MUMBAI: Viacom 18, after ruling the rating charts in the Kannada market for 62 weeks, now is set to launch its second GEC in the same space. Come 24 July 2016 Karnataka will have a new channel, Colors Super offering new programming. The channel will launch with four hours of original programming with mainstream genres per day during weekdays and a movie premiere on Sundays.  Colors Super will be available on all the major DTH players. 

Speaking on the launch of new channel, Viacom 18 group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said, “In terms of market size in the Indian television scenario, regional entertainment is next only to Hindi general entertainment, as a category. This translates into a sizeable ad market, growing at a CAGR of 15 per cent, similar to the overall TV ad market, over the next few years.”

Elaborating further, Vats stated, “Within the regional entertainment pie, the Kannada GEC ad market alone stood at an estimated Rs 500 crore in FY16. As we cemented our dominance on this market, we realized we had a lot more to offer – both in terms of content and brand solution opportunities. Colors Super will expand our offering to both the viewer, by bringing in missing genres into the market, and the advertiser, by increasing the available ad inventory, thereby plugging in existing gaps in the current market.”

Viacom18 has planned a marketing blitz across 179 major towns of Karnataka, targeting both the urban and rural markets of the state. The group is selling the channels separately.  Colors Super has roped in Vizeum as a media planning company from Mumbai. The channel will aggressively use 360 degree to market the channel across platforms including television channels, print, outdoor and digital.  The channel is spending more than Rs 5 crore on an ad campaign.

With the launch of Colors Super, the group's aim is to create a superb family viewing experience by offering viewers an exciting mix of stories and genres that are currently absent but much in demand. The two channels Colors Kannada and Colors Super will complement each other and offer viewers holistic and superlative entertainment. Viacom 18 regional channels (Colors Kannada, Colors Super and Colors Bangla) project head Ravish Kumar explained, “The biggest point is the kind of content we will be airing is different from the shows that there are in the market today. We have many ideas but we were not able to do execute them because of limited number of time slots and were not just able to do them. Hence we realized that there is a very strong demand from the viewers on the content. Therefore the logical step was to launch the new GEC.”

With an eclectic mix of content, spanning mythology, fantasy and supernatural, romcoms, reality television and world satellite premieres of movies, Colors Super promises to induct a diverse mix of genres in the Kannada general entertainment market. Kannada heartthrob Yash, who started his career with Colors Kannada, will be leading the marketing campaign for Colors Super.

In todays’ time, Hindi general entertainment channels are extending their prime time. Talking about the trend in the Kannada market, Kumar explained, “If you look at the Karnataka GEC market in the past people have experimented with the morning programming. Even in Colors Kannada we used to have the original slots in the morning, we used to have original programming in the morning and over a period of time we discovered that the original programming was not working for us. Later when we started the repeats of the original programming they started rating better than the original. So, the buzz for the prime time is from the 6 pm to 10.30 pm. 6pm time slot is still early but the core prime time is from 7pm to 10pm.”

As mentioned above, Colors Kannada ruled the rating charts for 62 weeks - Kumar added on being a competitor of its own channel, he said, “We want to compete with ourselves because that brings out the best in us.”

The new offering provides significant opportunity for content innovation and business growth and is set to emerge as a high decibel entertainment destination for the viewers.