MUMBAI: The hugely popular laugh riot has now gone beyond making a mark on television. We’re talking of Colors’ top-rated non-fiction show Comedy Nights with Kapil (CNWK) which on the eve of 22 May registered a record 10 million fans on facebook.

Launched soon after CNWK’s on-air launch in July 2013, the show’s facebook page has seen phenomenal growth with over 80,000 fans getting added every 24 hours.

 In the words of Kapil Sharma, creator-producer-host of CNWK, his hobby of making people laugh has grown into flourishing content on TV and social media. “Though we keep hearing people saying how much they love our show but to see it in a number as big as 10 million sends out a loud message to us. In successful collaboration with the Colors team and with continued support from our fans, my little hobby of making people laugh has grown into a flourishing content on television, one that I will strive harder to better even further,” says an elated Sharma.

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The show has a strong male skew with 70 per cent of fans being men and 41 per cent of overall fans being men aged 18 to 24 years. Be it posters of Sharma or other characters like Palak and Didi or typical Sharma jokes or wisecracks by his wacky on-screen family, these get shared about 10,000 times and generate more than 1.5 lakh likes.

Ask him about the show’s digital strategy and Colors digital head Vivek Srivastava says: “The strategy has largely evolved around engagement. We used jokes and contests for creating engagement with digital audiences. It’s a tough battle because the show comes twice a week and the page has to be decked up every day. So therefore, even if you have to update the page once a day, it must be relevant and engaging every day and make sense day after day.”

Social media is handled by an in-house team of four members, he informs.

 Replying to a question about what has clicked with Facebook followers, Srivastava answers: “From a content stand point, we have really tried to explore relationships and get humor out of different situations. So whether it was a mother and son relationship, husband and wife relationship or servant and master relationship, we have taken humour to a completely new level.”

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To mark the occasion and ensure even greater participation, the channel had started a contest which starts with the question, ‘Want to be a part of the ’10 Million Likes’ celebration on Comedy Nights with Kapil?, egging on fans to mail their best photographs to colorstv.fans@gmail.com to see themselves on the cover picture of the CNWK facebook page.

Colors had also created a countdown app which got activated the moment the facebook page hit 9900,000 fans. Upon crossing the 10 million mark, video messages by Kapil, Palak, Daadi, Sumona and Navjyot Singh Sidhu were posted to acknowledge the undying love of CNWK fans across the globe which made this achievement possible.

“Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who ‘likes’ our page and shares our content with their friends. It’s a signal of approval from the viewers on social media all across the globe that we are creating a product which people love to watch not only on TV but also consume it on other digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and mobile apps,” says Sharma.

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While on other digital platforms, on YouTube, CNWK is the most popular show on Colors since it was first launched with a single episode of the show posted on YouTube receiving about 1.8 million views on an average. On Twitter, most key characters like Sharma, Kiku Sharda (Palak) and Sidhu have witnessed a phenomenal increase in number of followers since the launch of the show. CNWK itself has 1 lakh followers on Twitter. The CNWK mobile application witnesses an average of 1.5 lakh downloads every month, enabling consumption of not only full episodes but also episodic mini-clips.

While 10 million fans implies that CNWK is popular not only across the Indian subcontinent but also around the world, what is next on the cards?

 “The special thing would be to keep the momentum on and obviously goals will differ. Today, we are at 10 million; hopefully, we will aim for 20 million. So it is not really about the number of fans but engagement. As long as engagement levels are high, we think we would have done the job. As long as we keep entertaining the viewers, these milestones will automatically come through,” concludes Srivastava.

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