Channels get set to woo viewers in festival season

new delhi: the real-life action in our backyard and the terrorist strikes in united states may have viewers hooked on to news channels for the time being, but general entertainment channels are not giving up the fight just yet. with the onset of the festival season, a host of new serials, soaps and blockbuster movies are set to hit the small screen.the stakes are higher than ever before - especially considering the current soft advertising market. according to industry insiders, the next three months is slated to witness the advertising spend in tv channels crossing the rs 1,000 crore-mark. this represents a 40 per cent share of the annual advertising spend. the season also marks the second-coming for game and reality tv shows. so far the verdict has been mixed on the success of the first generation game shows - star's kaun banega crorepati, sony's jeeto chappar phar ke and zee's sawaal dus crore ka. the second wave will see heartthrob-of-the-millions madhuri dixit host subh vivah on sony while a week-end reality adventure show, rah is expected to hit zee towards end of october. sony tv's new reality show, subh vivah, revolves around marriage, where for the first time ever a television channel will take on the mantle of a matchmaker. the interactive show, produced by mumbai-based utv, would provide girls a forum to choose their grooms. the show is set to debut in early november. rah, zee's adventure reality show, would, meanwhile, involve couples traveling to exotic tourist locales such as andamans, ladakh, rajasthan and madhya pradesh and competing amongst each other. the jackpot would involve flats in mumbai and cars, apart from expensive corporate gifts. zee's other interactive show, aap jo bole haan...,based on "you decide" from brazil's globo tv, has still not yet caught on in the trp game. interestingly enough, the new game shows have come at a time when star is planning to gradually bring down exposure to kbc while sony's govinda show is on its way out. star is set to announce the launch of five new programmes staggered over the next one month, apart from several blockbuster movies and celebrity specials. these would include recently acquired software from hfcl-channel nine stable, such as balaji-produced kundali which was earlier aired on dd metro. zee has also lined up sanjay khan's mahabharat, while sony plans to introduce two new balaji productions kutumb and kal over the next one-month. also part of the line-up are several other serials including achaanak, dhakhan, hubahu and hum hain dilwale. there's good news for cine-lovers as well. with blockbuster movies like kaho na pyar hai, mohabbatein, mission kashmir and crouching tiger hidden dragon also expected to be a part of a special festival fare, all you have to do is just sit back and enjoy with the remote in hand.