MUMBAI: Star Vijay is gearing up to launch a new set of shows in the coming months. The channel officials claim that its recent programming initiatives have received a good response from the discerning south Indian audiences.
In June, Star Vijay will woo viewers with a new soap in primetime called Salanam. Also coming up is the telecast of the recently held Filmfare awards - south. The show was held last week in Hyderabad.
From June onwards, the 'live' show Kathai alla Nijam will be aired in the evenings as well. Kathai alla Nijam is a reality show where common people come and speak about their problems, be it infidelity, transexuals, separated kith and kin, eunuchs amongst others.
The show is hosted by popular actress Lakshmi (of Julie fame). Star Vijay officials claim an amazing response to this show - call-ins to the show touches 20,000 calls in a week. The show is telecast 'live' daily at 12:30 pm and from 2 June it will go 'live' at 9 pm as well. 
The channel's programming team recently came up with the Jackie Chan film festival on 17 May and the festival will continue for six more weeks (till June end). According to the officials, the first movie has rated 9.6 TVRs (ABC 4+) in Chennai. Also, another leading show on Star Vijay is Kavyanjali which plays at 8:00 pm on weekdays which rates in the range of 7 -9 TVRs (ABC 4+). The channel also has shows like Nee Naan Aval which plays at 8:30 pm on weekdays; with ratings between 4-6 TVRs; Kalyani on weekdays 7 pm has ratings between 4-6 TVRs.
However, it is important to note that all these ratings pertain to the period between January and February 2003. In the last few months, the entire Star network was off in four out of five important centres in Chennai city due to problems with rival multi-system operators in the city. Industry sources say that MSO Hathway (Rajan Raheja owned MSO in which Star India has a stake) services close to 40 per cent of Chennai city while SCV (owned by Sun Network) services the rest of the market. Sources also claim that these issues have been sorted out and Star Vijay is available in more homes now.
Star Vijay also aired AR Rahman's 'Unity of Light' concert on two consecutive Sundays (18 May and 25 May) as a two part series. The show was billed as one of the biggest ones in Chennai.