KBC: The equivalent of Sholay 2?

Starting August 5, Star Plus hopes to eradicate competition from other channels once again.

Their star serial, Kaun Benega Crorepati, will be back for its second season.

Star Plus' Chief Operating Officer Samir Nair describes the second coming of KBC as 'the same show but everything changed.'

He adds, "We're trying to do the equivalent of making Sholay 2. Is it possible, even if we pour double the resources and energy of the original? We at Star think it is possible. Mr Bachchan's demenaour, image, clothes, language and attitude will be changed. When he first came on KBC five years ago, he was down and out. Now he's the absolute emperor in every sense. AB is the ultimate rock star. And KBC will rock accordingly. To put it in a nutshell, we go from languid to pacy."

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Amitabh Bachchan, who hosts the show, says, "Well, the questions will be posed in a different way. Times have changed. Tastes have transformed. The people who watched KBC the first time have moved on. Hopefully, they'll come back. And there's a whole new generation that would want to watch KBC. We're counting on them."

When the game show was first aired in 2001, Star Plus had a viewership of about 22 milion. "Today, we're being watched by 61 million people. There're 21 million landlines and 50 million mobile phones. We're gearing up for an all-out war," says Nair, hinting at Star's much talked-about plans to wipe out the headway made by rival channels through their talent shows like Sony's Fame Gurukul and Zee's Challenge.

"These are what I call 'scripted reality' shows," Nair says. "We don't believe in doctored thrills. KBC is about to whittle down the competition. We intend to broaden the horizon of participants. The guy on the hot seat is no longer the nerd who memorises the Malayala Manorama Year Book but the guy who reads the newspaper and is aware of the world around him. I've asked my quiz producer Siddhartha Basu to make sure that the questions are not too niche. If the host has become  the coolest dude in the country, then the guy in the hot seat had better match him!"

The 'coolest dude' is, as usual, unfazed. "I was committed to do 81 episodes. The entire format of presentation, including my clothes, have been decided by Star. I'm just the guy opposite the hot seat. Will KBC be as successful this time as the last? Who knows? But I'm having a blast!" says Bachchan.

KBC will be aired at 9 pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting August 5.