Sony Entertainment Television Asia is leaving no stone unturned this time around to ensure its latest acquisition of gameshow ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ takes a rocking start.

The channel is planning to launch the show around Monday 11th October to coincide with presenter, Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday.

KBC4 will run for 36 episodes. “The show is going to launch in October. We haven’t finalised the date of its debut airing,” According to Multi Screen Media president network sales, licensing and telephony Rohit Gupta.

The channel is hoping that the show will be able to change its fortunes just like it did for Star Plus in 2000 when it became leading Hindi TV channel across India and remained there for eight consecutive years.

During the first season, the show had average TV ratings (TVR) of 14.1, a feat that has not been repeated on Indian television, not even in the subsequent editions of the show.

But many disagree, saying while the first season of KBC ran for 270 episodes, the second had only 60. There has been a fall in average TVRs since the first season as the second edition got an average TVR of 11.1, according to data from TV audience monitoring agency TAM. The ratings worsened in the third season when Shah Rukh Khan hosted KBC. The show then managed average TVRs of just 6.8 over only 53 episodes.

Sony TV, sources say, has received good response from advertisers and has already sold 50 per cent of its advertisement inventory. “We will be signing in eight sponsors, half of which have already come on board,” says Rohit Gupta, president of Multi Screen Media. He says that ad slots for the show will be sold at a much higher premium.

Categories: Amitabh, KBC 4, Kaun Banega Crorepati, Kaun Banega Crorepati 4, SRK, SRK KBC, Shahrukh Khan
Tags: KBC4, Sony Entertainment Television, TVR