Viacom18 soon to launch another offering 'Bandhan'

Viacom18, the 50:50 joint ventures between Viacom and Network18 is planning to strengthen its position in the network by adding another channel.

The new channel from the Viacom18 bouquet with the working title of ‘Bandhan’ has acquired license from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB). Industry experts feel that it may be a crucial strategy to further deepen the group’s position in the Industry. Most of the broadcasters have two or more offerings in the Hindi Entertainment space, hence Viacom18 is also moving in that direction. For the record Viacom18 runs two channels in the Hindi GEC space - Colors and Rishtey. Bandhan will be another offering from the Viacom18 in the pay TV mode.

Recently the have also been in the news for launching Colors Infinity in the English General Entertainment space. The channel will be on both on SD and HD mode and is will be on air on 31st July 2015.
Viacom18 bouquet compromises of channels targeting various genres. It has MTV and Pepsi MTV Indies in the space of the youth and music genre. Nick Jr, Nick, Sonic are targeting the kids. In the Hindi GECs it has Colors and Rishtey(showcasing repeats of Colors), whereas in the English Entertainment it has Vh1, Comedy Central and will soon launch Colors Infinity. Viacom18 also has a strong foothold in the regional GEC space with channels like Colors Kannada, Colors Marathi, Colors Odia, Colors Bangla and Colors Gujarati.

Bandhan for now categorised as a non-news or entertainment channel. It will either be part of Colors and Rishtey in the Hindi General Entertainment category or may be another Hindi Movie Channel.