Hindi Wedding Channel to be launched by Star TV
Star India is preparing to enter the Indian wedding market by launching a television channel around the Rs 1, 25,000 crore Indian marriage market, which is growing at between 25 and 30 per cent a year.
The channel will be a 24-hr Hindi channel. According to the experts, the market is strong and resistant from any decline.
Senior executives at Star informed that the plans are at an early stage and no details could be made available now. However, they admitted that the idea of a lifestyle wedding channel has been in the works for a while.
A Star source claimed, “It is a unique channel proposition, though it can`t really be called a niche channel as it has a wide viewer interest, especially in India where weddings are a big deal. Indian weddings involve the whole family.”
The channel will not only air the video footage of celebrity weddings, it may include reality shows or be instructional or documentary in nature. The channel could create content around shopping for wedding, planning engagements and weddings, grooming, dressmaking, makeovers, slimming for women and six pack abs for men and much more.
A Star executive said, “In programming terms, the opportunity is stupendous. The marriage business could be taken ahead with programmes on planning honeymoons, doing up the house to agony aunt kind of shows.”
These contents are expected to attract a range of advertisers in product categories for grooming, garments, jewellery, consumer durables and even automobiles.
The executive added, “The fact is that the subtext of a lot of commercial messages is to do with weddings. And currently there is no single destination for such television commercials.”
Vandana Mohan, Wedding planner and the promoter of Backstage Production said that she was not sure whether a wedding channel would work as most celebrities would not let the cameras in. But she is sure about the huge potential of the business that shows no sign of a slowdown. She added, “Money for a wedding is already allocated and kept aside. This money is not connected to profit or loss.
Divya Gurwara, Bridal Asia CEO whose wedding exhibition is in its tenth year, said, “Considering the way we spend in India on weddings, the channel will work. Interest in weddings is not limited to say just one member of the family and is of interest to everyone.”
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