NEW DELHI: Going against the present trend of capitalizing on the large number of responses received via phones or SMS, the new show K for Kishore has opted for only the votes of the judges and the audience in the studio for deciding the singers who come closest to the legendary Kishore Kumar.

The panel of judges will include the late Kishore Kumar's nephew Bappi Lahiri, along with crooner Sudesh Bhonsle who had, in fact, rendered some of the late singer's unrecorded songs as he could imitate voice of the singer. Kishore's son Amit Kumar and actor Rajesh Khanna will be guest celebrity judges, and efforts are also on to get the evergreen Dev Anand and the versatile Asha Bhosle to come on the show.
Bappi Lahiri, who had begun his innings with Kishore Kumar with the songs of Chalte Chalte and also recorded Waqt ki Awaaz which was the singer's last film as a singer, nostalgically recalled at a news conference here how the singer would enact the song keeping in view the actor who would be lip-synching the words on-screen. Rendering a few lines from some songs, Bappi showed how Kishore's versatility came out in sad or light songs. Kishore also had the unique gift of easily changing the mood from sad to humorous songs.

He also said it was Kishore who had encouraged him to sing, and that was how Bappi had rendered some of the songs for which he composed music.

Asked about the criteria for selecting the winners, he said the attempt would be to find those who come closest to Kishore's voice and style of singing.

Earlier, Sony TV marketing head Albert Almeida said that the programme will have just twelve participants and last for twenty episodes over ten weeks on Fridays and Saturdays (at 9 pm). It has been produced by Meditech.

Almeida also announced that the other show, Champion Chaalbaaz No. 1 is modelled on the American show Pranksters, and that Cyrus Broacha and Sajid Khan will judge those who can show the element of surprise in their pranks. This show will have 33 participants and will last for seventeen weeks in a Saturday night show (10 pm). The show has been produced by Endemol India. Mona Singh is hosting the show.

Both of these programmes are scheduled for launch on 21 December 2007.