“In the recent past, Vijay TV has pushed the envelope of creativity by a few notches. People look upto the channel for differentiated, innovative programming, be it fiction or non-fiction. The expectations of the people are such that if there is anything new on the Tamil television space, it has to be on Vijay TV,” said K Sriram, General Manager, Vijay TV when quizzed whether audience fatigue was the reason for the channel shifting its focus from non-fiction shows, which is considered to be its forte.

Sriram further said that it’s not about shifting from non-fiction to fiction and added that they had successful run of fictions like ‘Kana Kaanum Kaalangal’, ‘Madurai’ and ‘Swami Ayyappan’, wherein they had presented innovative storylines which was well received by the audience. “Fiction has always been our focus and now that we have strengthened our non-fiction content with shows like ‘Super Singer Senior’ and ‘Junior’, ‘Jodi No 1’ to name a few, we have shifted our focus back to fiction as it is very essential for any GEC Channel”, he said.

After ‘Kana Kaanum Kaalangal’, ‘Madurai’ and ‘Swami Ayyappan’, Vijay recently launched soaps like ‘Maharani’, ‘Meera’, ‘En peyar Meenatchi’ and ‘Mahan’. Currently the channel hosts fictions from 6:30 to 9 pm on weekdays. According to Sriram, ‘Maharani’ and ‘Mahan’ were performing extremely well while ‘Meera’ and ‘Yen Peyar Meenatchi’ for Tamil Nadu audience.

Non-fictions’ shelf live is very short

According to Sriram, Vijay TV had extremely high level of fiction recall programming. However, he said, what made people really think that Vijay TV was a non-fiction channel was because the non-fiction shows became hugely popular compared to the fiction shows. Now, with the addition of three more fiction shows, the channel expects a good balance in the weekly numbers from both fiction as well as non-fiction.

“Unlike fiction, non-fiction’s shelf live is very short”, said Sriram and added “you need to be able to re-invent in every 13 or 26 week to stay in the game. Fiction will always occupy the place that it has, but today with the amount of fictions that we have put from 6:30 to 9, the probability of three or four fiction working is much higher’’.

However, Sriram said that non-fiction would continue to drive the channel as they did not want to let go off the momentum that has been built by non-fiction. ``Non-fiction shows are the one that has enabled us to grow and we will not lose the base that we have gained. The strategy is to build on fiction on week days while on weekends we will bring out as many innovative shows as possible’’.

New shows:

The channel is all set to launch two new shows on the non-fiction front. After several editions of junior and senior super singer, Vijay TV is all set to stretch its imagination beyond language and geographical barriers for one of its kind singing talent hunt show ‘Junior Super Stars’ which combines the junior singing talents from the four southern states. The show will bring together finest junior voices of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The show will go on air at 9.00 pm from October 15, 2010.

The channel will also be launching a new game show entitled ‘Oru Varthai Oru Laksham’, which goes on air at 8.00 pm on October 16, 2010. This show will test one’s Tamil vocabulary skills.