Reality TV on fast track in cyberspace

The bigwigs of cyberia are cashing in on the popularity of reality TV and social networking amongst the youth.

Social networking site BigAdda, will soon be launching its second reality offering called Get Fit India. It is an eight week reality show on Bigadda.com The auditions for the show will be held across select Gold’s Gym outlets in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mohali.

 The online portal of Anil Dhirubahi Ambani Group had earlier launched India Bike Rally (IBR). According to Mandar Natekar, head marketing and revenue of Bigadda, the response was overwhelming. For the two months that IBR was online, there were nine million page hits, over 20,000 followers and about 19 million votes were cast for the participants.

 Natekar is confident that Get Fit India, that starts from next months, will garnering equal or better participation. The portal has tie-ups with advertisers like Ranbaxy, Revital and Equal.

BigAdda is not the first one to venture into web reality shows. Portals like ibibo.com and desitara.com, which host talent hunts in a range of fields, like fashion modelling, photography, choreography and so on, have been successful in attracting users.

Ashish Kashyap, CEO, Ibibo.com says that it’s merging of both social networking and reality TV in the best form. But he is cautious too as not all shows get the target audience excited. 

The ad rates of course are not anywhere close to the TV-based reality shows, but they are still attracting attention from big names. Citing the example of Ranbaxy, Natekar says that if you have programmes which brands see ample opportunity in, there will be no shortage of backers. “On an average, a user spends eight to ten minutes on social networking sites, which is a lot of attention span in today’s world,” he explains

These portals believe that there is an audience for web-based reality shows for sure. Looking at the Indian audiences’ insatiable appetite for reality based shows, it’s very likely that they won’t care on which screen they watch it on.