The Indian Premier League has struck a three-year entertainment deal with Hindi entertainment channel, Colors.
According to AFaqs, the agreement will see Colors form entertainment properties centred on the IPL tournament round the year and not just during the IPL season. The special programming content will feature cricketing greats and Bollywood star power, to bring to the nation what is being called ‘cricketainment’.
The partnership between Colors and IPL is a move inspired by IPL’s chairman and commissioner, Lalit Modi’s desire to extend IPL to a year-long brand, rather than restricting it to the seasonal 45 cricket playing days of the tournament.
In a statement, Modi comments, “The partnership with Colors takes the IPL cricketainment quotient into an all-new orbit. With this unique partnership with the channel that we have entered on behalf of our franchisees, we are delivering on our promise to extend the IPL franchise beyond cricket, beyond the IPL season. This move combines our IPL cricketers’ mass appeal and Colors’ flagship format shows, to create an unprecedented genre of cricketainment.”
As part of the programming innovations, the third edition of IPL will see national and international IPL players as contestants on Colors’ reality show, ‘Fear Factor Khatron Ke Khiladi’, which will be launched post IPL.
The second offering will be an award show, titled ‘IPL Awards Night’. The show will be on-air on 23rd April, a day prior to the grand finale of IPL 2010. The awards show will be produced and handed over to Colors for broadcast by IPL.
There will also be a cricket talent hunt, ‘Rockstar’, which will be shot in a stadium and later aired on the channel.
Apart from this, programming related to fashion shows, parties involving cricketers and Bollywood stars and fashion-lifestyle related content could be aired on MTV, another Viacom18 channel.
Kamat shares that the channel realises that cricket and glamour can be a lethal combination, as proved by the popularity of a show such as Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena. In the reality dance show, which was aired on Colors last year, each contestant couple comprised a cricketer and a TV celebrity.
Colors launches in the UK today on Sky Digital EPG 829.
