Green TV to go the AFP way, soon

Green TV to go the AFP way, soon

MUMBAI:  India’s first agriculture oriented private TV channel launched on 21 October has already managed to penetrate 11 per cent of the total TV homes in the country.

However, the channel headed by Nomad Films managing director Junaid Memon, has not been able to get any advertiser on board but it soon plans to change that. “Within the next few days you will see some advertiser funded programmes on Green TV,” says Memon. However, unlike other channels, they won’t be entertainment or news shows but awareness-based programmes that will educate farmers.

It is looking at one year tie ups with brands wherein shows will be created on ground first and then aired on the channel. Though he did not wish to reveal the names, he says that talks are on with FMCG brands. Memon says that the channel is not going by conventional advertising since is very limiting. “What we can offer is allowing brands to meet their buyer. We are beyond just a TV channel, we can offer two-way communication,” he says.

“We are picking people from agriculture institutes and then teaching them how to talk to the farmers and how to create shows for TV,” he adds. Currently, the channel has about 160 people which he soon looks to increase to 250.

The primetime bands are morning 9 am to 12 pm and evening 4 pm to 7 pm with about six hours of original content being produced now. It will be soon taken up to eight hours. Morning shows consist of business, commodity market and daily updates on crop, afternoon is targeted to women with health and education programmes and evening is dedicated to information based technical shows. Memon advises that ‘agriculture’ is just a word but the channel’s scope involves a variety of things including horticulture, pisciculture, etc. All programmes are being shot in HD but currently telecast only in SD.

The research team consists of 13 people, which he will be increasing to 23 by January. The group CEO is Ravi Bhatnagar, programming head is Nitin Sukheja, sales head is Sudeep Bhattacharya, and distribution head is Devinder Verma.

It is soon going to bring on board an ad sales company. The marketing for the channel will begin in January with creatives being done by Guava Creative Solutions.
So far, its distribution team has seeded about 2000 of the targeted 8000 boxes to LCOs.

It is also closing in on deals with two DTH operators.