Mumbai, June 27 (IANS) Sony Entertainment Television has re-launched SAB as a 24-hour comedy channel. The existing non-comedy contents will be replaced by variety of humorous shows, including popular American series “Home Improvement” and “My Wife and Kids”.
The launch of the channel with a new format Thursday was also marked by a new daily family comedy “Lo Ho Gayi Pooja Iss Ghar Ki”.
“We will stick to comedy, offering various flavours throughout the day. We will hopefully be the only 24-hour comedy channel in India in the midst of so many soap channels,” Anooj Kapoor, senior Vice President SAB, told IANS.
” ‘Lo Ho Gayi…’ is the first step towards clothing SAB with a 24-hour pure family entertainment channel. All other comedies before were episodic, this is the first daily comedy with a definite progressive story line that can be a replacement for the daily family soaps,” added Kapoor.
Known for its comedy genre, SAB was turned into a general entertainment channel, after its take over from Adhikari Brothers in 2004. In 2006, it was revamped again and presented as a youth channel with shows like “Jersey No. 10”, “Left Right Left”, “Mohalla Mohabbatwala”, “4”, “Love Story” and so on.
Now SAB is back to its original format. Kapoor informed that the channel has acquired the rights of various comedy shows from the US, including “Home Improvement”, “My Wife and Kids”, besides the exclusive India rights of “Laurel Hardy” and “Charlie Chaplin”.
Kapoor says that “Lo Ho Gayi…” will provide an alternative to women folk who are hooked to saas-bhau sagas.
“I got feedback from people that though the present persecution of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law in serials got a huge popularity, they are destroying the fabric of a joint family.
“So, I believe its time to divert the attention of our women folk to something which is not injurious to structure of a family. I strongly believe that ‘Lo Ho Gayi…’ can provide entertainment to the women soap watchers as well as their male counterpart,” said Kapoor.
“What Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Sooraj Barjatya tried in their films, we are trying it in television,” Kapoor added.
“Lo Ho Gayi…” will have Sana Saeed, who played Shah Rukh Khan‘s daughter Anjali in the blockbuster “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”, as the protagonist with veteran actors like Rohini Hattangadi and Mushtaq Khan playing important characters. Produced by Cinevista, “Lo Ho Gayi Pooja Iss Ghar Ki” will be aired Monday to Thursday from June 30.
“Besides planning for reality shows, game shows, musical shows that will be humorous in nature, the channel will also be show one Hindi and English (dubbed in Hindi) comedy movies on prime time slots on Saturday and Sunday,” said Kapoor.
