Prajjal Saha
Media

Forget Madhubala, say hello to Ash at STAR Gold

The channel is set to launch a couple of new shows around recent movie titles

STAR Gold, the Hindi movie channel of the STAR group, has laid out a bouquet of new programmes. The programmes are linked with the channel's bid to reposition itself as a contemporary Hindi movie channel.

STAR Gold's success with the premiere of a not-so-hot movie - Zameen (starring Ajay Devgan and Abhishek Bachchan) gave the channel bosses ample proof of what the viewers wanted to see. The success of that film was also significant because STAR Gold had been known as a classic Hindi movie channel telecasting only old Hindi movies.

Following Zameen's telecast receiving a TVR of 2.3 and a viewership of 8 million in the Hindi speaking markets, the channel has been trying to reposition itself by telecasting current titles. The channel is now betting on big titles that it has lined up such as Khakhee, Kaante, Bhoot and Dum for the coming weeks.

Along with current Hindi movie titles, the channel is also betting on the dubbed genre. In the last one year, the channel has shown some big Hollywood titles and surprisingly, these movies gathered more viewership than the Bollywood blockbusters

STAR Gold, which had pioneered the concept of dubbed Hollywood movies with Bruce Lee specials, is now set to telecast titles in Hindi such as ET, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Gladiator. STAR Gold's all-time popular dubbed movie is, of course, Titanic which had a TVR of 5.4. Other big titles such as Anaconda and Jurassic Park -II gained a TVR of 3.28 and 3.19, respectively.

The channel is also banking on a couple of new programmes. It would be launching a new programme called Gold Premiere. The USP of this programme is that it would premiere key sequences and songs (not part of the general trailer) a day before the release of the movie. For instance, an episode on the movie Garv hosted by Arbaaz Khan (who stars in the movie) will be telecast on July 8 (Thursday) at 8 pm. Likewise, the programme would also showcase the movie Asambhav, hosted by Naseeruddin Shah, a day before the release of the movie.

In other words, the programme Gold Premiere would be promoting a movie, one day before the release of the movie. But, does this mean some extra revenues for the channel? Deepak Segal, senior vice-president, content and communication, STAR India, clarifies: "We just try to recover the cost of production and for some big banner such as Yashraj Films or Mukta Arts, we even plan to do it free of cost," he says.

The programme Gold Premiere will also run a contest backed by some exciting prizes. While Garv episode will have movie tickets for a Sunday as a prize, the winners for the Asambhav will win a trip to Switzerland.

This programme is different from the show 'Making of a movie', which the channel currently telecasts. Even this show has some exciting stuff for the viewers. The channel has got 70 hours of exclusive footage from the movie, Asambhav.

Taarzan — The Wonder Car will be another movie covered in this programme. The episode on Taarzan will be hosted by the lead cast of the movie - Vatsal Seth and Ayesha Takia and has been shot in Dilip Chabria's studio where the car (which is the lead character of the movie) has been designed.

Meanwhile, the viewership of the channel is growing steadily in the last one year As per TAM Media Research, in the January-March 2004 quarter, the average channel share of STAR Gold, Zee Cinema and SET MAX were 3.74, 4.28 and 4.23, respectively. In the April-mid June period, the corresponding numbers are STAR Gold (4.09), ZEE Cinema (4.99) and SET MAX (4.94).

© 2004 agencyfaqs!

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