BANGALORE: Miditech will be producing the third edition of Zee Kannada's talent hunt Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa. This edition (season 3) is for children between 7 and 12 years and has been named Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Li'l Champs.

The show is to be directed by Miditech's creative director S Balaraj and hosted by MD Pallavi (who had hosted the latter half of the first edition). The announcement was made by Balaraj, Pallavi and Zee Kannada's creative head Bala Suresh at a press conference in Bangalore on Friday.
Miditech had earlier produced the first edition that ran through 52 episodes over a six month period. The second edition, which was for Kannada housewives, was produced by Mumbai's Maverick Productions and ran through 26 episodes spread over 3 months.

At present, Zee Kannada has planned to run Li'l Champs over 26 episodes and 13 weeks. The show is to be broadcast for one hour between 9 pm and 10 pm every Saturday and Sunday starting 29 December.

Zee Kannada had invited participants for Li'l Champs by running a ticker tape on its channel, as well as sending notices to schools across Karnataka. The channel received 600 valid registrations by way of IVRS. 300 children registered directly and about 250 came in for spot registration for the audition rounds.

Sixty participants will now perform for the show during the theatre rounds where this number will be culled to 18 – nine each of boys and girls. During the final studio rounds, every week, one boy and one girl will be eliminated until the final round at which one boy and one girl will be announced as champs. Kannada actor and singer Rajesh Krishnan who had hosted the first part of the first season will judge the studio rounds, along with a celebrity for each episode of the finals.

Zee Kannada business head Anup Chandrasekhar told indiantelevision.com, We are in a process of finalising the anchor-sponsor and other sponsors." He also added, "Through Li'l Champs, we are looking at providing singers with the same, if not more, opportunities and exposure that was given the singers of season 1 and season 2 of Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa."

For the first season, Zee Kannada had tied up with Ashwini Audio. The winner of season 1, Chinmay, has slowly started to establish himself in the Kannada film industry and has sung over 40 tracks.

Inchara, another participant of the first season, has been presented with opportunities to sing in over three Kannada films. For the second and the third editions, the channel is yet to tie up with an audio company.

In the case of Li'l Champs, Zee Kannada plans to award the winners with a scholarship, which a company source says is likely to be about Rs 300,000 – the same amount that was awarded by cash in the case of the winner of the housewives edition. The winner of the first edition walked away with a Santro car that had been sponsored by Hyundai.

The Telugu edition of Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa, which is running through its second season, has been produced by Vijayanti Productions.