Stardust Awards moves out of Max; likely to move to Colors

The Bollywood award show was being aired on Sony Max for the past decade.

After airing it for a decade, Multi Screen Media's premium Hindi movies and special events channel, Sony Max has done away with one of the most popular Bollywood awards - Stardust Awards.

As per sources in the channel, the retention cost of the property was too high and hence the business decision to discontinue with the property was taken. "Even the repeat value of the award ceremony had decreased and the RoI from the property was no match to the investment made," the source adds.

According to the market grapevine, the property is now likely to fall into Colors' lap. A highly placed source in the channel confirmed to afaqs!, "Yes, we are talking to them. We are still planning out the details of the event."

Started in 2003, Stardust Awards honour rising talent who are leading the way in the entertainment world and guiding the future of Bollywood. It also honours established celebrities in Bollywood for their contribution to the industry. It is a property by Stardust magazine, which is a monthly Bollywood news and gossip magazine. Published by Mumbai-based Magna Publishing, Stardust magazine was started by Nari Hira in 1971.

Colors, which offers a variety of entertaining content to its audience, is also known for its in-house awards show - Golden Petal Awards. The channel had announced the launch of Golden Petal Awards in 2011. This is an effort to honour its own artists and recognising their contribution to the channel.

As far as Bollywood awards are concerned, Colors had aired Screen Awards in 2012 and 2013 before Life OK took over the property this year. Prior to Colors, Screen Awards aired on Star Plus for almost a decade. Colors also airs Mirchi Music awards, which are presented annually by Radio Mirchi to honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in the Hindi language film music industry of India.

For the record, the other Bollywood award properties include - International Indian Film Academy Awards (Star Plus), Zee Cine Awards (Zee TV), Filmfare Awards (Sony Entertainment Television) and Times of India Film awards (Sony).

While the oldest film awards property is Filmfare that started in 1954, the latest entrant is TOIFA that was launched last year and was first held in Vancouver, Canada.