Viacom's Colors Goes FTA In UK

[Papu]

August 20, 2013 - Colors, a top channel in India, is to shift from pay to free TV in the UK, as a direct challenge to existing channels such as Rupert Murdoch's Star Plus, as well as Sony Max, B4U Movies, Sony TV Asia and others which have also switched to free-to-air in the past few months.

Colors is owned by the Viacom-18 joint venture between Viacom and the Network18 group in India, and the UK is seen as one of its most important overseas markets.

Moving to free-to-air means that the channel will become BARB audience rated, but it might be an uphill battle given that Star Plus has a measured 1.16 million viewer loyalty.