Zee’s new dance show for kids teaches broadcasters a lesson: You don’t need a celeb to hit the jackpot

Reality shows are the most bankable genre for television channels and the latest ratings only corroborate this trend. Emerging as winner on the current TRP charts is Zee TV’s dance show for children, Dance India Dance (DID) L’il Masters, which air every weekend at 9pm. The show, which went on air on April 28, opened to a rating of 5.8. The ratings rose to a 6.8 last week, grabbing the top spot among the top ten shows on a Hindi general entertainment channel.

The icing on the cake is that the ratings for DID L’il Masters have surpassed the opening ratings of Sony Entertainment Television’s other dance reality shows Jhalak Dikhla Jaa Season 4 (4.1 TVR) as well as competitor Star Plus’ Just Dance (3.7 TVR).

Ashish Golwalkar, Non-Fiction Head, Zee TV, says, “The first season of DID L’il Masters also brought in a healthy opening TRP of 6.7. Now, the second season has done even better. Our aim was to launch the kid’s special dance show during the summer vacation and that seems to have clicked.”

Children have a universal appeal and shows involving them go down well with across section of the audience. The show,which is judged by Geeta Kapoor, Terence Lewis and Marzi Pestonji, and supreme judge Grandmaster Mithun Chakraborty,will air till August 4. The lesson here is that you don’t need a big-ticket celebrity to reach the top spot.

With the ratings for dance reality shows continuing to be healthy, other channels like Colors and Star Plus will soon launch their respective dance shows, Jhalak Dikhla Jaa and Nach Baliye respectively.However, unlike DID L’il Masters, these shows will be replete with either celebrity contestants or celebrity judges. While Jhalak will be judged by Madhuri Dixit and director Karan Johar, the participantsin Nach Baliye are all celebrities. Star Plus’ Just Dance too was judged by Farah Khan, Vaibhavi Merchant and Hrithik Roshan.

Golwalkar reveals, “The feeling that only top celebrities can bring in the ratings is not true. It’s great content that connects with the audience and what gets in the numbers.Television and films are very different types of mediums. So a film star who is a box-office winner might not be able to weave the same magic on the small screen.”

sA