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The big fat Indian wedding is tops
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Discovery Travel and Living to air its first Indian production
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INDIAN SEASON The first episode will feature the hitching of billionaire actor-hotelier Vikram Chatwal with model and socialite Priya Sachdev
When the Discovery Networks team decided to launch a lifestyle channel, it had to convince the senior management team in the U.S. that India was the place to start it from. All it took was a trip to Gurgaon's swanky malls and call centres buzzing with an upwardly mobile young workforce, said Aditya Tripathi, Vice President, Lifestyle Networks.
A year and eight months later, Discovery India has announced yet another milestone, its first ever Indian production. The Great Indian Wedding will showcase the drama, the tradition, and the unique styles of weddings in India. And all in Discovery tradition of intelligent and entertaining television.
The first episode will feature the hitching of billionaire actor-hotelier Vikram Chatwal with model and socialite Priya Sachdev.
Discovery India is obviously confident of this series. It was announced in great style, with a wedding-themed dinner party at the sprawling, palatial Oberoi Udaivilas, one of the many venues of the celebrity-studded festivities of Chatwal-Sachdev wedding that was attended inter alia by model Saira Mohan, Bill Clinton and Laxmi Mittal. The show, produced by Blue Mango, will be accompanied with a promo inviting people to share their unique weddings.
By the end of the year, Travel and Living will also run A Matter of Days, a travel and cuisine show hosted by Vir Sanghvi, and follow that with Indian Rendezvous. The latter has celebrities introducing you to India's big cities.
Discovery Travel and Living has done extremely well since its launch, according to Rahul Johri, Senior VP, Advertising Sales, Discovery Networks India, quoting TAM ratings. The channel is ahead of its competition Star World and Zee Café.
And it is the quality of the niche audience that Discovery is more excited about (that may be finally measured when TAM introduces its `elite' panel later this year), said Aditya Tripathi. Its audience is the upscale, English-speaking, socio-economic class A and B, between age group 18-45 years, but the aspirational character of the channel, the management is confident, will attract a significant secondary audience.
And then there is good news on the DTH (direct to home) front. "In the past, cable operators demanded a huge carriage fee that made it difficult for new entrants. With DTH, they will finally accept broadcasters as friends and not foes," said Deepak Shourie, EVP and MD, Discovery Networks India. Internationally, Discovery has done better in DTH environments; in the mature U.K. media market, the network runs 14 channels.
The Great Indian Wedding will be aired on August 20 at 8 p.m., with repeat telecasts on August 21 at 10 p.m. and August 22 at 11 p.m.
MEERA MOHANTY
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