Sony all set for KBC 10; to spend Rs 7-8 crore on marketing

The show goes on air from September 3 at 9 pm.

Once again, the famous opening line - 'Deviyon aur Sajjanon' - will be heard emanating from TVs all over the country in the oh-so-familiar deep, baritone vocals of Amitabh Bachchan as Sony Entertainment Television's (SET) Kaun Banega Crorepati returns for Season 10, starting September 3. The show will air from Monday to Friday at 9 pm and will have a solid 60-episode run as opposed to last year's 52 episodes.

KBC's TVC - #KabTakRokoge - Manjari

KBC Season 10 is co-powered by Vivo V11 Pro and Mahindra Marazzo while Aakash Institute, Axis Bank, Asian Paints, CEAT, Raymond, and Syska Wires and Cables are the associate sponsors on the show. The channel expects more sponsors to come on board in the coming days.

KBC's TVC - #KabTakRokoge - Lakhan

During the press conference, Danish Khan, executive vice president and business head, Sony Entertainment Television, unveiled Sony Pictures Networks India's new content studio named StudioNXT. KBC 10 has been co-produced by StudioNXT and Big Synergy.

KBC's TVC - Stand With Kerala

When discussing the new content studio, Khan says, "We launched StudioNXT with an objective to create high-quality scripted and non-scripted shows in India to market in Indian languages. We thought the best way to start this journey would be to co-produce with Big Synergy which has been producing KBC. KBC 2018 is the first production of StudioNXT. We plan to come up with really high-quality stuff in the days to come."

He adds, "Sony Originals is a sub-brand of SET and StudioNXT is a different entity. It is a production house which will produce fiction/ non-fiction, scripted/ non-scripted and digital shows making it a different unit altogether. As an independent production house, it will cater to Sony as well as outside platforms."

L-R - Amogh Dusad, Siddhartha Basu, Ashish Golwalkar, Amitabh Bachchan and Danish Khan at KBC 10

With the show entering its tenth season, it is the ninth time Amitabh Bachchan will be hosting it. For the first three seasons, the show was with Star Plus. After a successful first season, Star released Kaun Banega Crorepati Dwitiya in 2005 with the prize money doubled to two crores. The Rupert Murdoch owned broadcaster had to end the season abruptly due to the deteriorating health of Bachchan. The broadcaster rolled out Season 3 in 2007 with a new host - Shah Rukh Khan. Season 3 could not match the ratings of its previous seasons and Star did not renew its license deal with Sony Pictures Television (SPT). In 2010, SET bought the rights with a condition that it would come back with the show only if Bachchan would host it.

Danish Khan

Khan explains the reasoning behind the added condition, "In 2010, I was the marketing head of Sony Entertainment Television when we got the property to the channel; we did a lot of brainstorming about every aspect of the show. The only thing we didn't brainstorm about was the host. Bachchan was always the host for us from day one; so we spoke to him and he graciously agreed."

Since then, SET has aired six seasons of KBC and is gearing up for the seventh, making it a total of 10 seasons for the property thus far.

Talking about Season 10, Khan says, "Every year we have been trying to do something new. Last year we introduced 'The Fridays' tagline - 'Nayi Chah Nayi Rah'. This time we are introducing Augmented Reality; a first for any broadcaster in India for a reality show. It is a huge investment. The technology keeps changing and brings in a delight factor that's refreshing, but the core of the show - inspirational stories, people on the hot seat, Bachchan with his eloquent way of hosting, and knowledge which we identify as the driver of progress - remains the same."

According to a source, the channel is spending around Rs 7-8 crores to promote KBC 10. The channel has already rolled out the TVCs to promote the property with the tagline #KabTakRokoge. While both the TVCs (Lakhan and Manjari) have been written by Nitesh Tiwari and Nikhil Mehrotra, Tiwari has directed Lakhan ad and Ashwini Iyer Tiwari has directed Manjari ad.

Viewers can look forward to a special 'Curtain Raiser' episode which will be telecast on SET on Sunday, September 02, at prime time. This year the show received over 31 million registrations within just 15 Days.

While options like 50:50, Audience Poll and Jodidaar lifelines are retained, this year will see the return of the 'Ask the Expert' lifeline - one expert will be available via a video call link to help the contestant with an appropriate answer. Also, for the first time in the history of the show, audio-visual questions on varied subjects ranging from sports to politics have been included in the format. Furthermore, every Friday, the show will host 'KBC Karamveer' with deserving individuals whose heroic actions and good deeds have brought about a positive change in society thereby becoming an inspiration for many.

Aman Srivastava

About the marketing plans, Aman Srivastava, senior vice president head of marketing, Sony Entertainment Television, shares, "Our outdoor ads are already out in markets like Punjab, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra, and UP. So, we have taken all the key Hindi speaking markets to promote the show. We will be doing a print campaign on the day of launch across all key publications and key markets. Apart from that, radio promotions will start by the end of this week till the week of launch. Digital is something we have seen going for us - Facebook premieres is something we have started doing. Pieces of content, like the poem narrated by Bachchan, will go live in video form. Once the show starts and post the Friday Karamveer episode, the next piece of communication will be released."

With KBC Play Along on Sony LIV, viewers can enjoy the thrill of the game show by participating and matching their power of knowledge with the contestants on the hot seat simultaneously. Daily prizes are up for grabs and viewers can work towards maintaining their position on the leader-board so that they may also have an opportunity to feature on the show in the finale week as a participant. Furthermore, one lucky winner will stand a chance to win a Mahindra Marazzo.