It looks like Amitabh Bachchan and his blockbuster Kaun Banega Crorepati will finally have some competition.

The eagerly-awaited game show of Sony TV, Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke (JCPK) was launched at a glittering function at the Taj Mahal hotel in south Mumbai on Monday night with star presenter, Govinda, sending the audience into raptures. JCPK, which marks Govinda‘s television debut, will begin airing from Friday, 26 January at 8:00 pm and will be telecast three days (Friday through to Sunday) a week.

The launch kicked off with an audio-visual presentation which showed some glimpses of the the actual show. Govinda, clad in a beige suit, was an instant hit. He talked of how he never dreamed he‘d become a hero and he became one. He thought he would have a future as a villain but that was not to be. Similar might be his future in television, he said.

The Chappar Phaad Ke team: ad sales head Kacon Sethi (extreme left), Chi-Chi, production head Rekha Nigam and Sony CEO Kunal Dasgupta: Will they swing Sony to success?

He was whisked away backstage and stayed put in a tent until the paparazzi cooled off. He came back for another jig on stage and in Bruce Springsteen style pulled up a pretty young advertising professional and got into his pelvic thrusts. She aped his every movement to the audience‘s delight. They simply went wild. And this is was the snobbish advertising fratenity which claims to dig Uriah Heep and Deep Purple and talks about Tom Hanks and Cruise. Wonder what the show will do to the general junta.

What promises to make this show different is Govinda‘s uniquely uninhibited way of interacting with the audience. It looks like being fun, fun, and more fun.

The show will allow contestants to win not just bumper cash prizes but allows them a unique shopping experience using just Re1.

Connected with the show is a monthly SOTC Viewer Contest which allows viewers to participate in the contest wherever they are. Sony claims that it has received over a million entries in the ten-day promotion period itself.

Derek O‘Brien is the quiz-master, Nitin Desai has designed the set, while Ganesh Acharya has choreographed Govinda‘s dance number. The music has been scored by Leslie Lewis.

Sony Entertainment Television and the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom are hopeful that their ongoing dispute over dues will be resolved within the next two to three days. Sony has switched off its pay channel service of SetMax, AXN and CNBC to Hathway since 2 January on account of what it says is nonpayment of dues worth around Rs1.5 million for the period from June 2000.

Besides, Sony wants Hathway to increase the declared connectivity of paid subscribers from November 2000. Sony‘s distribution head Hitesh Sabarwal said they were only asking that what they were paid should have a reasonable correlation to what was being charged for other pay channels. He, however, expressed confidence that some sort of agreement would be reached within the next two days.

According to cable industry sources, Hathway has a declared paid connectivity of around 10,000 for SetMax in Mumbai, 20,000 for CNBC, and 40,000 for AXN, the Financial Express reported on Tuesday.

Hathway‘s argument, according to sources, is that Sony unilaterally made new demands going against what had earlier been agreed upon. Also, they say Sony was demanding payment based on connectivity calculations similar to that enjoyed by the Sony‘s main Sony Entertainment Television channel which was way too high. Another argumant put forth by Hathway is that since most of their subscriber base was in upmarket localities, Sony‘s "adamance" was losing it a very influential audience.

While SetMax and AXN are off the Hathway network in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik, the business channel CNBC is available in some pockets, the Financial Express reported.