Prajjal Saha
Media

Watch 'em on SaharaOne before venturing into theatres

The channel has lined up mega feature movies even before their theatrical release

A television premiere of the latest movie in town is now passe. SaharaOne has moved a step ahead. Thanks to its clout with Bollywood, the channel plans to have movie premieres every Friday night at 8.30 pm, even before the movies are theatrically released. SaharaOne is spending around Rs 6-10 crore to acquire each of these movies.

This isn’t SaharaOne’s first attempt to move into the big league riding on Bollywood. It’s a different issue that none have brought success to the channel.

Spending a sum of Rs 6-10 crore is certainly a huge investment and for obvious reasons, it will not be an easy task for the channel to recover this cost.

Purnendu Bose defends. He says, “If we manage to get high TVRs, advertisers will follow. The fact is that we are the first channel to experiment with such programming initiative and we are ready to take the risk of being the first mover.”

Explaining the strategy behind this initiative, Bose says, “With 44 million C&S viewers, television certainly has a wider reach than theatres. We wanted to test the market with a television premiere before a film is released across theatres.”

Sahara also has the distribution rights for these movies. “If the movies manage to score high TVRs, we will launch them in theatres,” Bose says.

The first movie to be premiered in this line-up is ‘Hum Jo Kehna Payen’, directed by Vikash Desai. The movie stars Abhijit Sanyal, Anupam Kher and Gauri Karnik.

Some of the other movies scheduled for this month include ‘Tum Ho Na’ and ‘Pehchaan’. 'Tum Ho Na' is directed by Raj Bharat and stars Jackie Shroff and Riya Sen.

‘Pehchaan’ is directed by national award-wining director Shrabani Deodhar. The movie has Raveena Tandon, Vinod Khanna and Rati Agnihotri in its star cast.

Shrabani has also directed the movie – ‘Silsila Ye Pyar Ka’, which stars Karishma Kapur and Chandrachur Singh.

That's not all. The channel is also pushing its new show – Rajshri’s 'Woh Rehne Waali Mehlon Ki' – very hard. Bose says, “The serial has a full movie treatment as it carries the Rajshri Signature. We have high hopes on this show and we are not leaving any stone unturned to make it a success.”

“As no rival channel will carry our promos, we have to bet on below-the-line activities,” he adds.

Apart from the branding trains and autos with the theme of ‘Woh Rehne Waali…’, the channel has also launched a music album. Bose explains, “Music has always been an integral part of all Rajshri productions. We believe a music album will increase the interest level in the show.”

The channel has distributed around 5,000 free cassettes around the country. SaharaOne has also distributed around 10 lakh ‘Woh Rehne Waali' laundry bags around the country. Bose says, “We are targeting the female viewers exclusively for this show. And, such branded laundry bags will certainly promote the show.” © 2005 agencyfaqs!

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com