Hungama TV to launch Indian superhero show 'Hero'

The channel plans to further strengthen its live action programming that has been driving the channel's viewership

Kids channel Hungama TV is all set to launch a live action show, 'Hero'. Channel executives claim that this will be a driver show for the channel. Based on the story of a super hero, the show will be launched in the third week of May.

Ronnie Screwvala, CEO, UTV, says, “Hungama TV's locally produced live action shows makes it different from other kids channels.”

The channel has also launched two new animation shows – 'Doraemon' and 'Sonic X' earlier this week. Apart from this, the channel is organising outdoor events for promoting its game shows – 'Full Toss' and 'Gol Gol Gullam'.

For Full Toss, which is an indoor cricket game show, the channel has organised an inter-school tournament across major cities and towns in India.

While the on-air version gives kids an opportunity to play `no-rules' cricket with their favorite cricketers, the on-ground series will test the country’s under-14 cricketing talent through a series of league matches across Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Ludhiana, Indore, Bangalore and other cities.

The finals of this tournament will be played in Mumbai on May 15. Screwvala says, “This also helps us building Hungama as a stronger brand among our TG.”

In another significant development, the channel has tied-up with Kingfisher Airlines, which is scheduled to be launched on May 9. As per the alliance, Hungama TV and Kingfisher Airlines will share the revenues, which will mainly come from advertising.

However, Screwvala says that this is more of a brand building exercise than a revenue sharing model.

Channel executives are quite enthused as Hungama TV has reached the number two position among kids channels in week 17 – within just seven months of its launch. On the basis of TAM figures (C&S, 4-14, SEC ABC, HSM), the channel claims that it has cornered a 15 per cent market share among the kids channels.

During that week, Turner's Cartoon Network remained the leader with 59 per cent channel share. Turner's second channel, Pogo got a channel share of 14 per cent, followed by Disney with a channel share of 8 per cent. Nick and Toon Disney managed a share of 3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.

When asked about the growing channel share and the number two position among the kid's channels, Screwvala says, “Being number one or two doesn't matter. All we want is that the entire kids genre should grow as the news genre has grown.”

He adds, “Kids as a genre has been ignored for quite long. But now, as kids play an important role in different purchase decisions of a household and with the entry of quite a few kids channels, this genre should grow.”

Some of the top scoring shows for Hungama in week 17 are: 'Shaka Laka Boom Boom' (a TVR of 1.43), 'Gol Gol Gullam' (1.18), 'Tiger' (1.10) and 'Ultimate Book of Spells' (1.08). 'Shaka Laka Boom Boom', a UTV production, was earlier aired on STAR Plus. © 2005 agencyfaqs!