Star
introduces Junior KBC… and a winning couple
(Posted on 28 April, 7:45 pm)
The Star India team, along with Kaun Banega Crorepati
anchor Amitabh Bachchan and producer Siddharth Basu, yesterday
presented to the media Vijay Raul and wife Arundhati, the first
Crorepatipatni winners of the jackpot prize Rs 10 million.
Star broke the news while providing details of KBC Junior,
which premiers on Sunday, 6 May at 10 am.
Coincidentally or otherwise, the episode featuring the two
winners will be telecast the very next day, 7 May at 9 PM on Star
Plus.
The first winners of the 'Crorepatipatni' format of KBC
where husband and wife contest as partners on the gameshow hail
from Rourkela in the eastern state of Orissa. While Raul is a
chief assistant engineer at GAIL in Rourkela, Arundhati is a homemaker.
"They were a most unassuming couple, and I least expected
them to win," Bachchan said. "In fact I was under the impression
that they probably wouldn't get past Rs 10,000. But they certainly
took me by surprise once they were on the hotseat," he said.
KBC Junior is organised around young participants between
the ages of 10 to 18. "My heart was palpitating, I am still weak-kneed
after having shot two episodes continuously," said Bachchan in
a light vein while expressing how he felt hours after the shoot
of two episodes with a bunch of enthusiastic and precocious children.
To arrest the fall in KBC's popularity, Star, as part
of a strategic move, shifted the Thursday show of KBC to
Sunday placing it at an apt spot when other competing channels
air mythological programmes. The programme has received a good
response from the advertisers, said Sameer Nair, executive vice
president programming Star Plus. While Compaq is giving away a
personal computer to any child who makes it to the hotseat, irrespective
of whether he is a winner or not, the channel has promised gifts
to the 10 final participants. The channel is optimistic about
getting a positive response for the programmes and are expecting
a two digit TRP rating for the show, said Nair.
According to Basu KBC Junior has received an overwhelming
response, with over 600,000 phone calls in the three days lines
were open.
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