Riding high on the success of the recently-launched UTV Stars and a sound business model across all group channels, M K Anand, CEO-Broadcasting of UTV, tells Noor Fathima Warsia that the Bollywood genre and youth as a TG are prime on his agenda…
Many industry observers have often questioned whether broadcasters think through their plans of launching channels. Fragmentation and value erosion are some common words used for the business. Perhaps this is one reason why UTV Broadcast has made a place for itself in the industry – because it is not just the offering through its channels, but a sound business model that it has built for itself. Bollywood and youth are two segments that UTV focuses on in a significant way. A recent challenge the company undertook was the launch of UTV Stars, but the opening numbers of the channel has given UTV officials enough reason to celebrate.
In a candid conversation with IMPACT, M K Anand, CEO-Broadcasting, UTV, who also has additional charge of looking after the interactive offering of the company, talks of two things the company is passionate about-- the Bollywood genre and youth as a TG.
Let’s begin with Bindass – at the time you had joined, you had decided on a few changes for the brand. Would you say the brand today is what you had planned?
Yes, it is. In terms of connecting with the youth, the overall reach or even the brand score with reference to desirability or nondesirability, we have grown and we are on track with our expectations. Two things have worked for us -- Emotional Atyachaar became a runaway hit and the campaigns of ‘Just because...’ have worked well for us -- we are in a very happy place right now.
There have been various industry comments questioning Bindass’ content or whether the brand resonates with a younger TG...
There is no question mark on the kind of content we play, because if it was not desirable, we wouldn’t air it. Desirability comes from a simple thing, which is your TG’s time spent. There were great shows we loved, like ‘The Chair’ which was the first reality supernatural show we brought to television in India. But numbers-wise it did not work, so we did not hold on to it. Similarly, if any of the shows worked, then they worked and we aired them. We are not embarrassed about it. We are reality, and we are reality with an edge. We are not just scripted shows that also pass off as reality. We hold a mirror to what people are doing, and that is working for us. We ensure that our programming stands for the brand that Bindass is, which is being frank and fearless, to have the hero attitude, the ‘I am’ idea and being confident of what you are.
Are you happy with the way your TG is responding to you beyond TV – we have been reading some interesting numbers of your presence in social media.
We now have 0.8 million Facebook fans, which is a decent number from where we were and the fact that we are a young brand. While there are players higher than that in our space, if you look at the growth numbers, we have been the fastest growing, and we are quite confident that by this time next year, we would be leading. FB is one benchmark you can safely use for our TG. It is a good measure. We are quite active to make Bindass big in the digital space per se and are looking at content partnerships, where Bindass video is presented on other digital platforms as well. While we are happy that these are commercial deals and generate revenue, more importantly this ensures that Bindass videos get more propagation. On the mobile networks front, I won’t be shy to say that we are unmatched – no one has come close to what UTV is doing in this space.
If I were to add up these three, our digital presence is good. And we are already working on other touchpoints as well to connect with this TG, like connecting at the college level. In the coming year, we are going to be doing a lot more of large-scale ground events.
Is licensing, merchandising or consumer products on the radar?
Yes, but we don’t want to look at licensing and merchandising in the classical sense. What little extension can we do? We are looking at more strategic tie-ups and probably launch independent product lines, as we go forward.
Let’s speak about UTV Stars. Like Bindass, UTV Stars also has majority original content, which is not the case with any of the other UTV channels. Even though the content is vastly different, the two channels are going after the same 15-24 TG. Are you expecting or already facing any cannibalisation of advertising revenues?
It would by around 10-15 per cent. When Bindass happened, it would have already eaten into some channels that were catering to that TG, so a new channel launch eating into an old one is bound to happen. But at present, this youth space has around five players–MTV, Channel V, Zoom, Bindass and now UTV Stars. Having two out of the five and establishing direct parity and leadership over the reigning leaders is what will give us presence in the youth space. After that, it is hunting in pairs. And yet at the same time, as you mentioned, at a positioning level, it is very different. So from the consumer level, it is not even eating into each other. UTV Stars has done well in its five weeks but that does not mean Bindass came down.
And at the advertiser level?
Advertisers are not going to refrain from advertising on any channel, if the channel offers value and has the numbers. In India, the advertising pie is growing and to have two vehicles to reach one TG means that our share of that pie will grow further for that segment. Also, on the fringes of GEC versus non-GEC, there is a push happening in the GEC space, because it is always the bigger guys that lose share. If there was 75% of ad monies going into the GEC space last year, it would be 72% this year, and specialist channels do gain from this more than channels from within their own domain. I don’t think that if UTV Stars becomes a 35 GRP–Rs 100 crore-channel in the next 12-18 months, which is where we want to take it to, the other channels in this space would fall off. The other channels would have a similar destiny, had this not been launched even.
At present, when people speak of the music genre, channels such as Bindass and Zoom get categorised in the same bouquet that has the likes of B4U Music and Music India. Somewhere, the genre seems to be getting blurred in its definition and competition set. What does this imply for a
broadcaster?
There is Youth, Bollywood and Music that have got combined into one genre. It implies that there is work remaining in our positioning exercise. When you launch a genre, there are three business groups that get involved in its making--broadcasters, advertisers and distributors. Distributors, including DTH operators, are becoming even more relevant because somewhere at the DTH level also, the categorisation of a channel is taking place. The launch of a genre doesn’t happen by the other two stakeholders; it is the broadcaster who launches a channel, and that is where the first cut in case of a new genre happens. Over a period of time, by marketing and success of the channel, a genre is built and the other two stakeholders are converted. Bollywood genre was launched in 2004, and it is now being accepted as a genre at the advertiser level. But at the distributor level, there is still ambiguity. There are times when people think that because music is a key ingredient of youth channels, they are music channels. But that is like saying that cake and bread are the same thing, because both are made of flour. Tomorrow if the genre takes off, and that is what happened with youth channels, and the category grows, then there is no stopping in growing a Rs 300-350 crore space to a Rs 1,000 crore market. When that happens, music definition would be out and the genre will stand on its own.
Some of your channels don’t have direct competition as of now – whether it is UTV Action or UTV Telugu. How do you measure whether these are delivering and are successful?
You are right when you say there is no direct competitor for UTV Action. This is a movie channel that is serving a defined emotional need of the viewer to watch action. It makes sense for a male viewer, and at an advertiser level, it may be competing with sports and news channels due to the TG focus. The fact that other movie channels are also now doing action movies and festivals- -somewhere even the logo resembles our channel logo--I think is a sign that something we are doing is right. UTV Action is a breakeven product already. And this is a model, which made it easier to launch other language channels. UTV Action has already done 75- 80% of what was supposed to have been done, and it will develop into a Rs 150-200 crore profit-making franchise in the next two years. Our next offering is Tamil. As a market, even Maharashtra excites us as do Karnataka and Bengal, but there is still time before we do anything there. Launching channels like UTV Telugu is just the first point, which we would follow by launching UTV Stars and then Bindass in those markets.
Hypothetically, if the Walt Disney deal had to happen, are you seeing any changes in the broadcast business?
I don’t think there would be any change in the way we run the broadcasting business, because these are well-financed and already well-run channels. It is difficult, and perhaps not correct, to make a comment of this nature. But let me answer your question by explaining that these four channels have a definite brand and franchise plan for the next few years. UTV Action has a Rs 150 crore destiny over the next three to four years, which is already written, signed and sealed. Bindass has got its plan in place–it is the single most important wildcard for us. Bindass represents the consumer understanding that this team possesses. Youth is an important TG and it is going to be more important. India as a market is getting younger. The single largest age cohort is the 1992-born. People in this age group are now 19 years old, and as they become 23-28, they would comprise the mass TG of the country. At that time, you would see many players – general or niche – catering to the youth TG. We are betting big on Bindass and not in terms of television alone, but other touch-points too, including digital and onground. UTV Stars has been a great launch and we are very confident that it will deliver as per the planned trajectory. Our HMC product, UTV Movies, is in a niche of its own. All in all, this is now an almost independent P&L that needs very little external financial assistance. All the franchises have their own tried and tested creative and brand constituents which we wouldn’t tinker with too much. So as I see it in any event, the running of the existing portfolio won’t change too much. It’s another thought altogether that our ambitions and scale for the future might be at a wholly different level. But as we said, all that is hypothetical.
What is the one unifying thread that brings all of your brands together?
UTV embodies and represents Bollywood like no other brand. UTV stands for Bollywood. We were surprised with the kind of reaction that we have got from the industry for the launch of UTV Stars. UTV Movies and UTV Stars leverage the UTV–Bollywood relation. You can expect us to be doing a lot more on-ground events in this industry as well. Broadcast feeds a lot of interactive work we are doing. We would like to also add to that by building cutting-edge youth expertise. We understand these domains, and hence we have managed to make a place for ourselves here. In fact, when you don’t have a GEC, the best you can run the business is the way we are running it–it is a profit-making business.
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