Will he, won’t he? This has been a question that has been doing the rounds since news broke that comedian Kapil Sharma would be ending his glorious innings with general entertainment channel (GEC), Colors. The question was not whether he would be retained by Colors, but whether he would retain his magic with the show shifting to Sony Entertainment Television.
That was answered when the BARC ratings for week 17 of 2016 (April 23-29) were out. The inaugural show on Sony TV, which also had Hindi Film superstar Shah Rukh Khan as a guest, put The Kapil Sharma Show in the fifth slot of the most popular shows on television in that week. “The Kapil Sharma Show has received an overwhelming response from fans both in India and across the globe. Besides India, The Kapil Sharma Show has also received great viewer response in the US, UK markets and many other countries, thereby making it a worldwide success,” says Anup Vishwanathan, Senior Vice President and Head Marketing, Sony Entertainment Television.
The debut show saw a 2.6x rise in viewership for Sony TV compared to its previous weekend’s programme for the 9-10 pm time slot, according to analysis by Bengaluru-based media-tech firm Zapr. The firm says that with 54 million unique viewers Kapil Sharma had a rival only in sister channel SET MAX that was showing the IPL. In the cricket T20 match on that day the Sunrisers defeated the Kings XI Punjab by five wickets and attracted 76.3 million viewers. Analysis by Zapr further shows that Kapil Sharma ended his stint on Colors with the
“The response for the inaugural episode showed that Kapil is quite dependable irrespective of the channel,” says Sandipan Mondal, co-founder, Zapr. Deepak Baid, another co-founder from the firm, adds that the Kapil show delivered against tough competition. For instance, apart from the IPL fixture, Kapil Sharma was also pitted against the star power of
It’s often said that Indians cannot laugh at themselves. However, in the Hindi film industry and otherwise, the country has a rich tradition of slapstick comedy. Menon points out that the Hindi film industry has had comedians from Albela and TunTun to Johnny Walker and Johnny Lever. In the television space, Jaspal Bhatti was one of the earlier exponents when India was still Doordarshan country. In the cable and satellite era, channels such as Sab TV had their genesis in comedy.
Bhasin adds that the future of comedy is promising as convergence sets in and digital stars such as AIB or TVF could reach a wider audience.
Menon adds that in the comedy genre on television, the audience swings are not huge as compared to soaps.
However, she says that intelligent comedy does not work with the masses. “It’s the nautanki kind of comedy with men in drag and so on that is working on mainstream television.”
On the other front, English comedy has a niche, but loyal audience. There are serials such as Friends and How I Met your Mother that get traction in a niche way, says Bhasin. However, the big constraint in growing the share of this space is the paucity of content.
Relaxation & entertainmentMenon says comedy might not fetch the same advertising rates as popular soaps yet, but the margins could be higher. “Soaps at their peak would be making much more than comedy. But the cost of shooting a soap opera would be much higher hence the absolute returns could be comparable,” she says.
That is probably the reason why SET promoted The Kapil Sharma Show as much as it would promote any other high-decibel soap opera. The channel kick-started the campaign with a high-impact launch campaign using print, radio, TV and on-ground activities. The promotions for the show began with the team doing a multi-city tour starting with Amritsar followed by Bhopal and Lucknow, giving fans an opportunity to interact with their favourite stars from the show. These tours culminated in Delhi where the team shot its first episode with a ‘live’ audience along with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. More than 15,000 people got a first glimpse of the show at this ground event. The channel has also announced a nation-wide digital contest called ‘ Kapil Se Mil ’ where lucky winners get a chance to be on the show and meet the artists. “The show, along with the artists, connected with the audience through various social media platforms,” says Vishwanathan. Bhasin says the future for comedy on television is bright as people tune into television for relaxation and to get entertained. The genre delivers on both counts.
Some way to goHowever, there is still some time to go before the comedy genre catches up with the drama of soap operas. “Even though comedy has been doing well for channels, it has still not replaced drama,” say executives from BARC India, the industry body that tracks viewership in the medium. The index of impressions — duration for drama and family soaps in primetime viewership — is more favourable compared to comedy, which clearly indicates that drama continues to be the flavour when it comes to scheduling and loyalty, they add. Navjot Singh Sidhu might be seated on the throne in The Kapil Sharma Show. But as of now, the Singhasan belongs firmly to the soap opera.