Therefore, whether addressability kicks in or not to a significant extent in the next two years is not a deterrent to any of you?
No.

See, there is no GEC that has shut down. Can you beat that?

Which brings me to the point that in today's scenario we have carriage and placement costs as a more than significant overhead, which all of you now club as part of marketing expenditure. There is pure marketing expenditure, ground marketing expenditure…?
Distributor cost. Technically, if we were an FMCG, it would be the distributors' charge.

In today's market, just for these two elements, we're talking of a Rs 1.2 billion budget. And it's even more than that in your case. So let's say Rs 1.5 billion is set aside for marketing and distribution. Now you have your Fear Factor, which is a 26-episoder, right?
16.

Ok, 16 episodes. The cost of which, in that case, would be nearly Rs 400 million; all of which appears to be adding up to the most expensive GEC launch India has ever seen?
That is with Akshay (Kumar)'s value. And that too, Akshay's quoted value in Mumbai Mirror. That's not the real value. What I will say is that it is higher (per episode) than what others in his league are getting but it is not something that we've bound ourselves with.

You must understand that this is not one of those 100 episode deals. We've done a clear series deal. So the values are also cost effective. It's not something that is over the top.

You talked of a launch cost. I see it a bit differently. How much would you buy a movie for. Typically in today's market something like a Welcome would cost Rs 7-8 crore (Rs 70-80 million) - for one plus 12 airings. You buy three Welcomes, you air it over three weekends, game over. And you've already sunk in Rs 24-25 crore.

Now let's examine our investment in Akshay for Fear Factor. Akshay is not just the host of the show, but also the face that will break through the clutter and get viewers to notice our channel when we launch. That is what an Akshay does for us.

In that sense this is not just a programming investment, but a marketing investment as well. This kind of a launch stunt, actually lasts you and first things first - you've entered the house, you've entered the mind space.

Akshay's coming on TV was the first one. He's coming on Colors is the second one. These are overlaps. Distribution overlapping with marketing; marketing overlapping with content.

Speaking of programming, when will your bread and butter offerings roll out?
That will start from Day 1. We're giving enough time for the consumer to latch on to our offerings.

Of course, we'll be adding on a few shows as we go on.

When you launch in July, how many hours of prime time programming will you have?
Three-and-a-half to four hours is what we'll be having.

So you're launching with a four hour prime time weekday strip, a solid weekend line-up and a strong movie slate. That's really big bang.
Weekend would not be out and out blast but more in a phased manner. But yes we would have weekend offerings.

Which means you will more or less have a complete menu offering from Day 1?
Correct. We're not going in with a pistol, we're going with a cannon.

Doesn't an all or nothing approach leave you that much more vulnerable? A phased build up does allow more room for manoeuvre one would think.
Let me flip that at you. A typical investment plan for a Hindi GEC launch would be what? Some Rs 4-5 billion? A tighten the belt, so-called smart investing plan versus a lavish, exorbitant entry would be what? A Rs 250-300 million gap, or a Rs 500 million gap, broadly?

More like a Rs 1 billion gap.
Not that much. Because you'd have phased up investment later on rather than in the six-month time frame that we're looking at for Colors. Now let's take a perspective of a typical business. It looks at a three to five year break even. Over a five year period, will that Rs 500 million hurt you? That's where the strategic investor comes in.

And if you are the tenth player and you have to make a mark and you have a parentage of a Network 18 and a Viacom, will it hurt you? I don't think so. That's the mindset.

What we're saying is that I don't push my (operational) breakeven, I don't push my cumulative breakeven. I smartly manage the phasing (of investments).

You must understand that we're in this for the long haul. This is our bread and butter, so the extra Rs 500 million should be viewed keeping that perspective in mind.

Does that imply your medium term target would be to aim for the number 2?
A formidable player among the Top 3 is what we're aiming for within 12 months of launch. That's our target.