It is a case of Haan (yes) and Naa (no). What is good for the goose may not be good for the gander in television land. In this case Haan is Sun TV. The Kalanithi Maran-promoted channel appears satisfied with the response to its recently-launched one-hour interactive show Mudivu Ungal Kaiyyil (You Decide The End).
Quoting ORG MARG's Intam ratings, Santosh Nair, head of marketing at New Age Entertainment - CO-producer of the show - says when the programme debuted on the 8th of last month it garnered 17 TRPs (target audience females 15+). Ratings have since stabilised at the 14-15 mark, Nair says.
Buoyed by the success of the show, the network has decided to launch the show on its Telugu channel Gemini as well. The show on Gemini is expected to start from Saturday, 20 October, at 8:30 p.m., just before Sun TV airs Mudivu... at 9:30 p.m.
Nair says: "We are co-producing the show along with In-House Productions. We also handle marketing. Each show is basically a separate story with no connection to what was shown the previous week. In the show the viewer has to call up at the end and say in what manner he thinks it should finish. He can also answer through e-mail. We bought the rights for the show from Globo Television which is a very popular channel in Brazil. This is the most exciting thing to have happened in the Indian Television landscape since the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati on Star Plus (aiming high that's for sure)."
Sponsors roped in for the Gemini show include Hindustan Lever Limited, Johnson &Johnson, Cadbury and Onida, Nair says.
Nair says the name for the Gemini show is still being finalised but expects the decision to be made by Wednesday. Queried on reports that Sun was likely to show the programme on Surya as well, he does not rule out the possibility but points out that there has been no concrete discussions on the issue as yet.
The Naa party here seems to be Zee TV. The Zee version of the same show Aap Jo Bolein Haan to Haan Aap JO Bolein Naa to Naa (launched on 27 August) hasn't exactly set the Ganges on fire as far as ratings are concerned. In fact it was this show that broadcasting CEO Sandeep Goyal cited to justify his claim that the ratings system was flawed. Goyal's contention was that if the show was getting such a high number of viewer call-ins without that being translated into higher TRPs, it clearly showed something was seriously wrong somewhere.
Seeking to explain this Nair says: "The content of Zee's programme is the same as what is being shown on Sun TV. In fact they launched the show before Sun TV. However Mr Sandeep Goyal and his team introduced along with this show around 25 (actually 23) other programmes as part of its re-launch exercise. The result was that they could not focus on pushing any one show. The audience was bombarded with so much fresh programming that it lost interest and motivation in watching the channel."
"Sun TV has used just this show to push the ratings.
"Look at Star. (Last year in June) they concentrated initially only on 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' as a brand. When the brand was firmly implanted in the viewer's mind, then they diversified."
Nair added that at the moment New Age Entertainment was not making any other shows for Sun TV.
