Colors is all set to launch its second Kannada general entertainment channel (GEC) â€" Colors Super â€" on July 24. After its phenomenal success with its debut channel Colors Kannada, the promoters are seeing a re-investment opportunity in the south Indian state.
Viacom18Media-owned Colors, a flagship entertainment brand, is present in five regional markets: Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat and Odisha. The company's CEO Sudhanshu Vats said that Kannada GEC was one of the fastest-growing markets in the regional space.
"We have genres and programmes which we are not able to put on the existing channel because we have a limitation of time (7-8 hours of original programming every day)," he told the Mint.
With Colors Super, the company plans to host another 25-30 hours of original programming every week.
A recent television viewership survey by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India placed Colors Kannada at the number one position among Kannada channels. It said that during the week ended July 1, the channel garnered 292 million impressions. In comparison, Viacom18's immediate competitor in the regional-language market, Zee Kannada, got 209 million impressions. (Impressions means number of individuals who viewed an event amongst thousands of a target audience; averaged in minutes).
Business Standard said that in all likelihood it is the first time a broadcaster was launching a full-fledged regional GEC. Of the seven existing (Kannada) GECs in the market, Colors Kannada got the highest time spent per viewer tag with 242 minutes a day while Suvarna was second with a low152 minutes, the daily added.
The Mint, citing estimates from broadcasters and media buyers, said the advertising potential for the Kannada regional market was Rs. 550 to Rs.600 crore, with a growth rate of 12 percent. Rahul Jadhav, trading head of media agency MEC India, said that Karnataka was emerging as an important market for both broadcasters as well as advertisers.
Colors Kannada commands 36 percent viewership of the Kannada television entertainment market. Colors Super, the new channel, is slated to capitalise on other unexplored genres like family dramas, social issue stories, romantic-comedies for youth, mytho-historical and horror.
Viacom18's national competitor Star India too is also eyeing the Kannada television entertain market. The company's Suvarna Kannada will soon air the regional market's biggest ever (Rs. 60 crore) mythological television drama called "Hara Hara Mahadeva". Though Star India's Star Plus Hindi channel rules the viewership ratings at an all-India level, its Kannada channel is placed 4th with 169 million impressions, said Mint.
Alongside Colors, Zee and Star, Tamil Nadu-based Sun Network's Udaya TV vie for the prime spot in Kannada's GEC genre.
