Viacom18 doubles down on its regional offerings

Almost two years into its launch, Viacom18’s second Kannada general entertainment channel (GEC), Colors Super, is set for an overhaul of its weekday and weekend programming this June.

The channel will introduce eight shows across genres and formats in 21 days. The channel announced its fresh lineup through an especially-created promo ‘June Tingalu Super Tingalu’.

The slew of shows includes family dramas, love stories, sitcoms, and reality shows, including a new one for budding singers, a first for the market from Colors.

The channel will also see Bigg Boss Kannada returning on air this October for its sixth season. With this, the network is strengthening its play in the ~6.5 billion market, consisting Kannada general entertainment channels.

It is not often that a channel’s prime-time programming for weekdays and weekends undergoes a complete overhaul. It, therefore, is pertinent to ask why the channel would opt for such a measure. Was the content not resonating with the audiences?

Ravish Kumar, head (regional entertainment), Viacom18, says the case is anything but that. “Since its launch two years ago, Colors Super has grown in leaps and bounds. It has helped us (Viacom18) capture almost 40 per cent of the market share and it is a strong contender for number five position in the market (Kannada GEC). The point of launching a second GEC in the same market was to offer more variety of content. We know the market much better now, and feel it is time we ramped up the offerings in the market,” he says.

While Colors Kannada leads the charts by a large margin in the Kannada GEC market, Colors Super has been a consistent number five player. Other channels in the top five include Zee Kannada, Star Suvarna and Udaya TV.

Kumar says while the content on Colors Super had resonated with the audience, the channel needs to catch up in the distribution department, which, he says, will happen in the coming months.

The addition of a second GEC within the same regional market has raised concerns of cannibalisation. However, Kumar and his team have a different view of the matter. “Our reading of the situation is that the addition of Colors Super has helped expand the viewership pie. While some of the viewership on the channel has come at the cost of other GECs, the consumption of Kannada GEC content has gone up. We went in with the intention of introducing new content and letting the audience choose what they wanted to see, and it paid off,” he said.

In addition to ramping up its presence in the southern market, Colors is also taking steps to fortify its play in the Bangla market in the coming months. Its channel, Colors Bangla, will start on July 6 Ke Hobe Banglar Kotipati, the Bengali adaptation of the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepati.

Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, a very popular face in the Bengali entertainment business, will present it. The show will air at prime time (9 pm to 10 pm) on weekdays. “We chose to introduce the show in July (rather than the start of the festive season).”

The network is focused on sengthening its play in the ~6.5 billion market, consisting Kannada general entertainment channels