MTV?s Unplugged season 2 to be aired on Colors as well

MUMBAI: Music and youth entertainment channel MTV is extending its musical franchise ?MTV Unplugged? through a dual telecast of the property on its sister channel Colors.

The show?s second season, which kickstarts on 3 November, will be aired on Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at noon on MTV. The time slot on Colors is yet to be decided, said Colors CEO Raj Nayak.

MTV Unplugged will also be aired on radio through Fever FM. MTV?s other music property, Coke Studio?s second season, also had a dual telecast on Doordarshan.

MTV EVP and business head Aditya Swamy said, ?This time around, the focus is not so much on marketing but on distributing the property to a larger segment of the audience. By telecasting the show on Colors and Fever, we hope to widen the audience reach.?

MTV is currently positioned as a multi-platform and multi-dimensional channel which has different faces at different times. "So with ?Roadies? and Splitsvilla, we have a reality show face. With ?Rush? and ?Bring it on?, we have a TV series face. Our music face is through properties like Coke Studio, Roots, Unplugged and Sound Tripping,? said Swamy.

The title sponsor for the show is Royal Stag. Other sponsors include HTC, Vodafone and Tissot. As part of its marketing initiatives, the show will be promoted on air by Fever FM by RJ?s and through contests.

?We will be doing 14 live shows in the top youth and markets of the country. We have also got major labels like Sony and Universal on board for the CDs and DVDs. On the digital front too, we have associated with entities like iTunes, Napster and Nokia Music Store.,? Swamy said.

Sixty seven per cent of the property?s ad revenue will come from sponsorship while 33 per cent will be from spot buys.

The landscape of the music channel space has changed considerably over the past few years with the leading channels like MTV and Channel V shifting their positioning to youth entertainment channels. While MTV has done this on a global scale, Swamy says that India is not really different from the rest of the world.

?The youth is becoming exposed to a lot of global elements today and India is not so different in this space as compared to the rest of the world. The game, though, has changed. For example, earlier we kept the biggest and most popular artist for last. But now, we are launching the show?s second season with the A R Rehman episode,? he explained.

MTV Unplugged season two comprises 10 episodes where artists perform acoustic version of their numbers without the support of any electronic devices. This season, the show is curated by Ranjit Barot and will see participation from artists like AR Rehman, Kailasa, Sunidhi Chauhan, Lucky Ali, Indus Creed, Agnee, Ash King and Shafqat Amanat Ali.