Gears up for competition on weekdays

While Sony's weekday prime time has had no big success in the last one year and none of its properties got thumbs up from viewers, the channel's weekend band has however been delivering good numbers, thanks to Indian Idol, Boogie Woogie, CID and Comedy Circus. In fact, it is the weekend programming that has helped Sony get somewhat decent share of group rating points (GRPs) among GE channels. Over the last five months Indian Idol 3 has been Sony's channel driver show. Besides being sampled by more than 77 million viewers, the show boosted the TRPs of Sony's other weekend properties, so much so that it propelled Sony to number 1 spot on weekends with a share of 28 per cent against 27 per cent each of Star Plus and Zee. Sony's GRPs have also had a decent rise from 105 in April to 150 in August.

But what continues to be Sony's biggest worry is its weekday prime time fiction band. "We haven't had big success on weekdays for some time. We lost our way somewhere and the premise of some of the shows was also not right. But we have always tried our best to be different from our competitors. Instead of copying others we believe in setting new trends in programming. Some of our shows have not worked for us but if we believe in a show and see potential in it we give it a longer lease of life. Virrudh is not showing big numbers yet we believe that it has the potential to live up to our expectations," says Sony's executive vice-president and business head Albert Almeida, adding, "Being innovative and different from others has been our core strength and our new show AmberDhara is yet another example of Sony setting new trends in programming."

Four years ago it was Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, a story of an underdog ugly duckling who overcomes her shortcomings, obstacles and challenges in her journey to find her true love, which stood out in the clutter of saas-bahu family dramas and delivered eyeballs for Sony. The scene has not changed even now with innumerable family dramas still calling the shots on Star Plus and Zee. AmberDhara which is the story of conjoined twins and a celebration of human spirit against all odds comes with the same promise of being a potential clutter-breaker show. "It is an unique concept which has the potential to break new frontier in the fiction genre on Indian television. It is fresh, youthful, entertaining and has the slice of life," says Almeida.

Being distinctive and different, according to Sanjay Upadhyay, Sony's creative head and vice-president, new programming development, does not mean Sony is not a mass channel. "Our primary audience is the masses, especially women, who constitute big chunk of viewers. While being different, our endeavour is to tell stories of human and emotional elements that easily connect with mass eyeballs," says Upadhyay. In Upadhyay's view there is no taking away from the fact that women protagonists rule the roost on television. "So our shows too will have women as protagonists. But our protagonists will have enough space to move around and assert themselves unlike in other shows where they are either 'devis' or doormats," he adds.