MUMBAI: Sahara One has decided to have Colors as its simulcast partner for its expensive singing reality show Sur-Kshetra, making it the first occasion in India that two Hindi general entertainment channels from rival companies have tied up to telecast a show together.

This will also mark the entry of Colors into the singing reality genre for the first time. Rival channels have popular seasonal properties in this genre. Zee TV has Saregama, Sony Indian Idol and Star Plus Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar.

Says Colors CEO Raj Nayak, "Music has the unique ability to unify people and today, it has brought two channels together. Sur-Kshetra will mark Colors? foray into the singing genre non-fiction content segment and we are extremely excited about this new venture. By adding the show to our bouquet of offerings, we are working towards fulfilling our commitment to cohesive viewing while providing our audiences with unique content keeping them engaged."

Sahara was earlier in negotiations with Star Plus for the simultaneous telecast of the show. However, the two channels could not reach an agreement and the show was put on hold.

Produced by Sahara One in association with Gajendra Singh?s Saaibaba Telefilms, Sur-Kshetra is a cross-border musical battle between the Indian Team, captained by Himesh Reshammiya, and the Pakistani Team, captained by Atif Aslam. Evaluating the teams and judging the musical flair will be Asha Bhosle (India), Abida Parveen (Pakistan) and Runa Laila (Bangladesh).

The show will be anchored by Bollywood actor Ayesha Takia and will also have musical stalwarts like Ghulam Ali, Hadiqa Kiani and Sajjad Ali from Pakistan, and Suresh Wadkar, Ismail Darbar, Alka Yagnik and Sapna Mukherjee from India. Sources say out of the 30 episodes, 28 have been shot in Dubai already and the finale might be shot in London.

Says Sahara One asst director worker Suresh Mishra, "Even though the boundaries have divided the two nations, music has always fostered a common and harmonious bond. With this legendary Indo-Pak musical grandeur, viewers from both the nations and across the globe will witness a new generation of gifted singers from the two most melodious talent pools of the world. We are excited about this strategic tie-up with Colors giving Sur-Kshetra a combination of two large platforms that does justice to the stature of the show."

Media analysts think Sahara?s decision to simulcast the show is a practical step. "The best way for Sahara to monetise an expensive property is by sharing it with another channel. Sahara One has low ratings and by letting a more popular GEC air it the show will get a wider exposure and gain in stature. On the negative side, it could be an opportunity loss for Sahara to turnaround its weak ratings," says an analyst on condition of anonymity.

MUMBAI: Viacom18 has appointed Vivek Bahl as network advisor content.

Bahl?s immediate focus will be to work on the regional channels the group plans to get into. He will also play a strategic role in planning and development of new content.

He will report to Colors CEO Raj Nayak and has a parallel line of reporting to the regional head.

Bahl joins in from Turner India, where he was the chief content officer for all Turner channels.

Nayak said, ?Vivek comes with great experience in developing content for different genres and his understanding of the television and entertainment industry is quite phenomenal. We believe he will play a significant role in not only in further developing and strengthening the current content on Viacom18?s offerings but also in the expansion of the network?s upcoming regional channels.?

Bahl comes in with over 25 years experience in television, films and advertising. He has played various roles of creating, writing, programming, producing and directing entertainment content.

Prior to Turner, he was executive creative director for Star India and he co-produced the series ?Navya? for Star Plus. He has also worked with Mahuaa Network in a consulting role to set up their new regional channels and Zee TV.

MUMBAI: Colors has split its programming unit into two separate teams to bring more focus on content for weekdays and weekends.

Manisha Sharma, who joins from tomorrow, will handle weekend programming with a team size of 10. Prashaant Bhatt, who was earlier in charge of fiction programming, will get the weekdays to nurse.

Colors? programming structure earlier evolved under a fiction and a non-fiction head without a programming head, after Ashvini Yardi quit to pursue film projects as an entrepreneur.

The need to change, effective 1 May, comes under the wake of a forward programming strategy that will include fiction content on weekends with a different kind of appeal. The series that Colors airs on weekdays and runs fresh on the channel on weekends as specials will continue to be looked after by Bhatt.

Effective 1 May, the realignment is aimed at strengthening content for the entire week as the channel strives to improve its ratings so that it climbs in the GEC ratings ladder. For the week ended ended 21 April, Colors ranked fourth, behind Zee TV, Sony and market leader Star Plus, according to TAM data.

Both Bhatt and Sharma will report to Colors CEO Raj Nayak.

Says Nayak, "Given Sharma?s vast experience and thorough knowledge of the industry, I am sure she will bring in the edge and experience in taking weekend programming to a new level. With this dynamic combination Bhatt managing the weekday programming and Sharma taking charge of weekends, we are hoping to make sure that Colors is a strong player throughout the week and, through this realignment equal focus will be laid on both ? weekday and weekend."

Colors hopes to gain from Sharma?s experience with Sony TV where she was non-fiction head. She was also responsible for developing shows like Comedy Circus, CID and Crime Patrol. Sony leads the weekends because of Crime Petrol and CID which figure in the top 10 show list.

Mumbai: Colors, the Hindi general entertainment channel from the Viacom18 stable, is launching a wellness show on 29 April. Titled ?All is Well with Dr. Ahluwalia?, the show will be aired every Sunday at 12 noon

The show is the Indian adaptation of the international format - Dr. OZ. This is one-of-its-kind show in India and will simplify the medical jargons and terminology for the masses and give its audiences the medical expertise. It will drive awareness and also educate the audiences towards managing health at home and leading a better lifestyle.

Colors had bought the rights of the show from Sony Pictures Television (SPT) in November last year.

Produced by Miditech, the show will run for an hour. In the show, Dr. Sonu Ahluwalia, will demystify everything related to health and medicine, giving simple solutions and answers to all health and lifestyle related issues in common man?s terms. The interactive show will make health regime a fun experience through games, quizzes, power workouts and dance.

Colors CEO Raj Nayak said, "With All Is Well, we are excited to explore wellness as a concept that brings to our audiences edutainment weekly in a show that is both educative and entertaining. It takes a Sundays - 12 noon slot, a time when the entire family gets together, thereby building our weekend viewing. The show is also in line with the Colors philosophy of providing the viewers with variety of programming. With All Is well, we hope to bring in more awareness on health issues and take up the cause of reaching the message to a large audience."

Miditech co founder Niret Alva added, "It?s great to bring an interactive show that highlights health and medicine in a simpler and entertaining format to the Indian audience. Dr. Sonu is the perfect fit to take on as the host; he is witty and connects well with the audience. His experience and insights into the profession has worked towards making this show engaging and informative."

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MUMBAI: Even though Max is gearing up to launch the fifth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on 4 April, the Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) seem to be relaxed and unaffected.

The executives of these channels believe that it will be working as usual this time, and are not showing any concern because of the IPL 5.

This is despite the fact that India is still a single TV household and IPL is known for starting a trend of attracting housewives and kids to watch matches. And, the GEC genre has been seeing a drop in its share during the time of IPL.

However, this time there have been apprehensions about the response for IPL because Indian cricket team has not been performing very well. Yet, it poses a challenge for the GECs when it comes to audiences? preference.

The GEC genre had shrunk by 4.35 per cent during IPL 4 (in the All India market), as compared to a 9.07 per cent drop it had witnessed in the first season of IPL.

GECs are gearing up to launch new shows also during the time of IPL to attract more eyeballs, even if the rest of the plan remains the same.

Colors, for instance, has launched a new fiction today at 7 pm band by the name Kairi. .

According to Colors CEO Raj Nayak, "Today there is so much of cricket all through the year. IPL for us is just another good cricket tournament in the annual calendar. The genre share does not get impacted severely, so for us its life as usual. And it is reflected in our approach, we are launching a new program- Kairi in the launch week of IPL. We have a programming strategy in place. Our focus will be to continue to give our viewers differentiated and a broad variety of fiction and non fiction content."

Zee TV, with its newly found vigour will be launching three new shows. It is bringing back its dancing reality show, DID lil Masters soon. Additionally, it is launching a new fiction show Phir Subah Hogi.

Zee Entertainment Enterprise (Zeel) marketing head - national channels Akash Chawla said, "We are ready to combat IPL this time too."

Chawla noted that the impact of IPL-2 was far less significant than that of the IPL-1. "Last year, the GECs received a 10-15 per cent rating hit because the IPL event was held after the board exams. Two things emerge clearly. One, that regular GEC shows are growing in terms of audience numbers despite IPL. And two, the return on investment, as a result, on the IPL is much lower than on the GECs for advertisers. The five times premium advertisers paid on the IPL is not delivering as much return."
Star Plus, the leading Hindi GEC is planning to take two of its shows, ?Sasural Genda Phool? and ?Maryada?, off-air. The channel is expected to introduce two new fiction properties Ek Dusre se Karte Hain Pyaar Hum and Pyaar Ki Naukri.

Star India business head Hindi channels Nitin Vaidya also feels that IPL will not be able to shake the GEC genre stability. He said, "IPL effect has been declining over a period of time. Star Plus? programming strategy does not depend on IPL. We follow an annual calendar and all programming strategies are implemented accordingly. In the past as well we have launched programs that have done pretty well."

Turner International India chief content officer Vivek Bahl, who looks after the content of Imagine TV also, added, "Anything that brings up decent numbers does affect other?s ratings to an extent. Though the IPL ratings have been dipping each year, non-fiction shows get more affected than fiction shows by the same. Especially fiction that?s been a habit tends to get lesser affected during the IPL. Guess the above is due to the simple fact that the core non-fiction viewers are also those who watch the IPL.

"IPL target audience could be different but to lure that audience does a channel try to incorporate some activities around IPL in their popular shows. We don?t believe in tweaking our content in the face of any outside events or competition. The only ones we cater, & try to stay true to, are our viewers."

Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television and Sab, being the sister channels of Max, are not launching any new show. But post IPL, Set will launch singing reality show the sixth season of Indian Idol.

Life OK, Star India?s second GEC will be launching Aasmaan Se Aage on 23 April.