Indians are fond of movies. In fact, cinema is the biggest sector of entertainment in India. The box office of India witnesses multiple movie releases in multiple languages every week. Apart from that, there is a strong culture of celebrity following amongst the Indian audience. People get really excited when movies of their favourite stars release and they do not hesitate to go the extra mile to catch the first day first show of those movies. This love for movies has given rise to a large number movie based television channels in India. You would find movie channels in almost all the major languages spoken in India. However, Hindi movie channels rule the market. These movie channels either air Bollywood movies or movies from Hollywood and other industries that are dubbed in Hindi. The viewership of these channels is quite high and the channels compete with each other to premiere new movies which help them attract audiences. Needless to say, almost all the media companies operating in India own at least one movie channel in Indian television. But, the same could not be said about Viacom 18 until a few years ago.
When Viacom 18 was introduced in India, it primarily focused on general entertainment. The flagship channel of Viacom 18 is Colors, which is the leading Hindi general entertainment channel of India. A number of drama and reality shows that air on Colors enjoy the top TRPs in Indian television. According to a recent survey, almost 80 percent of the total number of Indian TV viewers watch at least one programme on Colors. The popularity of the programmes of Colors is so high that Viacom 18 had to introduce a separate channel by the name of Rishtey to re-run their shows. Rishtey is actually the mirror channel of Colors. You would find all the TV programmes of Colors on Rishtey, albeit aired with a delay of a few weeks. Recently, they have also started airing television shows from the yesteryears on Rishtey. Surprisingly, it clicked very well with the audience and its success was what gave Viacom 18 the idea to introduce Rishtey Cineplex.
Actually, Viacom 18 had to fill the gap of not having a movie channel. So, it launched Rishtey Cineplex which specializes in movies from the retro period. It is not at all surprising that Indian movies from the periods of 1960s to 1980s still have a strong fan base, given the love for movies among Indians. Although Rishtey Cineplex has tried airing new movies during the weekend prime time slots, it always has been associated with retro movies. Over the years, Rishtey Cineplex has become one of the most popular movie channels in India.
