MUMBAI: Singing, like any other art form, is a talent which comes to the fore very early in life. These seeds of talent are then nurtured and some of them even get a chance to be part of highly-competitive reality shows.
Right from the country’s finest, budding talent to some of the who’s-who of the music fraternity are wooed as judges. It’s a platform that has grown from strength to strength with each successive season and has struck the right chord right from its very inception.
Yes, we are talking about none other than Zee TV’s ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’, the first-of-its-kind singing talent search show on Indian television. It has been instrumental in introducing the country to some of its demigods of music over the last two decades. Not only that, it has given a glimmer of hope to countless, aspiring singers, to tirelessly showcase their talent season after season.
The channel stood tall on the ratings chart when it bought back the fifth season of ‘Li’l Champs’ on 27 December, 2014. And the audiences simply lapped it all up! It therefore comes as no surprise at all, that the premiere week of ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li'l Champs 5’ garnered a stupendous opening of 4,776 TVTs in the very last week of TAM TV ratings. And so, 2014 closed on a very high note!
It shot to the top of the table amongst all singing reality shows of 2013-2014. According to TAM TV ratings, other singing shows like ‘Indian Idol Junior’ (2013) on Sony Entertainment Television (SET) opened at 3,777 TVTs and ‘India’s Raw Star’ (2014) on Star Plus opened at 4,521 TVTs.
Zee TV Business Head Pradeep Hejmadi believes that this ride to success not only hinges on a strong weekday fiction line-up; but it has equally focused on building strong weekend pillars in the ‘Super Weekend’ non-fiction band.
He goes on to say, “The promising opening to our latest non-fiction property ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li’l Champs’ only adds to our weekend offering. It has 12 beautiful young voices of India and the larger vision of the show is to lend ‘Har Lamha Nayi Ummeed’ to countless other similarly talented children, to be inspired and hone their latent talents. Let’s hope the journey of each of the ‘L’il Champs’ motivates India’s youth!"
Moreover, the marketing also paid off well for the channel. An aggressive on-air and off air strategy was done which included promos on TV channels. A roadblock was executed across news, kids and music channels on the launch day.
To top it all, a high visibility print campaign across key main lines pan-India and high frequency radio plan across key HSM markets was done.
2014 was an unforgettable year of jubilation for the channel. It made a clean sweep in the fiction genre last year with four of its weekday primetime shows leading the pack in the top 10 fiction launches of the year.
Likewise, the channel’s fiction line-up has grown from strength to strength with each successive launch. Jamai Raja’s opening episode that clocked in 5,930 TVTs, combined with an opening week average of 5,488 TVTs, made it the highest opening soap in the last two years. The show also emerged as the quickest gainer and attained slot leadership within three weeks of its launch.
Kumkum Bhagya saw a stupendous 171 per cent growth during its ‘shaadi’ highpoint (first four weeks average: 2,963 TVTs and the ‘Shaadi’ event registered 8,043 TVTs), thereby gaining slot leadership in week 34. The soul-stirring, historic series Jodha Akbar continues to be a consistent slot leader and winner for over a year now.
“The sustained success of our fiction programming speaks volumes of our relationship with audiences…It has not only evolved but strengthened over the years. Viewers seek refuge in our main protagonists, who give them a ray of hope, as every story unfolds; thereby, bringing to our audiences, a reflection of our core proposition of ‘Nayi Ummeed’,” adds Hejmadi.
The spirit of innocent camaraderie, fun and frolic is in the air! In a hugely competitive format, these cute, gutsy ‘Li’l Champs’ now embark on a historical, musical journey. They will simply floor you with their command over ‘sur’ and ‘taal’ way beyond their years, week after week, leaving you in raptures with mature renditions of songs, that you would least expect little ones to even attempt, let alone have heard of.
