasters Abby by Tribes Abby Awards by MX Player	6.00 pm onwards	Broadcaster, Public Relations, Still Craft, Design and Direct Abby's
Vijayavani Gala Dinner	8.30 pm onwards	Gala Dinner
MTV Beats Swag Night	9.00 pm onwards	After Hours Party
13th April 2019
Category	Time	Programme
Welcome Drink	9.30 am	CHAMPAGNE Morning
Keynote by Google	10.30 – 11.00 am	Ross Jauncey– Head of Create With Google
Lokmat presents Knowledge Seminars	11.00 – 12.30 pm	Navi Radjou & Jaideep Prabhu – Authors of famous books: Jugaad & Frugal Innovation
Lokmat presents Knowledge Seminars	11.00 – 12.30 pm	Mary Kom – Six Times World Amateur Boxing Champion in conversation with BoriaMajumdar – Indian Sports Journalist.
ABP One Lunch	12.45 – 1.45 pm	Lunch
Live Performance	1.45 – 2.15 pm	MOHAMMED IRFAN unplugged
National Geographic presents Knowledge Seminars	2.15 – 4.15 pm	Matt Eastwood – Global Chief Creative Officer, McCann Health
National Geographic presents Knowledge Seminars		Noelle LaCharite – Director, Developer Evangelism- DevCollective, Microsoft
MTV presents Knowledge Seminars		Phil Kemish – Co-Founder, Disrupt Marketing &Brandtrepreneur
Jagran presents Knowledge Seminars	4.15 – 5.45 pm	Ambarish Mitra – CEO and Founder, Blippar
Jagran presents Knowledge Seminars	4.15 – 5.45 pm	Pankaj Tripathi – Ace Bollywood Actorin conversation with Film Critic & Author Anupama Chopra
Radio Abby's by Big FM Abby Awards by Star	6.30 pm onwards	Video Craft, Radio, Radio Craft, Branded Content & Entertainment, National Geographic Green Award, Digital & Mobile, Digital Craft, Out of Home, Ambient Media/Activation, Still Content, Audio Visual Content, Young Abby by MTV, Special Abby(Gender Sensitive) and Integrated Abby's
National Geographic Gala Dinner	8.30 pm onwards	Gala Dinner
Dangal TV & Pernod Ricard present After Hours Party	9.00 pm onwards	After Hours Party
MASTERCLASS AT GOAFEST on 12th & 13th April
Masterclass	10.00 – 10.45 am	Parveen Shaikh- M Power, a Workshop on Mindfulness
Masterclass	11.00 – 12.00 pm	David Slocum – Visiting Professor & Advisor- Berlin School of Creative Leadership
Masterclass by Facebook	3.00 – 4.00 pm	Ram Cobain – Creative Strategist, Facebook India
Masterclass at Salao 1, near Atrium, by registration only

April 8, 2019

Voot guns for 100mn MAU with barrage of Originals, branded content innovation

MUMBAI: Viacom18’s digital video-on-demand streaming service VOOT is celebrating its third anniversary with 100+ billion minutes of watch time. With a commitment to offer quality and differentiated content in the digital ecosystem backed with technology and insights, VOOT now aims to reach 100 million monthly active users within the fiscal year.

As part of its future growth strategy, the platform also announced the further scaling of its current content library with a robust line-up of over 30+ VOOT Originals across genres and languages, to be launched this fiscal. Law and Honour, Naaz, Love All, The Raikar Case, Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan – Season 4, Marzi and Asura are few of the VOOT Originals that will be launched shortly.

“India will have an online consumer base of more than million by 2022. Of this, more than 3/4th will be consuming video content. While technological advancements allow us to personalise content consumption, growth for the category will come from our ability to segment our offerings to multiple consumer segments accelerated by the three A’s – accessibility, availability and affordability”, said Viacom18 group CEO and MD Sudhanshu Vats, before adding, “VOOT has crossed the 100 billion watch minutes’ mark in three years and we are now targeting 100 million monthly active users within this financial year. Additionally, we are segmenting the VOOT business into four uniquely focussed propositions – the existing AVOD model and the upcoming freemium offering, VOOT Kids and VOOT International.”

Institutionalising the branded content play, VOOT announced the launch of VOOT Studios – a business performance-oriented content tech solution for advertisers looking to connect with digital audiences with branded shows, sponsorships, interactive formats in addition to other bespoke solutions.

Speaking about the branded content play for VOOT – , Head – AVOD Business Akash Banerji said, “Brands today realise regular ad spot while important is not sufficient to drive resonance with the consumer. Branded content solutioning is hence the way forward given that it allows for bespoke content curation and subtle communication embedded into the narrative of the show. VOOT Studios will allow brands to bring the world of story-telling, data and tech all together to deliver the brand message and the ROI effectively for the business.”

With the proliferation of digital content and its increasing consumption across mediums, understanding consumer behaviour now plays a critical role. VOOT’s consumer insights product MAVARIC is built to help advertisers identify the right audience thus ensuring high impact via communication. MAVARIC helps advertisers with consumer insights as well as target their messaging beyond simple demographic profiles and instead focuses on enhanced insights around online behaviour, purchase behaviour, affinity and interest and more.

Insights clubbed with interactivity solutions will allow brands to provide immersive brand engagements. Reinforcing the importance of interactivity on OTT platforms, VOOT will strengthen its current offering with the addition of five new programmes in the next few months which will fuel further growth and attract users to the platform.

Now available on iOS, Android, Web, and Amazon Fire TV, and built on a robust technology backbone, VOOT further strengthens its technology and distribution system by announcing over 20+ new distribution partners across the travel, broadband and mobile ecosystem as well as with OEMs. The OTT platform has partnered with smart TV manufacturer like CloudWalker, ShareIt , Act Fibrenet and travel network company OLA, amongst the others.

Currently driven by an advertising supported video-on-demand model, VOOT will continue to build scale by soon diversifying from one business model of AVOD to four – VOOT AVOD, VOOT Kids, VOOT International and VOOT Freemium.

April 8, 2019
MIB grants Viacom18 nine TV channel licenses; Star Gold 2 HD gets nod

MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has issued eleven new TV licenses in the non-news category.

While Viacom18 received nine of those, the other two licenses were bagged by Star India and Hare Krsna Content Broadcast.

BDM, Connected, Eco-lution, Hawa Mahal, IMIX, My Tube, Pick-a-trick, Story City and Treble are the names of the Viacom18 channels, which in all likelihood are bound to be renamed when they are launched.

From the Star India stable, Star Gold HD 2 was the beneficiary of the MIB license while Hare Krsna from Hare Krsna Content Broadcast too got the ministry’s nod.

Earlier this month, the MIB had approved two Star India and two Sun TV Network name change applications.

While Star India got the ministry approval to rename its licenses Star Movies Kids and Star Movies Kids HD to Star Sports 1 Bangla and Star Sports 1 Marathi, the Sun TV Network was allowed to rename Udaya News and Gemini News to Sun Marathi and Sun Bangla respectively.

March 30, 2019
Pre-school kids content’s monetisation and viewership challenges

MUMBAI: Animators have long contemplated the complexity of producing pre-school content for the ages of two to four years. On the third day of FICCI Frames 2019, executives from the industry spoke about ‘Catching youngest viewers: Powering the kids network and advertisers ecosystem through data’. It had panellists BARC India senior VP business development partnerships Elbert D’silva, Sony Yay head programming Ronojoy Chakraborty, DDB Mudra Group executive director Sathyamurthy Namakkal, GroupM business head entertainment, sports and live events Vinit Karnik, Viacom18 head content kids TV network Anu Sikka and Graphiti multimedia co-founder Mujal Shroff. The session was moderated by Punaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni.

Sikka threw the limelight over the issue that the industry had been facing since the start and the reason why the kids genre is under-indexed. She said that at first it was a question of finance and so the industry depended on acquired content and later realised the need to produce home-grown content. Parents also exert some control over what the kid watches. A kid may have no issue with Dora being Indian or not, but it is the parents who demand local content. They would want their kids to watch localised content. “Kids from age five demand local content, but in case of kids from the age group of 0-2, the parents are the gatekeepers,” she concluded.

She further added that now is the time that we need to cater to specialised content. “If you look at our Nick Jr. channel, it has grown three to four times this year. But unfortunately, if you look at the overall programming, we don’t get viewership of the two to fourteen years age group. And that is why there is a lack of pre-schooling content,” she said.

On the other hand, Shroff said that there is also a placement issue. He said, “If you look at the viewing pattern, as the child evolves these days, it is on multiple devices. But some age groups still prefer TV.” Kids aged 5-6 or 9-10 tend to consume content on their parents mobile phones or any other device but a 2-year-old kid still watches TV.

Chakraborty explained that pre-school programming is only justified if it can be monetised. “If you look at our category, one-fourth share is GECs but the revenue share for kids category is one-tenth. Hence the revenue here is very less and therefore, broadcasters are not creating content,” he said. If BARC were to provide some viewership cuts for the pre-school audience rather than keep it as a part of the entire kids genre, broadcasters will be able to curate better content.

Agreeing with him, Karnik said that it would be difficult to strategise programming for the pre-schooling kids as the category as a whole is under-indexed in terms of advertising. Despite witnessing a hike in ratings, revenues are increasing at a snail’s pace.

Namakkal chipped in with a different standpoint. He said that the industry shouldn’t get greedy about data because there is already information overload. “One-third of kids consume one and a half hours of video on TV screens. But while we talk about advertising revenue, it will never be equal to viewership share,” he explained.

March 18, 2019
Monetisation is the biggest challenge for regional industry

MUMBAI: The growth of the regional sector in the media industry was discussed on the third day of FICCI Frames 2019. Experts from the television sector discussed on the topic ‘Regional: is it the giant waiting to be awakened?’ It had panellists Viacom18 head regional entertainment Ravish Kumar, Reliance Broadcast Network Thwink Big country head Sunil Kumaran, Discovery communication VP head of advertising sales and business head of regional cluster Vikram Tanna, Westland Publications head language publishing Minakshi Thakur, Network18 CEO languages Karan Abhishek Singh and Google industry head media and entertainment Sandeep Ramesh.

Talking about the challenges in the industry while creating the content as against monetisation, Ramesh said that the latter depends on macroeconomic conditions which are the GDP, per capita income, advertising or subscriptions coming in as a source of income.

Tanna highlighted that looking at the overall scenario of English as against regional languages, perception is bigger than performance and that will change over a period of time. “If you look at pure regional form in TV or digital, there are two markets of monetisation—one is coming in from the regional local businesses and the other is coming from the national advertisers. If you actually add the pricing of both these buckets in any medium, the indexes for regional are quite higher and the reason is that this hyper looking market can calculate ROI much better beyond a simple measurement ROI system,” he added.

Singh chipped in and said that it is also incumbent upon them as content creators to do what it takes. “We need to create an environment where regional content formats are not seen as ‘long tail’ for media planners,” he said.

Meanwhile, an interesting observation was put across where a homogenisation culture was happening, such as the influence of Diwali, Holi and other festivals are witnessed in the Bengali culture these days, which in reality are not so famous in these cultures. Speaking about the trend, Kumar said, “These festivals are actually making the culture larger than life. Of course, there is homogenisation in these cultures, consciously or unconsciously, but it’s the desire to be larger than life because people want entertainment and we look at it very differently.”

Though Baahubali is one regional movie that has travelled internationally the question still remains as to why we can’t make more such innovative content. Kumar replied that we are lazy. He added that we are very good at learning the markets or develop from the ecosystems but not as good as putting out originality. “I would love to see Indian dramas like Turkish content and these are not just working in one market, they are working in multiple markets. We need to come up with something new and innovative and way bigger than what it is.”

A major reason why no content is created for the north-eastern part of the country is budget constraint. Kumar added, “But we can’t put the blame just on budgets. Give us four to five years to offer the content of your choice.”

March 15, 2019
Colors Tamil to launch singing reality show ‘Singing Stars’

MUMBAI: Colors Tamil is all set to celebrate its first anniversary milestone with the launch of a singing reality show, called ‘Singing Stars’. The show focuses on the ‘strength of a relationship’, will feature unique duos come together and give enthralling performances in unison. It will premiere on 16 March every Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm.

Colors Tamil business head Anup Chandrasekharan said, “Within the inaugural year, Colors Tamil has built a strong bond with our viewers. Over the course of the last one year we have provided variety, quality and immersive programming that managed to strike a chord with the viewers.”

He added, “Singing Stars is yet another unique reality show that not only presents one’s singing talent but also conveys the positive aspect of the relationship of the duo. The viewers will experience the significance of high level of emotion, energy, synergy and support through this show.”

The show is curated to spruce up the primetime entertainment content and cater to the evolving tastes of audience. The disruptive format entails contestants rendering musical numbers and competing on the grand stage in pairs.

The journey of Singing Stars to unearth the hidden gems of Tamil Nadu began earlier this year and 14 pairs were handpicked by a team of qualified professionals from across age categories ranging from 8 to 60. The channel is available in all leading cable networks and on all DTH platforms – Sun Direct (CH NO 128), Tata Sky (CHN NO 1555), Airtel (CHN NO 763), Dish TV (CHN NO 1808) and Videocon D2H (CHN NO 553).

March 14, 2019
Sudhanshu Vats says content, platform and technology key to good storytelling

MUMBAI: On day 1 of FICCI Frames 2019 in a session titled ‘Looking back as we move ahead’, Viacom18 group CEO and MD Sudhanshu Vats was in conversation with Indian Express executive director Anant Goenka. The burning question that came out to dominate this conversation was ‘does the industry even realise how to and what to evolve to?’

Vats began by stating that a lot has changed in the industry for the better. He went on to state, from the content space, the first thing that has changed, irrespective of the platforms, is that the industry has moved away from broadcast to micro-cast online. The industry has moved from beaming things to having more conversations making things more interactive.

According to him, the second most important change led by technology is that it isn’t necessary to tell stories to everyone, rather tell it to a limited number of people and tell it successfully. 2018 has seen films target certain audience and these films performed exceedingly well in spite of not being blockbusters such as Andhadhun, Badhai Ho, etc.

The third and most interesting thing he pointed out to is the changes and differences between curator, creator and consumer. It used to be much simpler to differentiate between these three in the past but today the lines have completely blurred. And this is also followed by audiences across, where audiences have also become content curators.

While reiterating the fact that the industry is experiencing many important changes, he states a welcoming change is the narration of diverse stories in a classical content sense.

He stated that because the TV model is an ad-driven model, telling stories in an authentic manner has become a little difficult as compared to the past as it's driven by ratings. He noted that while playing with the original story, many times the industry is taking away from the story. He stressed that importance must be given here and that the focus must be on the ability to tell stories which will eventually sell rather than looking at only selling the stories.

Speaking about ‘Formula’ as a safety net, Vats believes that formula works as a safety net at some level. With minds being patterned in a particular format, and sometimes from the commercial point of view, one must believe in intuition. With reference to the western world, he added that the media industry in the West follows a pattern format leading to success.

Sudhanshu Vats believes that there will be a lot of custom use in the story and segmentation in the audience. According to him, there will be a set of audience that will love, and there will be one that doesn’t. But in the future, it won’t matter as every story can reach its audience and every audience their story.

The session ended on the note that the future can be rafted only from lessons learnt in the past. The media industry is in interesting times today, as it witnesses a disruptive process of embracing change to redefine itself for the future.

March 13, 2019
Colors, Viacom18’s flagship Hindi GEC, is Mumbai Indians’ principal sponsor for IPL 2019

MUMBAI: Viacom18’s flagship Hindi general entertainment channel Colors is all set to make its presence felt in the Indian Premier League 2019 through its brand association with three-time champions Mumbai Indians. Having established itself as the #1 channel in the premiere & urban Hindi category, Colors will be the principal sponsor for the Rohit Sharma-led side. Adding more color-ful hues to their bleed blue spirit, Mumbai Indians will don the Colors logo on the back of their jersey as showcase their mettle at the 12th edition of the IPL scheduled to kickstart on 23 March 2019.

Commenting on the partnership said a spokesperson from Viacom18 said, “Cricket is like a religion in India that brings every member of the family together and so does a leading general entertainment channel like Colors. Therefore, associating with the most popular cricketing team of IPL – Mumbai Indians which enjoys tremendous adulation, is a perfect blend with our brand positioning. Both Colors and Mumbai Indians are consistent, entertaining, ambitious and aggressive and exemplify the same ethos. This is yet another avenue for us to connect with our audiences both on and off the field as well as on-air.”

Setting the tone for the IPL fever, Colors will bring viewers closer to the Mumbai Indians players through a series of innovative integrations and contests on-air as well as through digital engagement.

Mumbai Indians spokesperson added, “We are extremely delighted to bring COLORS as the Principle Sponsor for Mumbai Indians and look forward to developing a long term, mutual benefiting association. Through the journey this IPL, Mumbai Indians and COLORS will create consumer-centric entertaining content, which we hope our global fans will appreciate and associate with.”

March 1, 2019