MUMBAI: The much awaited Zee's Cinestars Ki Khoj is all set to hit the television shelf. With the hunt for the two potential stars in its second phase, the event will be on air starting 2 July on every Friday and Saturday for an hour's duration in the 9 pm slot.

The telecast schedule for this event for the next 10 weeks, which essentially is phase one, will showcase the ecstasy, trauma, victory and defeat through 20 episodes.

In terms of what this whole concept has meant for Zee as a brand, Zee claims the following:

1. Brand recall value
2. Strengthened the connect the channel shares with the masses
3. Programming awareness

Also, this endeavour does not stop after the conclusion of this debut hunt, but is going to be an annual occurrence.

Speaking on the occasion Essel Corporate Group's vice president corporate brand development Ashish Kaul says, "In India people are passionate about two things films and cricket and India's Best was one such opportunity that helped us in reaching people and creating brand recall of Zee TV."

Looking at how the channel is going to be padding the whole event to make it a more interesting and novel watch, Zee has raked up a reality show which revolves around the final participants, in an attempt to get the viewer up close with the final participants. This reality show will be woven in with the second phase of the event where the finalists from all cities enter the semi and the final rounds of the best of the best.

As reported earlier, Zee's agenda is essentially to augment its weekend lineup as well as to tap the weekend viewers. A point to note here would be that Zee has juxtaposed its Cinestar Ki Khoj against Sony's Devi on Friday and Saakshi on Saturday. Also Star's Shararat, Ssshhh Koi Hai Darr on Friday and a feature film on Saturday.

Hence it's going to be interesting to see how much Zee is able to ramp up viewership in what some see as the steadily "dipping weekend viewership". At the very minimum, the first target would be to get a fair share of the weekend pie.