India is a multilingual country, with a large number of languages that have millions of speakers. Needless to say, most of these languages have their own tradition of cultural entertainment that has been developed over the years. However, when it comes to television, there is only one primary language which is Hindi. Almost all the media companies in Indian television have their flagship channels in Hindi. The popularity of the channels in Hindi is so high that Hindi language entertainment is considered to be the general genre of Indian entertainment.
This has resulted in the negligence of the opportunities in the wide market of regional languages. There is a huge population in India which is not well versed in Hindi. This population mostly resides in the rural areas of the states of East, West and South India. Despite forming a huge market, they have remained untouched by Hindi entertainment. This gap was very evident until Viacom 18 came up with the idea of introducing general entertainment channels in regional languages.
Today, almost every media company operating in India has started diversifying into regional entertainment. However, when it comes to quality programmes in regional languages, no other media company can match up to Viacom 18. The channels they have launched are well researched and have hence, become popular amongst the masses. In fact, the regional channels launched by Viacom 18 have become more popular than the Hindi general entertainment channels in the respective states.
Let us take the example of Colors Marathi. Marathi is the primary language spoken in the state of Maharashtra, yet there was a serious absence of general entertainment programmes in the language. Colors Marathi has bridged this gap with its dramas, situational comedies and reality shows in Marathi. Today, Colors Marathi has gained more popularity among the Marathi speaking population than the Hindi channel Colors.
Channels did already exist in the genre of Bengali entertainment, however, when Colors Bangla was launched, its programmes grabbed the attention of the Bengalis. People started preferring this channel over the established channels of Bengali entertainment. Colors Bangla has not only focused on the standard formula of entertainment which is to have fiction and reality shows. Instead, they have tried to add some masala to the formula with the incorporation of talk shows and music based programmes. This has been warmly received by the audience.
