Colors announced the date the second season of Anil Kapoor’s 24 will premiere at the show’s the trailer launch. CEO Raj Nayak said that the show will air July 17 (Sunday) onwards, but refrained from mentioning the time it’d air.

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Which begs the question. Which show will 24 replace? There are three possible time-slots, explains a source from the channel. “It can either come in the 8-9 pm slot, the 9-10 pm one or the 10-11 pm slot. The channel will definitely not take a risk with the 11-12 pm slot, because it will then lose out on potential viewers.”

Another khabri reveals that Raj has already finalised the plan with his team. “In all probability, Comedy Nights will shut down in July.” Why so? The source tells us, “Colors has just launched Kawach in place of Naagin in the 8 pm slot which means that is blocked. The 9-10 pm slot usually has India’s Got Talent and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa on weekends which means that prime-time slot too is unavailable. So the only time slot left for 24 is the 10-11 pm slot, which is now occupied by Comedy Nights.”

Comedy Nights Bachao airs on Saturdays whereas Comedy Nights Live comes a day later, on Sundays. Does that mean the start of 24: Season 2 has rung the death knell for Comedy Nights? It might not.

“There are still chances that the channel might decide to have only one episode of 24 every week, unlike the bi-weekly system they followed last time.”

There are other reasons too. Adds our little birdie, “CNB has still has maintained decent ratings whereas Comedy Nights Live has never really managed to break even. The hype around CNL (primarily due to Kapil’s exit) helped them open to good ratings, but the negative word-of-mouth killed the show almost instantly.

So given a choice, Raj will obviously decide to shut down CNL and retain CNB instead. The channel will take a call on the same in a few weeks’ time.” In all likelihood, it might just be the end of road for the Comedy Nights franchise anyway this July!