New Year resolve: Colors to beat Star Plus with real-ity stick

In order to challenge the virtual monopoly of Star Plus among a dozen general entertainment channels, the five-month-old channel Colors is once again betting big on reality shows in early 2009. It plans to bring back the second season of its successful reality shows — Bigg Boss, Khatron Ke Khiladi (the Hindi-version of stunt-based show Fear Factor-Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena), and a couple of more such shows in early 2009.

“Some of the new programming initiatives for 2009 may happen in January and February,” a senior executive of the channel told Business Standard.

This comes after Colors, a joint venture between Raghav Bahl’s Network 18 and Viacom, managed to consistently place itself at the number two spot behind Star Plus for the past 2-3 months based on viewership ratings.

In the latest such ratings for last week of 2008, the gross rating points (GRPs) of Colors stood at 255, just 40 GRPs behind Star Plus and 69 GRPs ahead of Zee TV.

Commenting on the programming mix, Rajesh Kamat, CEO, Colors, said, “Colors has seen a dream run since its inception and we are happy to end the year on such a promising and positive note. Our plans for 2009 would be to consolidate the existing shows. However, in the coming year you will also witness the launch of weekend and afternoon shows but it will be too early to reveal on the same.”

Since its launch in July 2008, Colors started climbing the charts based on viewership ratings with the success of Khatron Ke Khiladi, hosted by film actor Akshay Kumar. This was followed with another reality show Bigg Boss, based on an international format of Big Brother. Bigg Boss also generated high ratings for Colors and helped it reach the number two spot in the entertainment genre.

However, experts believe that 2009 may not be a smooth ride for Colors as its programming and distribution costs are not matching the returns generated through the advertising revenue on the channel.

“Colors can be credited for bringing in a host of programming initiatives that were clutter-breaking. So it did well in getting the viewers to watch it, as reflected in its GRPs. However, managing cost will be a critical question in 2009,” said an industry observer.

Commenting on the cost concerns, Media Partners Asia, the international media research agency, recently said in a report, “Success and the build of profitable ad revenue streams for Colors remain critical as Network 18 plans to reach breakeven with the channel within three years and secure about $50 million (over Rs 200 crore) in ad sales by the end of year one.”