Life OK bags telecast rights of Screen Awards 2014

As the year heads to its tail-end, viewers look forward to getting ‘paisa vasool’ entertainment via the much awaited numerous awards ceremonies on television. The TV world gets in motion of the ‘giving spree’ with various film and television award shows being broadcast on, mainly the top general entertainment channels. Latest to join the bandwagon is Life OK, which celebrated its second anniversary this month. Yes, its official, the newest GEC on the block has bagged the telecast rights of one of Hindi film worlds most credible and prestigious award ceremony, the Screen Awards.

Colors has collaborated with Screen to telecast the 18th edition of Screen Awards, a property that has been associated with Star Plus for the past 11 years. Initiated in the year 1994, the Screen Awards were instilled to recognise upcoming talent and professional excellence in Indian Cinema.
 
For record, Screen Awards, a property that has been associated with Star Plus for the past 11 years, had a small stint with Vaicom18’s Colors that had collaborated to telecast the last edition of Screen Awards. Bringing the Screen Awards back to the Star India stable, Life OK is all set for its first ever Bollywood awards show in January 2014. A new home for the awards, The Life OK Screen Awards, will be held on 14th January 2014, marking the completion of 20 successful years of celebrating excellence in the Indian Film Industry.

Adgully caught up with Ajit Thakur, GM, Life OK and George Varghese, CEO, The Indian Express Group to know what brings this property in Life OK’s kitty and more.

The obvious which caught our minds was ‘Why Screen Awards?’ Is that, being new in the game, the channel planned to strengthen itself for the initial years and bring in something big like this? Responding to this Thakur said, “You've seen that in first two years we haven't done much of non-fiction or events, because we always tried to be growing yet profitable channel. So, now after two years I think we have got a momentum which is irreversible”. He states that the team as a whole feels very confident, especially from last six months as Life OK has grown to No.4 and for the next level, with its second year completion, the thought is that in the next 12 months along with everything else that they are doing; the GEC can also create some impactful properties.

“Though there are loads of announcements to be done in the next six months, we thought of starting off with the something big like Screen Awards. The reason for this was; firstly, this is ‘the’ Screen Awards event, secondly, the events programming ideology should be similar to that of ours (entertainment with some amount of philosophy and inspiration) and that's a beautiful thing about Screen and lastly, the jury's awards are important than popular awards, just like good cinema over popular cinema. All these things fits with us and our ideology”, he said.

Speaking about the Screen Awards knocked the door at Life OK, Thakur said, “We said that we want Screen, but, the brighter side is that Screen wanted Life OK, which was an honest admission! George Varghese, CEO, Indian Express and his team were happy about the plan we shared with them but were happier about the content agenda of the channel. There was a match of credibility and inspiration. So, it was this philosophy that convinced them to come on to Life OK otherwise they had other options”.

Sharing his delight to be associated with Life OK, George Varghese, CEO, The Indian Express Group, said, “The Screen Awards are known for their credible and unbiased approach towards celebrating excellence in Indian cinema, and are the most respected in the entertainment fraternity. For the 20th edition of the Screen Awards, we are proud to be associated with Life OK, and are committed to making it bigger and better than before."

Thakur, when asked about the reason for not creating something on their own rather than going to bring Screen Awards to the channel, said, “If we had to created something by your own, it would have take two to three years to build it. But we wanted to create impact right away. A meaningful platform like Screen was ready or else we won't have taken any other awards. If Screen wasn't there, we would have created our own award”.

As one of the first non-fiction big ticket properties on the channel, there lay certain difficulties and challenges that the task possess for Life OK. However, Thakur refutes this saying it is not though at all! “We are going to market it like our biggest property; it would be biggest marketing property for Life OK ever. We are planning to get top Bollywood male and female actors for this event, plus we are going to create lots of interactive activities with the audience. For the first time, we will have voting in Screen Awards for two popular categories out of 35 - 40 categories, where viewers will get chance to participate and vote”, he said.

Apart from the new ‘voting for two categories’, Thakur mentions some other new elements that the channel plans to introduce in the 2014 Screen Awards. This edition will see the introduction a many new awards. “We are also looking at building ‘heroes’ rather than building ‘stars’. We are also doing this Award ceremony like an Olympic torch; where we shall take the trophy's to different cities (two of the awards to 10 cities) to make people more aware of Screen, Life OK and its collaboration. So with this kind of program, we shall do mass engagement at the ground level”, he said.

Alongside the on-ground activities, he said, the awards will also be marketed through TV, print, outdoor, cinema and other platforms. “We plan to make it the most expensive event and most expensive marketing activity. The on-ground plus the main event will be proceeded a week before by a big nomination night where the jury will come and announce the nomination, where lot of Life OK artists would also be involved. Together with strong television engagement, we will be engaging through online medium- both mobile and web. All the information regarding event and nomination will be up on our pages and sites that will start rolling out by the end of December 2013”, he added.

Although the telecast date for the awards show is yet to be official, Thakur hinted on the Republic Day to be the telecast day for Life OK Screen Awards in the 7.00 to 8.00 pm time band.

Speaking about how he perceives competition GEC’s after stepping in this route, as there are other channels already having such properties; a confident Thakur stated that, “In the last six months we have only grown. With properties like Hatim, the Screen Awards, an untitled fiction show with Ekta Kapoor, we are going to just move ahead. We are never worried about numbers or ranking, we just keep growing our share. We are the only channel to achieve break even in the first year”!

In conclusion, Thakur speaking on planning to create more such properties said, “Probably, if we will not find the right one, then we shall create our own; like the Independence Day property we created named ‘Azadi’”. He also mentioned that the channel is planning to do a non-fiction show but; won't give way to singing or dancing shows unless they are more inspirational then the usual.