Star bets on Bengali blockbusters with Jalsha Movies

The Star India network has announced the launch of a Bengali movie channel, Jalsha Movies. The channel will go on air on 16 December with a library of over 350 movies, 80 per cent of which would be ‘latest Bengali blockbuster movies’, according to the channel.

The channel comes into a market which has two existing players in the genre - Sony Aath (launched 2008) and Zee Bangla Cinema (launched September'12).

Kevin Vaz, president and general manager, Star Jalsha, and president - ad sales, Star India, said that Jalsha Movies would be ‘the biggest blockbuster movie channel in the market’.

He added that Bengal was a big movie market, and each of the blockbusters aired on Star Jalsha, the network’s Bengali GEC, garnered a 10-plus viewership rating. Encouraged by this success, the network decided to extend its presence in the market with a complete movie channel, according to the spokesperson.

Jalsha Movies has got on board ITC Vivel as one of the lead partners, and roped in advertisers across categories like FMCG and mobile handset manufacturers. "We'll have a good mix of advertisers right from the first day of going on air and all these advertisers are positive that the channel will be a huge hit," Vaz added.

Apart from regular advertisers (who advertise on Star Jalsha too), the expectation is that Jalsha Movies would also attract more retail brands from the market.

While Zee Bangla Cinema is a recent entrant, Sony Aath that been present in the genre for four years now. Vaz explained the different positioning Jalsha Movies would adopt: "Aath has a lot of classics, tele movies and black and white movies in its library. Jalsha Movies, on the other hand, will have a good mix of latest blockbuster hits and classic Bengali cinema."

To start off, Jalsha Movies will air Awara, a movie that released just three months ago, he added.

For the launch campaign, Kolkata will play host to 400 hoardings. The campaign will straddle print, radio, cinema halls, music and news television channels, besides channels on the Star network.

Jalsha Movies has also signed a five-year deal with West Bengal-based production house Shree Venkatesh Films, to air the latter’s movies exclusively.

Bengali actor Dev has been picked as brand ambassador, and creatives for the launch campaign have been created by Ogilvy & Mather, Kolkata.

Here is one of the creatives from the launch campaign: