CEAT MTV Hero Honda Roadies Battleground 3 is back with Raghu

The most popular property on youth TV is back, MTV Roadies- Season 8 is back with Raghu Ram, the man who ideated it as a concept. The channel has launched the first phase of the show, which is the launch of "CEAT MTV Hero Honda Roadies Battleground 3 - Highway to Hell'.

The longest running reality show on Indian television has also roped in John Abraham as the guardian angel in the show. John will be seen promoting the character -"Sid" from his upcoming movie "Jhootha Hi Sahi." Besides the regular auditions the channel has opened the audition platform to the youth of India through the digital medium too. Anybody who wishes to be a part of the show can log into www.mtvindia.com/ rbg and audition for the show. The audition is open to anybody who is an Indian national, is above 18 years of age, can talk Hindi and if the contestant is male he needs to have a driving license too. John will also help Roadies aspirants and will provide tips across six helplines. Moreover, this year the show will concentrate on getting participants from smaller towns in India.

The show will be promoted across various media platforms intensively and this year the channel will try to build a parallel universe on the internet for live audiences' response. The winner of Roadies Battleground 3 will directly be a part of the Roadies 8 team without having to clear the auditions. The prize money has been tripled this year.

MTV Roadies gauged about 60million viewers last season and has now been licensed internationally. The previous Roadies Battleground videos which were available online were uploaded over 250,000 times and got over 2 million views.

On his new association, John Abraham said, "Being a biking enthusiast myself, I'm a big fan of Roadies. I've worked with Raghu in "Jhootha Hi Sahi' & I was thrilled when he told me he was coming back to it! We were looking at doing something interesting together again, and so decided to bring my character from "Jhootha Hi Sahi', Sid, to help out the lakhs of fans who participate. Though not a liar, Sid ends up having to lie to get what he wants throughout the film. So I'm going to run a helpline, called "Sid's helpline', and give tips to contestants on how to lie a little to get ahead. To bend the rules, not necessarily cheat. I am the edge that could help you win."

Vinod Kumar, Head ' Marketing, CEAT, said, "CEAT's present and future is intertwined with India's youth - their aspirations and their way of life. We are proud to be associated with MTV Roadies for last 3 years. We are pleased to extend this association to Roadies Battle Ground this year. This is a great platform for CEAT to keep in touch with young India."

While speaking to Adgully, Aditya Swamy, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing - MTV India, said "MTV will be looking at the digital platform to engage the audiences and the Roadies Battleground is the one of the biggest online property, with Roadies being the second largest community on social media platform."

Roadies has over 500,000 members on Facebook and has customized merchandise across more than 15 product categories. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]