MUMBAI: The launch of the festive season in India generally coincides with the start of the most popular reality show on TV - Big Boss. Produced by Endemol Shine and broadcast on Colors, the show is in its twelfth successful run.
Bigg Boss 12 has retained Appy Fizz as the presenting sponsor and Oppo F9 PRO as the 'powered by' sponsor. Viacom18 COO Raj Nayak said that Panasonic, L’Oreal and Capital Foods have already signed up and two more brands are expected to come on board. “We have almost sold 50-60 per cent of the ad inventory and by this Friday we will sign two more advertisers,” he said.
The channel says it has increased ad rates by 5-8 per cent. As far as last season is concerned, the channel had hiked of ad rates for new advertisers and had kept incremental cost between 12.5-15 per cent.
This year too, the channel will make use of its OTT platform Voot. Nayak said, “We will surely have extra episodes, voting and full episodes on Voot. It will be on MTV as well because it is a youth channel and they love to watch such kind of shows. We had got traction even on the different time slot when we aired on the channel.” Last year, the channel re-broadcasted bits of the show on MTV at different time slots of 2-3 pm and 11.30 pm to 1 am which also ended up getting youngsters.
Reports state that each episode costs anywhere between Rs 4-5 crore and is Colors’ most expensive show. Nayak, who was earlier heading Colors, knows Big Boss like his baby. For several years, Big Boss guzzled more investment than it gave revenue but all the sweat has started to yield fruits. He has always maintained that the show’s X-factor and buzz-creation ability is what sways the network.
“Bigg Boss was obviously a loss-making venture at first and now we have broken even and of course it is also profitable. But the buzz that it creates and the different kind of viewership that Bigg Boss has, I don’t think any show other than this has the same. People will watch it even if we play it 365 days,” he said.
This year’s theme is ‘jodis’ which means players will play in pairs which will be relevant to their identity as celebrities or commoners. The first episode will air on 16 September at 9 pm with regular episodes from Monday to Friday at 10.30 pm. Since the weekends are empty, the channel has lined up Khatron Ke Khiladi.
