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First Look: KBC3 with Shah Rukh Khan

The much awaited new series of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ (KBC) with new host Shah Rukh Khan went live last night and has more than lived up to expectations.

There had been much talk from media critics as to whether or not the new look of the show would be able to retain the popularity of the previous two series’, which were fronted by Amitabh Bachchan.

By adding his own touch, his own wit and his own charm to the show, the programme has the potential to prove as a bigger hit than the first two series’.

To mark the launch of the new series, we look back at viewership patterns for the last series of KBC on STAR Plus. Data has been supplied by India TV monitoring body TAM.

5th August, 2005 was the first day when KBC re-launched itself in its new avatar – KBC2. While KBC1 in the year 2000 took STAR Plus’ channel share from 2% to 25% during the 21:00-22:00 daypart, 2005 (for the launch of KBC2) saw 10% viewership during the 4 weeks prior to the launch period jump to 38%.KBC2 reached out to 20.5 million audiences who walked into KBC2 on the first day across TAM’s all India market.

During the launch of KBC2, the only other programme from a rival TV channel that performed well was the grand finale of ‘Indian Idol’ on Sony Entertainment Television Asia, which managed to notch up 11.5 on the TVR scale. This compared to KBC2’s 13.8 TVR.

Its still early days before we officially find out how the new series of KBC will perform, especially as this time around the programme faces stiff competition from ZEE TV’s huge soaps ‘Saat Phere’ and ‘Kasamh Se’ in the same timeslot. Whether or not King Khan’s power will be able to dent the viewership of ZEE TV’s mega soaps remains to be seen.

Early indications from TAM will be available soon, so keep it with us to find out how much of an impact KBC3 has really managed to create.

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