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MUMBAI: Sony's
youth brand Sab has rejigged its primetime offering after
cricket has finished its last lap on the channel. The has
brought back its key property Left Right Left and with
its revival the channel has launched a website that will allow
fans to blog, play games, watch behind the scenes footage
of the show.
The
channel has also restored life to its other flagship properties
MMW (Mohalla Mohobhat walla) and launched two new shows
Lovestory and 4 to aggressively push its weekday
primetime 8 - 10 pm primetime band.
But
apart from this, the channel is also looking to strengthen
its weekend line up with the acquisition of five Disney owned
international shows including Desperate Housewives, Alias,
Lost, America's Funniest Home Videos and Extreme Makeover.
Slated to go on air by the end of June, the channel has bought
a full season of each of these shows and will kick off with
Alias.
But
will these dubbed international series resonate well with
Indian youth? SET COO NP Singh believes "Youth are inclined
to watch these shows, however the English accent is a barrier."
They will of course be fine tuned and censored to suitably
adhere to Indian culture "sensibilities". This will
be an experimental effort, following which the other international
shows will come on air depending on audience responses.
Singh
is betting on the weekend line up by reviving comedy shows
FIR and Yes Boss. They are contemplating a third
comedy brand to add to the existing ones. The Sunday schedule
will continue to be movie driven. Singh however notes that
the films screened will be more recent releases as compared
to before.
The
USP for the channel is typically contrary of SET and will
therefore not compete or draw audiences from Star and Zee
TV, but SET business head Vikas Bahl explains that the audiences
that Sab beckons are not restricted to the youth demographic
alone but offer entertainment to the 'young at heart' who
are not necessarily into the typical 'saas bahu' sagas. "We
have observed that age has been pulled down in India."
"Our
clarity of focus is clearly on the youth but its will definitely
extend beyond that TG to older aspiring audiences, moreover
they are not women skewed like other fiction shows on air
during primetime. However, they do not connote rebellious
programming and will meet comfort levels of parents as well,"
says SET VP programming Priya Mishra.
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