It is a case of Haan (yes) and Naa (no). What is good for the goose may not be good for the gander in television land. In this case Haan is Sun TV. The Kalanithi Maran-promoted channel appears satisfied with the response to its recently-launched one-hour interactive show Mudivu Ungal Kaiyyil (You Decide The End).

Quoting ORG MARG‘s Intam ratings, Santosh Nair, head of marketing at New Age Entertainment - CO-producer of the show - says when the programme debuted on the 8th of last month it garnered 17 TRPs (target audience females 15+). Ratings have since stabilised at the 14-15 mark, Nair says.

Buoyed by the success of the show, the network has decided to launch the show on its Telugu channel Gemini as well. The show on Gemini is expected to start from Saturday, 20 October, at 8:30 p.m., just before Sun TV airs Mudivu... at 9:30 p.m.

Nair says: "We are co-producing the show along with In-House Productions. We also handle marketing. Each show is basically a separate story with no connection to what was shown the previous week. In the show the viewer has to call up at the end and say in what manner he thinks it should finish. He can also answer through e-mail. We bought the rights for the show from Globo Television which is a very popular channel in Brazil. This is the most exciting thing to have happened in the Indian Television landscape since the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati on Star Plus (aiming high that‘s for sure)."

Sponsors roped in for the Gemini show include Hindustan Lever Limited, Johnson &Johnson, Cadbury and Onida, Nair says.

Nair says the name for the Gemini show is still being finalised but expects the decision to be made by Wednesday. Queried on reports that Sun was likely to show the programme on Surya as well, he does not rule out the possibility but points out that there has been no concrete discussions on the issue as yet.

The Naa party here seems to be Zee TV. The Zee version of the same show Aap Jo Bolein Haan to Haan Aap JO Bolein Naa to Naa (launched on 27 August) hasn‘t exactly set the Ganges on fire as far as ratings are concerned. In fact it was this show that broadcasting CEO Sandeep Goyal cited to justify his claim that the ratings system was flawed. Goyal‘s contention was that if the show was getting such a high number of viewer call-ins without that being translated into higher TRPs, it clearly showed something was seriously wrong somewhere.

Seeking to explain this Nair says: "The content of Zee‘s programme is the same as what is being shown on Sun TV. In fact they launched the show before Sun TV. However Mr Sandeep Goyal and his team introduced along with this show around 25 (actually 23) other programmes as part of its re-launch exercise. The result was that they could not focus on pushing any one show. The audience was bombarded with so much fresh programming that it lost interest and motivation in watching the channel."

"Sun TV has used just this show to push the ratings.

"Look at Star. (Last year in June) they concentrated initially only on ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati‘ as a brand. When the brand was firmly implanted in the viewer‘s mind, then they diversified."

Nair added that at the moment New Age Entertainment was not making any other shows for Sun TV.

Localise content or perish. Nickelodeon Asia seems to be following on the dictum with yesterday‘s unveiling of the first show it has produced specifically for Asian audiences - Gruff‘s Groove Box.
Gruff‘s Groove Box debuts on Indian television on 5 November. Launched as a four-episode Nickelodeon Special, it will be aired for half an hour every Monday and Wednesday at 6.00 pm and on Saturday at 5.30 pm.

Gruff‘s Groove Box

The kid-centric style Gruff‘s Groove Box programme features an interactive claymation dog who will play his and children‘s favourite music video, read mails that the show receives from kids and will also interview celebrities. Nickelodeon Australia‘s brainchild Gruff was pick up by Nick Asia and adapted to suit the taste of Asians. Gruff, a Blue Heeler (a cattle dog native to Australia) also has back-up of his in-house band, Kitty Litter, and will be broadcasting from his own studio, the Kennel Club.

The new regional language addition to the Star bouquet - Vijay TV - which launched its new improved programme line-up from 1 October, has had an extensive advertising and promotions campaign built around it to push its programmes.

To draw a parallel, the Amitabh Bachchan hosted Kaun Banega Crorepati was the pivot around which Star Plus pushed itself as a channel after going 24-hour Hindi. For Vijay TV that role seems to have been taken by the blockbuster serial Marumugal, with filmstar Kushbhu in the lead.

Floats with cutouts of Kushboo were taken out in Chennai, Coimbatore and Salem on 1 October.

As an initiative to proactively involve the viewers, girls distributed leaflets with bindis attached outside select temples in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem Trichy, Erode and other cities across Tamil Nadu. This activity continued until 2 October.

At Foodworld (a popular eatery franchise in the south) goodies were distributed to patrons. Some people fanned out to the local kirana (provisions) stores while others went knocking on individual homes in different localities.

And an innovative kind of promotion is being done through 250,000 phone lines across Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai. Vijay TV is calling up telephone subscribers and playing recorded voice messages of Khusbhoo using an interactive voice recorder. In the recorded message she informs them about her role in Marumagal where she emotes the role of a daughter-in-law, and also urges viewers to tune in to the channel during her serial‘s broadcast time.

Now its over to the viewer to make her call. Men don‘t really count in these matters anymore.