MUMBAI: After claiming to have doubled its viewership in 2018, MTV is all set to up its game by launching the eighth season of MTV Unplugged, a singing show, on 26 January, 8 pm onwards. Royal Stag Barrel Select and MTV have collaborated to present the program.

Viacom18 youth music and English entertainment head Ferzad Palia said that 2018 was a landmark year for them. “Ace of Space, Elevator Pitch, Dating In The Dark worked really well for us. Ace Of Space did so well that we had to extend it to 30 days because of consumer demand. It was a big gamble with the daily reality format. It gave us rich dividends both on TV and on Voot. 2018 has made us more bullish about 2019,” he said.

Palia added that the plan is to introduce new shows and formats that haven’t been seen ever. Also, hundreds of hours of content, bringing seasons of the old shows and seven to eight new format shows are on the cards.

According to him, the year 2019 will observe key trends like content will be consumed by viewers whenever and wherever they want to. He said, “The other trend that I see is organic growth of television will continue because you have a large base of audiences just coming in to consume entertainment on TV and there will also be significant growth on digital consumption.”

Looking at the consumption of TV over the past three years, It has grown at a faster rate than it was growing earlier, he added. Palia feels that that the rate of digital consumption has also grown significantly because in the smaller base, the percentages are high so more content is getting consumed across devices. “So the honest truth is that the content will win if the stories are breaking through the clutter because consumers are spoilt for choices as they have options as to what content to consume and on which screen,” he concluded.