What a brilliant concept, creating a world of use and abuse of competing quizzers. A concept picked up directly from the The Weakest Link, but alas this concept could have done more in India, as it has been so arguably successful in UK, USA, Turkey, Germany, Thailand, Argentina, through almost the entire globe.

Star had the perfect quiz to replace a successful KBC, even if it was for only one day of the week. This concept is fresh on the subcontinent's footprint. Television has never seen such a great marriage of soap opera and a quiz show. The concept forces the participants to indulge, connive, even challenge values and then articulate to justify their decisions. Interludes with vox create unique characters, which along with varied socio-cultural backgrounds create a fine story of its own each time. The anchor plays up the darker side of the concept that is a vote to eliminate the weakest link. Once the participants decide, she keeps hitting below the belt, subtly encouraging the contestants to go after each other. Participants and viewers who are used to getting solace from the host are shocked at being given a rude exit.
Let us look at the presentation. The show has high production values. Neena Gupta is doing a great job, despite of repetitive anecdotes and one-liners. She keeps up the 'mean factor' without losing out on pragmatism. This helps her keep up with audience sensibilities. But she never communicates with her viewers directly which I think could be an added advantage. She could look into the camera and talk to the viewers, make tongue-in-cheek references about her participants, their scheming ways and how she would get at them.

Kamzor Kadii Kaun at a glance -

Originality	The Weakest Link - British original - gothic and mean
USP	Definitely a different kind of quiz by proactive quizzer participation. A soap opera 'bitchiness' feel is thus created.
Profile	Antithesis of feel-good KBC. Questions relatively easy. Competitors are forced to show inherent logic, connivance and values, touched with regional accents. Interludes with vox create unique characters, which along with varied socio-cultural backgrounds create a fine story.
Production value	Best known to quiz shows
Anchor	Neena Gupta----Pragmatic profiling despite being mean.
Promotion/Hype	Weak - Hardly promoted. Anchor not promoted, hardly talked about in the print. The original British version has got a lot of press hype.
Missed opportunities	Studio audience benign. No TV audience communication by the anchor.

A great show like this cannot sustain itself without the advertising and public relations guys working overtime with brilliant ideas to hype the programme. Every great television concept needs a human face. Star Plus' should work more on promoting KKK's stylised anchor Neena Gupta either through its special promos or its network of public relations. Look at the original anchor Anne Robinson, she has been constantly talked about in almost all leisure pages, hated across channels, her one-liner sound-bites are on the Net, they are used in chat rooms and could match Gabbar Singh dialogues from our part of the world for sheer impact.

Neena Gupta has a long way to go before she catches up with the Queen of Mean, Anne Robinson

Robinson now holds the rank of the top ten world's worst dressed woman (along with teen pop princess Britney Spears). The cream topping so to speak is that of the Top Ten "Television Bitches" the only one to ever make it from non-fiction. In a press release by Open UK, which conducted a poll of the one least likely to be invited for dinner, Robinson ranked second only to "Hannibal The Cannibal" from The Silence of the Lambs. This is what classic public relation exercises are all about. Unfortunately in India television PR and "cross-media hype" is not considered a marketing strategy, which should be fundamentally considered at every stage.

Koushik Saha has been associated with television for the last 18 years from Bhimsain's hit comedy Choti Badi Batein in the eighties, to television projects of Pritish Nandy Communications and as a Strategist with Sahara TV. Now as an independent analyst he looks at present television programming with wide perspective, with studies from different focus groups of TV viewers.

Saha has drawn his conclusions from discussions with around 80 people, all of whom reside in Mumbai but represent as wide a cross section as he could manage.

(The views expressed in this article are purely those of the author and indiantelevision.com takes no responsibility for the same).