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MSM to bring back Movers and Shakers for SAB TV
SAB TV will broadcast the second season of Movers and Shakers from Monday through Friday at the 10.30 pm slot. The channel's existing 10.30 pm property, FIR, will be shifted to the 11 pm slot.
After a gap of 10 years, Multi Screen Media has decided to bring back its star anchor Shekhar Suman and a second season of the popular celebrity chat show, Movers and Shakers. This time, however, the show will be aired on MSM's second general entertainment channel (GEC), SAB TV, instead of its flagship channel, Sony Entertainment Television.
Anooj Kapoor, executive vice-president and business head, SAB TV, says, "Currently, FIR, which is more male-skewed at the 10.30 pm band, gets us approximately 1.5 TVRs. With Movers and Shakers replacing it, we believe that the slot will eventually bring in increased TVRs, also because the audiences at that hour are quite similar to that of FIR."
"Meanwhile, Taarak Mehta's (about 2 TVR at 11 pm) shift to the 11.30 pm slot will build the slot, thereby upping the overall viewership of the channel," he adds.
Quite like KBC's comeback on Sony, the new edition of Movers and Shakers, too, will retain its original format, with a few new innovations. Initially, the show will run for 120 episodes and depending on its performance, it may be extended in the content line up.
So, will the strategy work?
Media experts believe that since Movers and Shakers is already an established property, with a few refreshed changes, it can become a winning formula for the channel. "If the show is able to increase the male viewership in the slot even as the TVR remains stable, the property will have the potential to help ask double the ad rate as against what SAB TV currently demands for the slot," says Navin Khemka, managing partner, ZenithOptimedia India.
According to industry estimates, SAB TV demands anywhere between Rs 20,000- 25,000 per 10 second slot during primetime.
P M Balakrishna, chief operating officer, Allied Media says that while the show will not redefine the programming of the channel, it will surely create a better slot viewership. "However, it will also depend upon the kind of innovations that are made to the show and the celebrities who are invited to it," he opines.
For the record, the first version of Movers and Shakers with Shekhar Suman was launched in 1997 and ran for 800 episodes before it came to an end in 2001.