The Indian television entertainment industry has more than 500 satellite channels being aired across multiple genres and languages. Almost all these channels air programmes 24x7. It would be very difficult to find a household in India which does not devote at least a couple of hours to television. General entertainment airs a cocktail of soap operas, reality shows, cinema and talk shows on Indian television. However, most of the popular general entertainment channels aired on Indian television are in Hindi.
Although this is not much of a problem for the TV viewers residing in urban areas, people living in the rural areas of the non-Hindi speaking states have a difficult time. This is because they have to watch TV shows in which the characters speak a different language from them. The good thing is that this gap has been identified and analysed, and subsequently almost every media company has started investing in regional entertainment channels.
Since the last few years, regional entertainment has become one of the most important genres of Indian television. A media company which refuses to venture into the market of regional entertainment will definitely face difficulties. This is because the new generation of television audiences have started taking an interest in regional entertainment. Let us take the example of the Gujarati language. There had always been a serious absence of general entertainment programmes in the language, so Hindi general entertainment channels had strengthened their position in the rural areas as well.
This was the reason why media companies shied away from launching any general entertainment channel in Gujarati. However, Viacom 18 understood the potential of Gujarati general entertainment and launched Colors Gujarati. The channel has developed a new market with their drama, situational comedies, reality shows, all of which are in the language of Gujarati. Today, it is one of the most popular channels in Gujarat and in some districts, the channel is more popular than Colors itself.
The popularity of the regional channels of Viacom 18 has also impacted the way digital entertainment is being designed. When Viacom 18 launched its on demand mobile streaming application, Voot, it could not neglect the role of regional entertainment in maintaining a strong audience. The application was launched in a multilingual format and the user had the liberty to select the language of their preference. All the regional entertainment channels owned by Viacom 18 are available on Voot. In fact, a few regional entertainment channels such as Colors Kannada, Colors Bangla, Colors Marathi are quite popular on the streaming platform.
