Last year, Rupert Murdoch's flagship Indian television channel, Star Plus, suddenly found itself in an unexpected place: second in the ratings.
After a decade at the top of News Corp's most important Asian market, Star Plus's steady fare of " Saas Bahu " - mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law soap operas - was unseated by an edgier mix of reality TV programmes and other offerings from Colors, a new joint venture channel part-owned by Viacom of the US.
"Suddenly we had to fight for our leadership. We woke up," said Uday Shankar, Star India chief executive.
Star Plus, a Hindi general entertainment channel, is just one part of News Corp's Indian operation, which includes news, movie and regional channels in the local languages of India's various states.
Star India's revenue in the year to June 30 is expected to reach $530m, up 15 per cent over a year earlier, and operating profit $105m, 11 per cent higher, according to Media Partners Asia, a research firm.
But to lose leadership in the Hindi general entertainment market represented a worrying trend for a company whose Indian business is by far its largest and most important Asian franchise.
India is the world's second-largest pay TV market after China with more than 80m subscribers, but it is the largest emerging entertainment market in the world that is freely open to foreign investment.
In the past two years, Star and other market leaders Zee and Sony have faced an onslaught of newcomers. India boasts about 500 channels, which include local arms of Turner and Disney.
Colors broke into the top of the market by launching tough shows, such as a series on child marriage and one on female infanticide. "The scenario is moving to a point where concepts of fiction shows are also rooted in reality somewhere," said Rajesh Kumar, chief executive of Colors.
This year, Star responded by hiring Venturethree, a British brand consultancy, to rebrand Star Plus at an estimated cost of $4m.
Market research showed Star Plus's old programmes, which centred around submissive women in traditional extended family environments, were losing traction with viewers.
In one of its first steps late last year towards changing its programme mix, Star Plus introduced an Indian version of the reality television show Moment of Truth , in which contestants are put under a lie detector and asked personal questions.
In a country unused to graphic personal revelations being splashed on TV, the show generated so much controversy that its merits - or demerits, according to its detractors - were debated in parliament.
Then Star began updating its soap operas to show more assertive women. One of the most popular, Pratigya , launched last December, features a woman in the provincial city of Allahabad who was given a good education by her father, unlike many of her peers. When she marries into a feudal, powerful family, she is forced to fight for what she believes is right.
"The woman stands up to reject everything she thinks is regressive, not fair and not democratic. And not only [those things] inflicted on her but on other women members of the family, too," says Mr Shankar.
Vivek Couto, executive director at the researchers MPA , said the changes had helped Star consistently rate above Colors this year. But he said it would be difficult to predict if this was sustainable, because of the highly competitive nature of the industry in India.
Other industry analysts said India's TV stations tended to experiment with bolder new formats, but then quickly returned to tried and tested formulas - sometimes within the same series - if audiences began losing interest.
Sociologists point out that India is so diverse - with audiences split according to income, religion, region and caste - it is difficult to depict ordinary life on TV.
"How far they will succeed, we'll see. No one has been able to figure out what the Indian audiences want," said Timmy Kandhari, executive director at PwC.
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