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James
Paul Marturano is the executive vice president, HBO Asia and
managing director of HBO South Asia. As executive VP of HBO
Asia, Marturano heads the sales and marketing division and
also looks after the business development for the company.
He is responsible for managing the operations of the new HBO
venture in South Asia that spans India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
and the Maldives.
Beginning his tenure with HBO in 1986, Marturano relocated
to Singapore in October 1991 as director, international operations,
and was responsible for overseeing the developmental work
for the HBO Asia Project. He was promoted to vice-president,
sales and marketing in April 1992 and as senior vice-president,
sales and marketing, for HBO Asia in January 1997, overseeing
the distribution and marketing of HBO and CINEMAX throughout
Asia. He unveils his plans for the channel in India in an
interview with indiantelevision.com.
HBO Original movies
are well known as award winning productions. Why was there
such a long wait before deciding to go ahead with showcasing
these films? One would have thought such movies would be something
worth trumpeting?
As a matter of fact, we have showcased HBO Originals in
the past two years. We have premiered movies like Earthly
Possessions, From the Earth to the Moon and towards
the latter half of the year we got Band Of Brothers,
which is the most expensive original production of HBO to
date and the biggest television series ever. As a channel,
we are known for our strength and width of programming and
as part of our programming strategy, we decided to concentrate
on HBO Original programming in a big way this year.
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"Strong
programming, from the best Hollywood blockbuster movies
to innovative Original programmes is at the core of
our continuing growth and success in satisfying current
viewers and attracting new ones."
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Till now, Hallmark is the channel
that is known to showcase original programming. And the comment
among TV executives has been that in India, movie viewing
is title driven. Has there been any change in thinking on
this?
While other channels do show original programming, HBO, globally,
has set a benchmark in showcasing Original programming, as
these are exceptionally high standard, award winning productions,
with star-studded casts that are exclusive to the channel.
Our shows have a compelling point of view and mostly deal
with true stories based on human conditions. Under HBO films,
the network is producing a broad slate of Original movies,
from smaller-budget independents to major motion pictures,
touching on a wide range of provocative and entertaining subjects
and characteristics that have become the hallmark of HBO's
original movies.
While the movie market may be primarily title driven, programming
like concerts, series, etc are value adds that in my opinion,
complete a channel and as far as we are concerned, HBO is
indeed a complete channel when it comes to Hollywood entertainment
as we have it all - big titles, the best of Hollywood movies,
HBO Original programming, series, concerts, innovative stunts
etc.
The fact that you will be showing just one film a month
seems to indicate that you are testing the waters to gauge
viewer response before maybe increasing the frequency and
pace with which you bring HBO original programming to these
parts. Is this true?
No, this is not true - while we do have the HBO Original
movies, premiering exclusively on HBO on the first Monday
of every month but that is because we have a lot to offer
to our viewers this season. In our summer special, other than
the HBO Original Movies, HBO has a big treat for its viewers
from special stunts like Boogie Nights, Toonland,
Summer Action Marathon, to HBO Special concerts
and Blockbuster movies like Striptease, The Ransom,
The Deep End of the Ocean, among others.
In fact in September, the HBO Original Movies will culminate
in a block, which will be the HBO Original Movie-Emmys stunt.
HBO's strong programming, from the best Hollywood blockbuster
movies to innovative Original programmes is at the core of
its continuing growth and its success in satisfying current
viewers and attracting new ones.
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"HBO set the trend by bringing in The Mummy at
the beginning of the year, which received unprecedented
television ratings."
__________
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Will you be bringing any of HBO's
award winning television series to India?
HBO Original productions are a strong differentiator for the
channel to create extra value for our viewers since these
are programmes that premiere exclusively on HBO channel, and
are not released theatrically. Last year, we got series like
The Street and Band Of Brothers, going forward
we have a whole lot of award winning movies and series in
our inventory, the talks are on but we will only be able to
announce something closer to launch date.
Post-Oscars and after the two Jurassic Park airings,
Star Movies seems to have taken away a lot of the thunder
from HBO. Does HBO have any big-ticket offerings of its own
lined up in the near future?
Last year, we got the latest and the biggest blockbuster movies
that received very high ratings like Stuart Little,
Matrix, Godzilla, Twister… This year
too, HBO set the trend by bringing in The Mummy at
the beginning of the year, which received unprecedented television
ratings.
There is no excitement if competition doesn't react at all.
HBO's launch has helped in improving the quality of movies
that are shown on television. … and at the end of it all viewers
get to benefit from it the most - which certainly is a good
thing.
HBO is known for its strength and quality of programming.
Going forward, we have a great programming line up that we
have to offer our viewers but the announcements can only be
made closer to date.
There is a mention regarding the summer specials that there
will be a U2 concert telecast live. You had done a Madonna
concert live earlier. Overall how have these music concerts
been received as far as viewers go? How did the Madonna concert
do?
To add value, as part of quality programming inputs HBO has
brought for its viewers some of the most popular music stars
concerts like Bon Jovi, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera
and the biggest of all, the sold out event of the year The
Madonna Concert, which was her first TV Concert in eight
years and HBO was the only place on television one could get
to see it first. The 8-Grammy awards winner U2 in ''The
Elevation Tour'' where they perform their Grammy winning
album, 'All that you can't leave behind' is the most recent
one. The concerts that we get on HBO are exclusive which is
what makes the difference. These have been well received by
the audiences so far.
Will this year also see four concerts like last year? Is
there any particular strategic benefit of such concerts for
the channel?
For this year we have Westlife in the month of May, U2 in
June and N'Sync in July. These concerts are like the proverbial
"icing on the cake'' for the channel. While our core focus
is on the big titles and best of Hollywood films, we have
also come up with innovative programming like the stunts,
series, Original programming and concerts. All these are pure
"value-adds'' for the channel.
As part of the summer specials what sort of promotional
activities are being developed?
In May, there is something special happening every day of
the week on HBO. We have a Summer Special marketing campaign
planned for the season. The marketing campaign involves a
press campaign, ads in top theatres in all metros, a high
impact radio campaign in key metros that has a different ad
on each day of the week announcing the stunt for that day
of the week. Apart from this we are also active on the net
thru' AgencyFaqs.com and will also be tying up with a few
pubs to promote the concerts.
How far have you gone as far as distribution is concerned?
What are your India viewership numbers?
The latest figures for this year are 15 million households
up from 10 million households last year
How far have you been successful in your effort to spread
the channel outside the metros?
Well, now that we are into our second year of operation in
India and have increased our reach to 15 million households
we have spread not only in depth of coverage, but also in
width. With this increase we are now well-entrenched in mini
metros and big towns as well.
In the tight advertising market, how has HBO done in the
year gone by compared to the previous year? In terms of revenues
what is the break up between advertising and subscriptions?
Any advertising targets for the year ahead?
Our performance in terms of the revenues that we have generated
in the past has far exceeded our expectations. I am happy
to say that the buoyant trend continues on the channel, in
terms of sponsors, advertising time. As a policy we don't
give out any numbers but we have a balanced break up between
both ad and subscription revenues.
Looking at Asia operations as a whole, what percentage
of revenues does India bring in?
This is the tenth year that we've been in Asia and have barely
entered India a year and a half back. We have had an extremely
positive start and would like to add that India is very significant
from the Asian perspective.
Last year you had said in an interview that it would take
five to ten years before you can say you were doing great
business. Is that still your assessment?
Our performance so far has exceeded our expectations and
all I can say at this point in time is that we are right on
track.
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