Finally, the time has come for ‘Colors’ TV channel to celebrate its success.

As per data provided by the TV rating agency TAM India, for the week ended April 11, Colors, a joint venture of Viacom and Network 18, has put back Star Plus as the top performer.

This’s the first time Star Plus tumbled from its No. 1 rank in almost nine years.

The channel, which holds the place of Star Plus, is Colors, which was launched less than a year ago.

The serials and reality programs launched by Colors channel coincided with the diminution of Star Plus’s saas-bahu galas, which played a key role in ensuring Plus’s domination.

The daily soaps on Colors including ‘Balika Vadhu’, ‘Jai Shri Krishan’, ‘Utaran’ and many others abandoned the wealthy urban settings and scheming vamps of the ‘K’ serials and brought in rural tales centering on social issues such as child marriage and female foeticide.

Rajesh Kamat, Colors CEO, said, “We have real stories which touch the common man.”

The girl child has come out as the season’s flavor of the season, and both Star Plus and Zee TV have emerged with their individual serials based on young girls.

But for Star CEO Uday Shankar, this week’s disturbance is not surprising.

Star Plus and Colors were engaged in strong battle for almost three months now. Colors was trying hard to break the Star stronghold, and finally it has proved the fact.

“Colors has shown that it has the appetite to be a tough challenger,” said Shankar. “But we’ve been No. 1 for so long, we won’t rest till we get our old position back.”

Both men, however, agree that there will be no obvious leader in the near future and the ratings are expected to see a yo-yo pattern.

The real battle for No. 1 has just begun.