MUMBAI: Star India has chalked out a differentiated programming strategy for its new general entertainment channel (GEC) -- Life OK -- which is going on air on 18 December.

Firstly, the channel will have shows on all seven days of the week, unlike 4-5 days programming, followed by the rival GECs. Moreover, unlike half-hour and one-hour episodes, the channel will have 20-minute and 40-minute episodes.

Life OK will have a three-hour daily primetime slot from 8-11 pm. In weekends it will also air movies.

Additionally, Life OK has roped in Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit as the face of the channel, who will come once a day and play the role of the "sutrdhaar" or narrator for the shows.

Indiantelevision was first to report that Star India is closing down Star One and will replace it with the new channel Life OK.

"Life OK is a unique name which is in itself a statement of its philosophy, compelling content that flows from that philosophy and an unprecedented focus to cater to the viewer?s needs," Star India CEO Uday Shankar said in a statement.

"We found that viewers wanted better value for their time. Hence the stories on Life OK will be told seven days a week and will feature three stories every hour. People often said that they did not understand why we were doing a certain story and hence Madhuri Dixit will be the Sutradhar-a completely novel introduction on Life OK. Everybody that we spoke to said that they wanted shorter ad breaks, so Life OK will have the shortest ad breaks for any channel anywhere in this country," he further added.

When asked why the company has decided to drop the "Star" brand, Star India COO Sanjay Gupta said, "We didn?t want to have the name Star. This is our second entry in Hindi GEC and the second entry is always considered as the younger brother/ sister. We have Star Plus, which is the leader and everything that is launched with Star Plus is always compared with Star Plus first. Neither did we want to take the benefit of the name nor the negative of it. So these are the two reasons that we are going with ?Life Ok?."

Gupta agreed that the decision of scrapping the seven-year old Star One was because of its non performance. "When it was launched it was the most iconic brand. It had the most different set of shows. But it didn?t sustain for a long time. It had a lot of changes in direction and finally during the past two years it was doing very averagely so there was a need to do something for Star One and hence we decided to start afresh," he added.

The channel kick-started the promotions on 12 December. The four-week long plan is focussed on the philosophy of the channel. The brand film for the channel, depicting the same, is created by O&M.

Apart from Youtube, Yahoo and Life OK web page, the company has penetrated deep in the Hindi heartland with hoardings across 100 towns. The channel is also being promoted on the Star Network.

"Recognising the importance of youth the brand will be launching via a week long digital engagement plan and the biggest online concert ever with an eight-hour long Life OK Rockathon exclusively for the web," Gupta added.

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