Viacom18 enters English general entertainment space with Colors Infinity

The channel will offer scripted and non-scripted content across genres. The content of Colors Infinity will be curated by Karan Johar and Alia Bhatt.

Viacom18 has announced its foray into the English general entertainment space with the launch of a new channel called Colors Infinity.

The channel will be available in both SD and HD, across DTH and digital cable platforms.

It may be recalled that Viacom18 extended the brand 'Colors' to its regional portfolio and rebranded its regional channels as Colors Marathi, Colors Gujarati, Colors Kannada, Colors Bangla and Colors Oriya. This is just another attempt to strengthen the brand and leverage its success to establish another GEC.

Sudhanshu Vats, CEO, Viacom18, says, "Colors is an aspirational brand. It has a lot of appeal and we want to reach out to a lot of people with Colors Infinity. The GEC brand from Viacom18 is Colors and the regional channels. So, from a strategic perspective, it fits well. It will further strengthen key traits that the Colors brand stands for - success, progressiveness and innovation."

The network has entered into major multi-year deals with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, NBC Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, Lionsgate, BBC and Endemol Shine. Besides, the network has partnered with many independent producers. The content for Colors Infinity will be curated by Karan Johar and Alia Bhatt. They will be picking shows and content from across genres.

Colors Infinity will be the third channel from Viacom18 in the English entertainment space after Vh1 and Comedy Central. The channel will offer content - scripted and non-scripted - across genres such as drama, superheroes, comedy, fantasy, crime and thrillers. Additionally, there is a special focus on reality television with some of the popular shows across dancing, cooking, magic, singing and other lifestyle interests. It will also air live events and award shows, biopics, mini-series and documentaries. The channel has over 2000 hours of content to feed on.

Ferzad Palia, EVP, Viacom18 and head, English Entertainment, says that the objective of the network is to grow the category with the launch of Colors Infinity and not eat from the existing pie. "This is the 'golden age' of television and Colors Inifinity, with its sheer breadth of offering and carefully selected content from acriss global markets, will be the definitive platform for the best in English language entertainment across genres," he states.

As for the scheduling of content on the channel, Palia says it's going to be disruptive and something that no one else has done in the country. "We are mapping it to the way the consumer wants to watch it. That's largely the format of the channel," he adds.

To start with, Colors Infinity will be sold in the Viacom18 package without any subscription money. The channel will kickstart its marketing soon. It will leverage the popularity of Bhatt and Johar to gain traction in the initial months.