Sumeet Raghavan feels late night slot is given step motherly treatment

Sumeet Raghavan, the host of The Late Night Show on Colors has admitted that the early ratings of his weekend (Saturday – Sunday) stand up comedy have not been too good. “I agree that the 0.2 number must be worrying the channel. But even they know that the concept (Continuation of Jai Hind TV on the web) is a very strong property and it is also not that they had nothing else to air on the 11 pm slot, so they brought in our show and will yank if off in a couple of weeks, if it does not rate decent,” Sumeet informs Tellychakkar.com.

But given that the show’s web version is doing quite well, why is it not clicking with the TV audiences? Sumeet opines, “There could be a number of reasons, firstly we have zero publicity and secondly given the strict censorship norms of TV, we really can’t be as bold as on the web i.e. having a boldly dressed Savita Bhabi segment (spoof on well known porn comic character) would be unthinkable on TV even at the late night slot.”

He also feels that the weekend slot is another major cause for the lower ratings, “this slot is always given a step motherly treatment for rival channels frequently air all kinds of awards on the same day slot which does hurts our case.” However, he adds, “The production house (Under Cover) has a few aces up our sleeve which we are sure will lift the rating that is we might even introduce Savita Bhabi in a different avatar.”

When asked to compare The Late Night Show with Movers and Shakers which airs on SAB TV, he says “There is really no comparison for firstly they are a Monday-Thursday format and secondly since they air on a “family channel” the content is quite different from what we show; we can openly talk sex which they can’t.” When pointed to the fact that the above Shekhar Suman show is also not rating very well (0.6) Sumeet says, “This proves that huge marketing budget alone don’t work, ultimately only good content clicks.”