Star and Colors heat up the afternoon slot
By Purna Parmar
Monday, February 08, 2010
 In a short span of time, Colors the Hindi GEC has managed to reach the top position in the evening band with shows such as Balika Vadhu, Lado and Uttaran capturing a significant amount of viewership. The channel has now turned its attention to the afternoon time band with a slew of shows, which together are being promoted as ‘Sanjhi Dopahar’ on Colors. The channel has already started promos for two of its shows in this slot – ‘Agnipareeksha, Jeevan Ki Ganga’ and ‘Aise Karo Na Vida’.
As of now, Star Plus is the only GEC that has an original line-up of programming in the afternoon time band. Colors’ entry is sure to heat things up. And with the IPL starting in March, the number of viewers between the GECs will be even more divided.
“After establishing our primetime programming, we are now looking to launch the afternoon band. We will start with one hour of fresh content. The content will be targeted towards women in the 25+ age-group. The ‘Saanjhi Dopahar’ band will be predominantly women centric,” says Colors programming head Ashvini Yardi.
The channel at present airs repeats in the afternoons.
"Saanjhi Dopahar kick starts on February 15 with two shows. There is a third show in the pipeline, which will be launched very soon. While Ganga will take up the 1.30 pm slot, Aise Karo Na Vida will hold the 2 pm slot,” Yardi reveals.
“The planning for the afternoon band has been happening for quite a long time now. But we wanted to first stabilise our prime time band, and then focus on the afternoon. After we launched two new prime time shows in Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam and Laagi Tujhse Lagan in the 9-10 pm slot in December, our next aim was to provide the audience with fresher content in the afternoon band,” says Yardi, adding, “Our design of shows for the afternoon will be a bit different, as we will be dealing with a different kind of audience, that mostly comprises of home makers. We will be dealing with Women issues and will talk about the journey of women through our shows.”
According to TAM media research the original programming of Star Plus has managed to garner a rating of 4+ until now, with programmes like ‘Hamari Devrani’ and ‘Raja Ki Ayegi Barat’ delivering 2 + rating in the female target group. However, the afternoon repeats of primetime shows also manage to draw a considerable amount of audience to Colors. It would be interesting to see how these channels manage to attract audiences in the afternoon band.
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