BENGALURU: Endemol Shine’s Big Brother format under its Indian sobriquet Bigg Boss is all set to make its Tamil television debut on Star India’s Tamil GEC Star Vijay on 18 June 2017. The host of the show will be Indian film icon Kamal Haasan. The format of the show will be the same as the Bigg Boss season 10 format that closed in end January this year on Network 18’s Hindi GEC channel Colors. The Kannada version’s season 4 which also closed in mid-January on Network 18’s Colors Kannada was quite successful.
Sources at Star Vijay claim that the show on their channel will be on an even bigger scale than the Hindi version. They say that an exclusive and a massive house, bigger than the Hindi version, was being built at EVP World Theme Park in Chennai.
“We are keen to leverage the uniqueness of the format , the reality appetite of Tamil audiences and a great host like Kamal Haasan, not only to drive ratings, but to put out cutting edge and innovative content," said Vijay TV GM Krishnan Kutty.
On his first foray into television, Haasan said, “When Vijay TV approached me to play host , I funnily quipped , who better than me right, all my life have been under a constant watch and have been judged on whatever I have done , public or private. But, now roles are reversed as I would stand with the audience and watch these celebrities in the house survive this ordeal.”
Bigg Boss Tamil will air on weekdays (Monday to Friday) at 900 pm and between 830pm and 10pm on weekends. The show would see the coming together of 15 celebrities in a posh house with all the amenities but who are completely cut off from technology and the outside world for 100 days. The channel is filtering participants. It says that people from varied backgrounds are being spoken to and the reception has been enthusiastic, given Kamal Haasan is the host.
Sources say that a massive marketing plan has been formulated with more than 400 outdoor sites, full page advertisements in all the leading English and Tamil dailies and weekly magazines and Radio Specials have been planned as well. Digital tie up has been firmed up with Facebook, Twitter and Google they aver.
While details of sponsors and major advertisers were not available at the time of writing, the channel says that national advertisers who have experienced the euphoria of Bigg Boss Hindi are the primary movers. However, Chennai is a powerful and strong retail market and hence the local market will also be an active participant, they say.
