| Indiantelevision.com's
interview with B4U Network global CEO Sunil Rohra |
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'We
need to pump in money to get B4U back on track in India'
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| Posted
on 24 December 2004 |
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Sunil
Rohra, who took over as B4U Network's global chief executive officer
in November, was recently in India to formulate a business plan.
Based out of London, he admits his biggest challenge is to revive
the Indian operations.
In
an interview with indiantelevision.com's Sibabrata
Das, Rohra spells out the company's revival plans and the
drive to synergise global operations.
Excerpts:
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For over a year, B4U Group has not invested in India. Why were things
allowed to slip?
There
is no doubt things have slipped for us. We realise we need to pump
in money to get back on track. The main problem is distribution;
we don’t have visibility for our two channels. Once we address
that issue, everything else will fall in place. But we also have
to beef up our content. We won’t get distribution otherwise.
It is a chicken-and-egg situation. We have to break that cycle.
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How?
By investing, both on content and distribution.
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How
much?
We
may have to invest Rs 1 billion. On the content front itself, we may
require Rs 600 million. We will also need to energise our distribution
system. But I am evaluating the business and will submit a business
plan before the board. |
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B4U
was better distributed earlier. Will you now be willing to pay carriage
fee to the cable operators?
We
will have to provide an incentive for cable carriage, at least in
the initial stages. That is the reality of the situation. We were
getting distribution in the beginning, but things slipped. We have
to correct that. But what we need is an entire plan. We will have
to sort out cable distribution as well as content issues. We will
have to give the channels a fresh look, pack it with better movies,
organise bigger events. The content has to be compelling enough
to drive viewership.
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But
isn’t infighting among promoters a bigger issue? Has that been
sorted out?
I wouldn’t like to get into shareholder issues. I have
been given the task to correct the problems in India and to contribute
to the overall growth of the company.
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'We
expect the Indian venture to be profitable in 4-5 years
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Is
Kishore Lulla still in the board?
I wouldn’t like to comment on such issues. It is, after
all, a privately held company.
By
beefing up content, do you mean you will be buying more and bigger
movies?
We
will start to buy exclusive content. We will not be effective otherwise.
We were not doing that earlier as a clear-cut strategy. Even if
we had movies, we used to sell it to other networks after telecasting
it first on our channels.
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Had
you stopped buying movies for a long time?
We had bought several movies six months back. Then we stopped.
There has been no regular and consistent buying policy. Although we
have been buying, our main focus for quite some time was on the overseas
markets. The staple diet of our channels is movies. We have to resume
interacting more with the Bollywood industry. |
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What
is the plan for the music channel?
For
B4U Music, we are also looking at exclusive content. It will make
a big difference if we can have content running on our channel exclusively
for a week. We will have to have exclusive songs, bands and new shows
on our channel. We have to establish contact with Bollywood. |
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For
distribution, are you in talks to join a platform?
We are considering all options. We will start talks. But we
will continue with our current arrangement and see how it evolves.
We have outsourced our distribution. We will explore possibilities
of joining a distribution bouquet.
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B4U
has very little of the old staff remaining in the company. Are you
on a restructuring exercise in India?
We have to reorganise and restructure the company here. We need
a country head to oversee operations. We are also looking for a distribution
and sales head. There has to be a person for acquisition of movies
as well. They will be reporting to me. Though I will be based in London,
I will make regular visits to India. |
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Is
India the only problem market for B4U?
We are doing well in the other markets. In UK and Europe, for
instance, we have recently launched picture messaging. We are the
first Asian channel to offer this service. MTV does a little, but
this service is mainly offered by the adult channels. India, no doubt,
will take time to come back on track. It is a mammoth but not impossible
task. |
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Is
B4U suffering operational losses only in India?
There is an operational loss, but it is marginal. We have scope
to make substantial profits here, which we are not harnessing. We
were not properly focussed and organised in this market. There was
some gap after our former global chief executive officer Ravi Gupta
left. But B4U is still a very strong brand in India. |
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Are
Indian channels including B4U seeing slower growth in the UK market?
Growth is slowing down because of severe competition. There are
20 Asian channels in that market. But we have 100,000 subscribers
on the BSkyB platform. We sell as a package with Sony and are priced
at $13.99 a month per subscriber. And advertising revenue is growing. |
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How
is B4U performing in the other markets?
In the US, we have 70,000-75,000 subscribers. We are not packaged
there with Sony. But we are exploring what bundling strategies we
can have. We are also on the Pehla platform in the Middle East and
have 200,000 subscribers. In Africa, we are on Multi Choice. We are
exploring possibilities of expanding geographically. We are, for instance,
not available in the Far East. |
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By
having a presence in such diverse countries, isn’t B4U keen to
build synergies across operations?
We will be bringing in synergies. It is important to have effective
management from all our entities and work in tandem so that the network
benefits. We have started local production in the UK. We will bring
that content and flavour into India. Crossover movies is another area
to look at. We can also centralise some activities in one place to
reduce costs. |
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You
had a deal with Mumbai-based iDream to co-produce films. What is the
status of that?
We have frozen all our existing relationships for different businesses.
We have put everything on hold till I finish my evaluation report.
We are not getting into movie production at this point. It is not
a priority area at all. |
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Do
you have a preferred arrangement for acquiring movies from Eros since
it is promoted by Lulla? Being one of the promoters in B4U as well,
does he enjoy that special status?
I am not getting involved in the shareholder issue at all. We
buy movie telecast rights from Eros as well as from other suppliers.
We keep the company’s interests in mind when we are procuring
movies from suppliers; We do not necessarily buy because the rights
are with our shareholder. B4U has to gain from such a transaction. |
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The
government recently rejected rejected B4U Television Network’s
proposal to transfer some shares from group company B4U Multimedia
International to three investors based overseas. Can you provide
details?
As I told you earlier, I do not want to get into corporate issues
at this stage. My task is to revive the Indian business. Once we
are back on our feet, other issues will get sorted out.
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