This week saw the official launch of Discovery Travel & Living, India's first 24-hour international lifestyle channel; from the Discovery Networks stable.

One of the key persons involved in this project has been Aditya Pratap Tripathi, director, marketing, Discovery Communications India, responsible for marketing, research and on-air promotions for the network.

In an interview to indiantelevision.com's Seema Pherwani, Tripathi talks about Discovery Travel & Living as a brand, the company's plans in terms of programming and its brand positioning.

Excerpts:

The test runs for Discovery Travel & Lifestyle have been beaming for almost a month now, how has the response been?
The response has been very positive from viewers as well as advertisers. It's the first time that viewers get to see shows like Biker Build off, Globe Trekker, World Poker Tour.
out cohesiveness.

So, do we see advertisers which are not on the Discovery channel on Travel & Living; since the idea was also to provide a focused platform for lifestyle brands which have been advertising only in the print media?
I won't be able to name such brands at this stage but these would include some cosmetic brands, upscale cars, hotels etc. In the long run we are looking at some of these upper end products.

But some of the upscale products you'd also find advertising on the mass channels?
No, you'll not find the upscale products advertised on the mass channels. Because that would mean a lot of wastage of advertising, since it will not reach out to the focused audience.

Why has the network chosen this particular time to launch the channel?
Senior officials from the Discovery Network travelled to a number of countries before the decision was taken. They felt India with a growing upper middle class, booming economy, and a changing mindset is the best country to launch the international lifestyle portfolio.

Also, when we took them around and they saw the rush in the shopping malls, the number of upscale cars on the roads they were convinced that the channel should first be launched here. By the middle of next year, we will be launching the channel in other global markets

You have some branded time slots on Discovery and over a period of time one has also seen Woman's Hour, and late night viewing. So, do we see some sort of overlapping in terms of programming on Travel & Living?
No, not at all. We are looking at these two channels as separate entities and Discovery Travel & Living is by no means a smaller or a lesser entity. So, viewers will not see the same stuff on Travel & Living which they have already seen on Discovery.

Do we see a further fragmentation in the genre. Discovery Networks had announced earlier that it would be introducing other properties from its stable, like Discovery Health & Living, Home and Décor…
Well, as of now there are no plans to launch these channels in India. We had announced the launch of our international lifestyle portfolio; so these channels are being launched in some other parts of the world. As far as the Indian market is concerned, Travel & Living will cater to all the other genres including health and home & décor.

Do we see programmes on Yoga, Ayurveda in the near future, which are of interest to the international audience?
Yes, we are looking at doing Indian programming in the near future. We already have a programme on alternative therapies from around the world which will soon be coming here. So, it has Ayurveda, some Korean forms of healing, Reiki etc.

Sceptics would say it's too early for a channel like this to launch in India.
Not at all. We believe that the time is right for a channel like this in India. The numbers and market research that we conducted has supports our assessment. One the one hand we had research conducted wherein we go to our target audiences and introduce them to the concept and the channel, and then there are of course figures like 5 million Indians travelled abroad last year and 40 million Indians have mobile phones.

But how will you be taking on the competition?
We are not trying to outdo any other channel in terms of what they are doing. We have our genre of programming and we will try to do that well. On that level, we're even competing with a news channel so we can't be getting into doing live news feeds.

But you can't ignore competition, since we already have Zoom which is India's first entertainment and lifestyle channel and they also have a E band?
We believe that we don't have a competitor in that sense of the term, with the kind of programming we do and the kind of investments that Discovery Networks has internationally. Our programming will offer the best lifestyle programming from the global perspective; so its unique in the sense that its available for the first time in India.