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SAB soars ahead, to launch the first-of-its-kind silent comedy

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Posted: Sep 18, 2009 at 1800 hrs IST
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SAB TV, which recently launched its new brand campaign Asli Maza SAB ke Saath, has had a phenomenal growth in the last one year. Repositioned as a family comedy channel a year ago, the channel has zoomed past rivals such as STAR One, Sahara One and 9X. Says Anooj Kapoor, Business Head, SAB, “A year ago, we had a GRP of 27, which has now risen to 65 while STAR One has dropped from 80 to 40, Sahara One’s GRPs have reduced from 75 to 35 and 9X has all but folded up.” It was Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chasmah that changed the fortunes of the channel. The sitcom, based on the columns of celebrated writer Taarak Mehta, was a hit with the viewers and in Gujarat gets a rating of 10 according to Kapoor. The show opened with a rating of 1 plus, which is significant for a channel that hitherto hadn’t registered any show on the charts. “For the first time, we had a joint family set-up with light-hearted content that would evoke laughter. It’s full of positive social values as against soaps with negative elements. Not only the viewer loved the heroine, even her family in the show liked her,” informs Kapoor. The growth was supported by other shows Maniben.com, Jugni Chali Jalandhar and FIR. Interestingly, all the three comedies have women as their protagonists. “Female viewer holds the remote in India, which is still a single TV house, and by introducing strong female protagonists in comic roles we succeeded in luring viewers to our shows,” smiles Kapoor. SAB has the distinction of launching a gangster comedy Gunwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, a horror comedy Bhootwala Serial and courtroom comedy Yeh Chanda Kanoon Hai. Though these shows haven’t exactly done well, Kapoor is happy that they are doing innovation in comedy. Even a talk-show Tedi Baat Shekhar Ke Saath has helped them in getting on board advertisers who cater to Sec-A.
Now they are all set to launch new shows, which include Shri Adimanav directed by Paritosh Painter. The show is about three guys, one deaf, one dumb and one blind. It stars Vrajesh Hirjee, Tiku Talsania and Vishal Kotian. Another show by Ashwini Dheer based on the famous satirist Sharad Joshi’s works and the first-of-its-kind silent comedy by B.P.Singh are also being planned.
In the meantime, we hear STAR One which is grappling with low GRPs, is all set to relaunch itself in November.

Bidaai gets 1 year extension
Sapna Babul Ka - Bidaai, the top-rated show on Star Plus, has apparently got an extention of one year. The serial, which started with the drama between a fair- and a dark-skinned girl is now running a track of a murder mystery. In recent times, it is the only show that is still going strong with audience. Most of the others, which were launched along with it, have gone off air. The serial’s lead cast Parul Chauhan, Kinshuk Mahajan, Sara Khan and Angad Hasija have become huge stars. It is produced by Rajan Shahi.

More news
Even as News X is going free-to-air, comes news of another Hindi news channel P7 being launched in Mumbai. The channel, which is already beaming in Delhi, will be formally launched on September 23 by Bipasha Basu. P7, which is coming from Pearl Broadcasting Corporation Pvt. Ltd., entered the world of entertainment and media in November 2008. P stands for performance, perfection etc, 7 signifies seven days of the week, seven continents, seven colors of rainbow, seven notes of music etc. The board of directors includes Jyoti Narain, M L Sehjpal and Kesar Singh. News X which had been launched by INX Media is now being run by Jehangir Pocha and Vijay Sajlani after Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea sold their stakes.

Shweta Tiwari in Comedy Circus
Sony is all set to launch Comedy Circus Season 3 in October. Participants confirmed for the show include Shweta Tiwari and Sanjay Mishra. Krishna Abhishek and Sudesh Lahiri, who had participated in the second season, will be a part of this too. Harsh Chhaya and Jennifer Winget have also been approached. The host, however, has been changed from Shweta Gulati to Kanchi Kaul. Shekhar Suman and Archana Puran Singh have been tipped to judge the show but there hasn’t been any confirmation. Comedy Circus teams up one actor with a professional stand-up comedian and the duo then perform some gags. It is one of the most popular shows on the channel and has given opportunity to many actors to showcase their funny side. Juhi Parmar, who won the second season of Comedy Circus, is now doing a courtroom comedy show Yeh Chanda Kanoon Hai on SAB TV.

Varun Gandhi in Bigg Boss?
The race to rope in celebs for Bigg Boss season 2 begins on Colors. Apparently Aditya Panscholi and Shakti Kapoor have been approached to be a part of the show. These two seem to be reality show favourites as their names crop up whenever a show is announced. Other names doing the rounds are politician Varun Gandhi, Deepika Chikilia, who played Sita in the first Ramayan and Chunky Pandey. Of course, nobody from the channel is confirming, “It is all speculation,” is all they are willing to say.
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