V had brought him back when his film career had hit rock bottom. Television again gave him two thumbs up on his 68th birthday at a time his film count has dried up.
The Amitabh Bachchan- hosted Kaun Banega Crorepati 2010 on Sony opened big on October 11, bigger than the other big-ticket TV shows hosted by much younger Bollywood stars.
According to the latest TAM (Television Audience Measurement) data, KBC’s opening episode fetched 6.2 TVR (Television Viewer Ratings) points.
That’s much lower than what the 2000 edition of KBC got regularly and even lower than the last season’s opener in January 2007, hosted by Shah Rukh Khan on STAR Plus. But double-digit ratings are a thing of the past with so many TV channels and the audience diversifying by the day.
Today, the 6.2 figure is almost like a jackpot for Sony when compared with other Bollywood-studded shows. The opening episode of Salman Khan’s Bigg Boss 4 (Colors) managed a TVR of 4.8 points, Priyanka Chopra’s Khatron Ke Khiladi (again on Colors) scored 5.5, and Akshay Kumar on MasterChef India (STAR Plus) got just 2.6.
Even KBC’s launch week TVR average of 5.3 is much higher than the average of the other shows.
So what is it about KBC that works?
The jury is divided, though no one rules out that Amitabh still packs a punch. As son Abhishek tweeted: “Just got to know that KBC blew the ratings out of the water! Proud day to be a son! The big man shows us yet again how it should be done.”
And what does “the big man” himself consider to be the USP of KBC?
Amitabh feels it is the contestant in the hot seat who makes the primetime show tick.
Unlike the last three seasons, this time, the participants were auditioned a la other shows such as Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain and 10 Ka Dum. Of the 50 lakh contestants who registered, only around 1,200 were shortlisted for the auditions. Of them, only those who had “an interesting back story” made it to the show.
“The show is about the aam aadmi… his joy and his win, and this time most of the contestants have come from small towns and villages,” says Amitabh. “These numbers (TVRs) show that we have managed to touch a chord with the aam aadmi.”
But you can never discount Bachchan in a Bachchan blockbuster.
Producer Siddhartha Basu, who has worked with Shah Rukh and Salman on TV, feels that despite this being Amitabh’s third stint with KBC, he is “refreshing”. “There is a new kind of intimacy, empathy, informality and wit from his side. It’s as if he is bringing in all his experience to every episode,” Basu says.
Others feel that one could not go wrong with the Who Wants to be a Millionaire format. Multi Screen Media, the company behind Sony, in fact, paid an undisclosed premium fee to buy the rights of the game show which was with STAR for the previous eight years. “The impressive opening numbers for KBC is an emphatic endorsement of our vision to bring the biggest and best properties for our viewers,” says Manjit Singh, the CEO Multi Screen Media.
Adman Prahlad Kakkar says: “You cannot really compare KBC with any of the new shows. This one has a history, a dedicated following and a legendary host. You do not need to create a fresh connect. Every episode brings in a new story, but at the same time creates nostalgia for the viewers who have seen it a decade back.”
Also, this time the jackpot prize has been raised to Rs 5 crore. Ten years back, the Rs 1-crore figure used to be big on the small screen, not anymore. With so many game and reality shows offering crores of rupees as prize money, KBC had to up the ante. “The show is not about the money…. It is about the drama but the (extra) money certainly heightens the drama,” says Basu.
Amitabh has said he always knew he had a winner in his hands. “I felt it during the release of Paa and I felt it again during the launch of KBC… that everyone wanted to make it a success,” he said.
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