Bigg Boss: Boss of its time

Soon after the Akshay Kumar hosted adventure reality show, Fear Factor Extreme – Khatron Ke Khiladi, came to an end, Colors launched the second season of the drama packed reality show, Bigg Boss, produced by Endemol. The first season of Bigg Boss aired on Sony Entertainment Television and was tagged as a “reality soap”. This time, the appeal of the show was upped, as it was to be hosted by Shilpa Shetty, Bollywood actor and last year’s winner of Big Brother UK.

In the launch episode, which aired from 10pm to 11.45pm on August 17, Colors managed to draw close to 42.3 lakh viewers to the show, according to aMap data for C&S 4+, HSM. With the highest TVR of 1.4, Bigg Boss wasn’t far behind Fear Factor, which had garnered a TVR of 1.53 on the day of launch.

The first season of Bigg Boss had recorded a TVR of 1.32 and the highest that it reached since the launch was 1.8. At that time, media observers said that the concept was new and the audience would take time to get used to it. Some believed that the celebrities on the show weren’t prominent enough.

However, this time, Colors and Endemol have cautiously termed the participants as “newsmakers” and not celebrities, so as to include a wide variety of people from a politician to a comedian. A surprising contestant is actress Monica Bedi, who was in the news for her links with Abu Salem. Jade Goody, Shetty’s infamous co-contestant from Big Brother UK, has also been roped in.