'Colors' completes one year! Viacom 18's entertainment channel celebrates its first anniversary today

Colors, India's leading Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) by Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd (a joint venture between Viacom Inc and Network18), celebrates its first anniversary by setting record-breaking milestones.

Colors made fiscal 2009 a truly remarkable one in Indian television history, as it saw the birth and unprecedented rise of one of India's most preferred GECs. Within a year of launch, Colors has surpassed entrenched incumbents with exceptional program performance, innovative show formats and a fast growing loyal audience base.

Colors has been widely heralded as a "game changer" in the intensely competitive and cluttered GEC space and has had a significant "category growing" influence as well.

Key Highlights for FY 2008-2009:

Programming: Post a high decibel launch with flagship format show, Khatron ke Khiladi, Colors embarked on series of daily and weekly shows which have gradually built a loyal base of viewers for the channel and led to its leading position. Within nine months of launch, shows such as Balika Vadhu and Jai Shri Krishna established COLORS reputation for differentiated entertainment along with shows such as Na Aana Is Des Laado and Uttaran.

Advertising: Colors has generated a lot of advertiser traction commensurate with its stupendous viewership performance and robust revenue run rate.

Platform diversification and Affiliates: Colors has made major forays in terms of distribution in international markets, especially those with a large NRI diaspora, such as India, Australia/ANZ, Fiji, Japan/Korea/Taiwan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The channel plans to enter markets such as US, UK and the Middle East shortly. Distribution revenue has begun since the beginning of the new financial year and this holds tremendous upsides in the future, as the brand gets strengthened. The channel has also made headway in terms of content syndication deals for some of its leading shows in the sub-continent and the Middle East.

Awards: In view of the impressive launch and growth of the channel's viewership, Colors won several awards at all leading television award platforms ranging from India Today Women Achievers', Indian Television Academy, Gr8 Television to the PROMAX awards.

Colors also innovated with films — always a big draw with audiences — screening them without breaks.

It started out as the 10th general entertainment channel in India, but after a year in that space, Colors has ended up at the top.

Colors climbed to the No 1 position (TAM, TG C&S 4+, HSM) in week 15 of 2009 and 38th week post launch. Its journey has been remarkable. From 81 GRPs (Gross Rating Points) and the No 3 position on the day of the launch, Colors crossed 100 GRPs in the 2nd week; 200 GRPs in the 9th week; 250 GRPs in the 16th week and 300 GRPs in the 32nd week.