MUMBAI: SET India's events and movie channel Max has reasons to celebrate. The channel, quoting TAM figures, claims that the premiere of Spiderman I has won it some very impressive numbers.

The movie, aired in the channel's dubbed movie segment Hollywood Hungama on 8 May, has recorded 3.8 TVRS in the Hindi Speaking Markets (HSM), according to Max.

Max business head Albert Almedia states that the performance complements the channel's fine understanding of the viewers' choices. "Hollywood Hungama, as a brand, caters to the specific needs of the viewers who are interested in watching Hollywood movies in Hindi."

On the activities Max had carried out to promote the movie, Almeida said the movie was positioned as the big spike of May, when the calendar was planned. He said a combination of print, radio and on-air promotion was executed across the HSM to promote the property.

"Three weeks ahead of the telecast, we started with on-air promos which had three phases: teasers, coming soon, and movie highlights. This was followed by print ads in all the prominent dailies across the country. We used radio also as an effective promotional platform to push the movie."

Max had launched Hollywood Hungama on 26 June 2004. Till now, the channel has telecast 23 different titles over a period of 44 weeks. "The average repetition is 1.9 and for a movie channel, it is very in-frequent," says Almeida.

Max's Top 5: 3 movies with 3+ TVRs and 11 movies between 1.5 to 3 TVRs.

Speaking on the channel's plans for Hollywood Hungama, Almeida said efforts are on to refresh the movie library. "We are not having such an extensive library now. But, we will be strengthening that part through acquisition of a fresh set of movies by July. Currently, the evaluation process is on."

As already reported by indiantelevision.com, Max is looking at acquiring more recent films from the Columbia TriStar library as well as from other Hollywood studios. The channel will be kicking off an `Afternoon Festival' in June with noted actress Madhuri Dixit's ten choicest movies. In August, the channel is planning to launch the Sunday vertical aimed at urban audiences.

"The channel's performance has been extremely good. We ended the last financial year as the number one movie channel. We are still leading in primetime. In the evening band also, we have been delivering impressive numbers. Having established the primetime band, Max's focus this year will be to build the afternoon and Sunday blocks," sums up Almeida.