Viacom18 to enter Tamil entertainment market under Colors brand

The third South Indian GEC from the broadcaster will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2017

Media and entertainment network Viacom18 will be launching its seventh regional general entertainment channel (GEC) under the Colors brand – COLORS Tamil – in the fourth quarter of the current year. The network currently operates GECs in the Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Odia and Bangla markets. Last year, the broadcaster, being bullish on the future prospect of regional entertainment, launched a second Kannada GEC — COLORS Super.

The Tamil GEC market is fairly populated with close to 15 channels currently on air. Sun TV is the undisputed leader in the category, with a lead of over four times on its closest competitor Star Vijay according to TV viewership data from the Broadcast Audiences Research Council of India (BARC).

The competition between numbers two to four is heated with 42 million impressions separating the number two (Star Vijay) and number four (Zee Tamil) players. It gets even more heated when one sees the difference between Star Vijay and number three place holder KTV. The two are separated by just 3,000 impressions. Viacom18 is the third national broadcaster to enter the Tamil market after Star India and Zee.

Sudhanshu Vats, group CEO, Viacom18, said, “Driving regional aggressively is one of our foremost strategic thrusts. Given that almost 60 per cent of our country speaks in regional languages and this market is under-indexed on television, it is imperative that this segment will continue to grow rapidly in the years ahead.”

“While Colors Super was aimed at deepening our presence in the Kannada genre where Colors Kannada is an undisputed leader, the launch of Colors Tamil is a step towards widening our reach in regional markets by entering the largest regional market in the country. The Tamil content market is highly competitive and well-primed for disruption, making this the opportune time for our entry,” he added.

Viacom18 owns a robust library of reality and fiction shows. It has invested in creating original content relevant to specific regions on screen and extending it on-ground for each region under the brand Colors. Viacom18’s content and strategy for regional, coupled with BARC making rural reporting of data more robust, is expected to contribute to the growth in the regional markets. Viacom18 has seen success in the regional space owing to its content strategy and leads the market in Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati.

Tamil GEC ratings for Week 17 (April 22 to April 28, 2017)

Rank	Channel	Impressions (in million)
1	Sun TV	944
2	Star Vijay	266
3	KTV	266
4	Zee Tamil	224
5	Polimer	92

Source: BARC India

The data considers urban and rural audiences in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region and includes individuals over 2 years old