Star partners with RBNL, promises the beginning of a new era in entertainment

This alliance promises to mark the beginning of a new era in Indian entertainment. According to highly placed sources the BIG STAR Entertainment Awards will be an initiative that will continue for five consecutive years starting this year. Moreover sources reveal that the association will announce more initiatives by early next year around February and March.

The awards will be India's first entertainment awards that will seek to create a unique platform which honours entertainers across genres like movies, music, television and sports. The initiative is also India's first ever "people's award' ' right from nominations to the final winners. The BIG STAR Entertainment Awards will honour entertainers who will be judged by the people, hence no "Jury'. Moreover even the nominations were from amongst the one's who received the highest votes from the people of the country.

The voting process for the nominations was enabled through the 45 station of BIG FM across the country. However, the winners will be decided on the basis of people's vote, masses can vote through the company websites and through SMS votes. The process of voting will be on until the 21st of December 2010. The awards will premiere on 31st of December at 10 pm on Star Plus.

The votes will be audited by Price Waterhouse Coopers, and the voting trends will be updated everyday online. BIG STAR Entertainment Awards has been conceptualized by RBNL's experiential marketing arm- BIG LIVE. The property will see amplified promotion through Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd's verticals- Radio Station 92.7 BIG FM, out of home wing ' BIG Street, experiential marketing arm BIG Live and its digital initiative, BIG Digital. The awards will be looking at celebrating entertainers from the last decade as well as this year.

Talking exclusively to Adgully, Sanjay Gupta, Chief Operating Officer, Star India Pvt Ltd., said, "This association works well because it brings the power of two big media houses together, with a very complimentary set of skills. We have presence in television and RBNL brings expertise in a lot of other media. I think that makes us powerful in terms of how we can talk and reach out to consumers. This property also brings in consumers in a big way and there can be no stronger association than RBNL, Star India Pvt Ltd. and consumers coming together."

Sharing his view on the association, Tarun Katial, Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd., told Adgully, "RBNL and Star India Pvt Ltd. have come together to give India a platform for their entertainment icons. This is truly a 360 degree award where people get to choose not only in the world of Bollywood, but television, music and sports. It has been a watershed decade of entertainment, so we wanted to see where the entertainment choices of the consumers lie at the end of the decade."

Elaborating on the promotional and marketing activities, Anand Chakravarthy, Senior Vice President- Marketing, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd., said, "We initially started off by communicating through our radio stations, out of home wing- BIG Street and the digital arm BIG Digital, to ask people to vote for the nominations of the awards. Now, the marketing activities have basically been focused on engaging people to drive them towards the voting platforms. The awards will be promoted across the Star Networks amongst the wide range of its channels and will also be extensively promoted through RBNL's BIG FM. Our outdoor partner is Bright Outdoor Advertising and our own OOH wing- BIG Street is taking care of out door promotional activities across some markets."

The award ceremony will be hosted by Bollywood actors Arshad Warsi and Shreyas Talpade and promises to have many big celebrities performing in the show. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]