Get Gorgeous-II gets CHannel [v] at the top

The channel is banking on several other reality shows such as Pepsi TV Champion to maintain the pace of growth

Viewers generally move in and out of music channels within a few minutes. This, in fact, has been a chronic ailment for this genre. It’s only when a particular time band is created with an objective to increase appointment viewing among viewers, channels such as MTV and CHannel see a spurt in viewership.

MTV has tried it with Bollywood stunts and CHannel keeps on experimenting with reality shows such as Popstars and Get Gorgeous.

CHannel launched the second series of Get Gorgeous on April 23 in the early evening time band, between 6 pm to 6.30 pm. The programme is a hunt for the country’s next supermodels. Last year, the winner of this contest got the chance to walk on the ramp for designer Suneet Verma at Rome Fashion Week. This year’s winner will get to participate in the next India Fashion Week.

As per TAM Media Research, (C&S, SEC ABC, 15-34 age group, six metros), the first episode of Get Gorgeous II got a TVR of 0.24. The subsequent episodes got a TVR of 0.15 and 0.17.

Following the launch of this programme, the music channel has also seen a spurt in its market share. From a market share of 30.4 per cent (in the 6-6.30 pm time band), its share has grown to 47.8 per cent.

Debraj Tripathi, general manager, Maxus, Delhi says, “This is certainly a significant rise in terms of channel share, but the TVRs attained by the show is just below average.”

He explains the reason behind this. “The total viewership in this time band is generally low as compared to the prime time band. So a slight increase in TVRs, results in higher share of channels share,” says Tripathi.

Another Delhi-based media planner says, “The success of this programme can be rated as slightly above average. The reason behind this is that there wasn’t much hype created around Get Gorgeous – II as it was done around Popstars or Super Singer.”

However, in spite of the hype created around Super Singer, the programme wasn’t of much help to the channel. Amar Deb, head honcho, CHannel clarifies, “The problem was Super Singer was compared with the success of Indian Idol which was aired on a general entertainment channel such as Sony. However, in the base of a music channel, I believe, Super Singer met our expectations.”

The channel is banking on a few more reality shows to maintain this pace of growth. The next offer from Channel is Pepsi TV Champion, where participants are asked to perform for a minute in front of the camera. The winner is judged on the basis of how long s/he can stand in front of a camera and how entertaining the person can be. The programme is quite similar to the international format show ‘30 Seconds of Fame’, which airs on AXN.

Deb clarifies. “Our programme is different. While ‘30 Seconds of Fame’ is about professionals, Pepsi TV Champion is for the common viewers and amateurs.” © 2005 agencyfaqs!