From the world of advertising to the world of television. That's exactly what Sony Sab senior vice president and business head Vikas Bahl has done. Now at Sab he has the enviable task of not only revamping the channel after a takeover by Sony Entertainment TV India in November 2005, but also look at revenue generation on the back of conservative budget.
Though the channel has a fresh lineup of shows only for one and half hour only, Sab is optimistic of touching 90+ GRPs by the end of FY2006-2007 as the programming lineup slowly expands.
In conversation with Indiantelevision.com's Manisha Bhattacharjee, Bahl holds forth on Sab's revamp process and other issues like getting the right mix of programming to exploit the channel's brand identity.
Excerpts:
Why don't you give us an overview of Sab after the takeover by Set India? On the revamp front, we are quite clear we wanted to gain from Sab's positioning as a comedy channel. But we did not want to stick to that as its only strength. The channel has its set of loyal audience who come to Sab typically for alternative viewing. And, that alternative viewing was by and large comedy, people who had grown sick of watching saas-bahu type of programming. But it was a fleeting audience, which came, saw his or her favourite programme and then moved on. So, we realized that on the face of fatigue in viewership across general entertainment channels (GECs) --- most GECs, in our opinion, were falling in the same trap of having family drama --- our audience was pretty much the one that was questioning the kind of programming. Such a feedback also indicated that that a large base of audience was tired of saas-bahu syndrome and had no place to go and we were in a position to take a chance by getting into alternative programming. |
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What, according to you, would be viewer profile? |
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But Sab's first alternative viewing after the Sony takeover, Twinkle Beauty Parlour, was taken off the air suddenly as it failed to click. Comment. Twinkle Beauty Parlour was started with the aim of being 'destructive programming'. After Left Right Left was launched, we realized Twinkle Beauty Parlour was not conceived to be a `young' show and consciously we had to take it off. We are glad that the second time round we started connecting with the audience through Left… All these talks of understanding one's audiences' looks very good when stated, but the important thing is to convert them into reality. And, normally reality can take time a lot of time. It looks like we are getting it right (on the programming front), but we still have a long way to go. |
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What's the 'reality' for Sab with new programming after Left Right Left? Sab, which was doing an all-day GRP of 23 to 24 last October, is presently doing 70 GRPs. Our channel is driven by 15 to 34 age bracket and those in 50 to 65 years age group. |
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Is Sab also looking at movies as a viewership driver? Sab's brand identity is dictated by its programming. So if the brand is about young new India and we are sticking with that. Presently, 25 per cent of our programming is still very 'light', but in the process we do not want to lose our loyal viewers because they have been driving our channel for a long time. |
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What's the new programming line up looking like after all the feedback on viewers? After these two shows, we are looking at a show from Anurag |
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You have roped in Anurag Basu (director of films such as Murder and Gangster) who is now more into film making? Is there not enough talent in the already existing TV market? What is important is that the directors of our new TV shows are not the guys who'll like to make the saas-bahu type of serials. It's unfortunate that almost all the GECs are going in that direction (of saas-bahu mush). But must admit that at the moment such serials are doing well businesswise --- a trend that we intend to buck. |
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Most popular entertainment channels depend heavily on Balaji Telefilms for shows. Will Sab also do that? |
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Sab lost out its biggest and most successful show, Office Office, to Star. What do you have to say on such a loss when the channel is trying to establish itself? Today, we run repeats of Office Office and it delivers the same numbers as the new one on competition's channel. Without spending additional money, the old Office Office does as well as the new one. Creativity cannot be transferred. |
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Is there any new strategy for selling airtime for day parts? The GECs closest to Sab like Star One and Sahara One have at least five hours of fresh programming on prime time, while our prime time is shorter. With just one and a half hour of programming, we are faring well and hopefully will pick up further with new shows coming on air soon. From the advertising point of view, Sab's entire advertiser base has changed with an entirely new set of advertisers who have come on board in the last eight months. Earlier the advertisers who were not keen on being on Sab because of the previous brand identity and other factors are now looking at the channel. Presently, the advertiser base includes big brands like Pepsi, Nokia, Visa, Levers and Perfetti. Sab's audiences are fragmented throughout the day. Being a channel undergoing a revamp, sampling of all shows happens across the day. So each time a show gets repeated, it brings in a unique audience. For instance, women who are not willing to give up their daily dose of soaps on other channels at 9 pm and skip Left Right Left on Sab catch up with the repeat at 2 pm next day. For advertisers and the channel this is a new set of audience base. |
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But repeats are done by other channels too and they too claim fresh viewership. |
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As the revamp is on, is Sab working with a lavish programming budget? |
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Is Sab being sold to advertisers along with other Sony channels as a package deal? |
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Has there been a revision in ad rates of Sab after the Sony takeover? Target: As business, new advertisers on board was the target. The response from there is pretty much visible. The monthly figures that we need to achieve are pretty much there to get to our annual figures. In terms of viewership, with the kind of lineup we hold the viewership we expected we are very there. |
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Has the strategy of putting on Sab a Hindi language feed of cricket matches for which Sony has telecast rights helped? |
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What are the plans leading up to the cricket World Cup in 2007? |
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What is the target that Sab has set for itself in terms of channel share and revenue? |
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What is the road map for Sab? |
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When is the revamp process going to be completed? |
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Branded entertainment seems to be new age mantra for the GECs to offer something different. Will Sab also look at this aspect of entertainment? Personally I feel we do an appalling job of it (integrating advertising with entertainment) most of the time. Unless we manage to do a quality job, it ruins both the show and the product(s). To top it all viewers hate it too. Indian television by and large lacks the art of crafting shows right now. Forget crafting of advertising integration, the industry even lacks the art of crafting shows. I think if the art of crafting is brought back to television, viewers will love you for it. However at Sab, we are hoping to do some advertising integration-related work as we did some work by employing unused footage of Indian Idol to create Indian Idol Tak Taka Tak. I think we did justice and a lot of crafting went into the creation of the property then. |