Viacom18 announced the launch of its latest regional entertainment channel – COLORS Tamil. Scheduled to go on air on 19th February, 2018, COLORS Tamil will be the national media conglomerate’s first foray into the Tamil market. Viacom18 already operates general entertainment channels in 5 regional languages, under the brand name COLORS – Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Odia apart from Hindi and English. At launch COLORS Tamil will be available in all leading cable networks catering to an estimated 11 mn homes in rest of Tamil Nadu through Tamil Nadu Arasu Corporation, and 3.5 mn homes in Greater Chennai through SCV, TCCL among others. Furthermore the channel will be available on all DTH platforms - Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Airtel, DishTv & Videocon D2h - reaching out to ~5.5mn households.
Sudhanshu Vats, group CEO, Viacom18 said, “In line with our stated strategy to drive regional growth aggressively, COLORS is entering the lucrative, fast growing and discerning Tamil entertainment market. Our proven ability to disrupt the status quo will help us tell endearing stories to over 20 million TV households in the state and a large global audience.”
Ravish Kumar, head, regional entertainment, Viacom18, said, “Tamil Nadu, the country’s sixth most populous state (per Census 2011) is among the bigger television content consuming markets, with a per capita daily viewership of 3 hours which is more than that of the Hindi speaking markets (the average is 2.5 hours). With an estimated base of 1,150 advertisers, Tamil Nadu is one of the more lucrative broadcast entertainment markets in India."
- Channel to go live across 20mn households on 19th February with the brand philosophy - Idhu Namma Oru Coloru
- At launch, COLORS Tamil will air 22 hours of weekly original content
- Announces Tamil Superstar Arya as their brand ambassador
Kumar adds that Our biggest drive is to deliver new and never before seen content to the Tamil audience. We have invested big in conceptualizing programs that are inspiring, innovative, experimental and technically sound. With 22 hours of original content at launch, we are more than confident of COLORS Tamil becoming a blockbuster hit here.”
Anup Chandrasekharan, Business Head – COLORS Tamil said, “Our study of the existing broadcast entertainment market suggests that there is a need gap between what the audience wants to watch and the kind of content that is available to them. Therefore our focus on content that is differentiated, thought provoking and socially conscious.”
Launching with a well curated list of programs, COLORS Tamil will be available on all DTH platforms for audience viewing. The entire content of COLORS Tamil will also be available on VOOT for the on-the-go viewer. The channel will offer a range of fiction and non-fiction programs spanning from family drama, reality TV, comedy to fantasy to name a few.
(Campaign India attended the launch of Colors Tamil in Chennai at the invitation of Viacom18)
