Tuhina Anand
Media

VH1 banks on interactivity and live concerts

Having completed a year, VH1 looks at consolidating its audience by bringing in interactive programmes

When agencyfaqs! spoke to a few media planners this week, most of them were of the opinion that the mantra for wooing young viewers was to increase interactivity on a TV channel. And it seems that music channel VH1 is religiously following this mantra.

After a year of operation, VH1 now plans to have more interactive programmes, wherein viewers can choose their favourite songs to be played on the channel.

Keertan Adyanthaya, general manager, VH1, says, “In the next six months, the strategy will be to bring in interactive programmes wherein viewers can send in an SMS or call and choose their play list. Viewers can send in their list of top five songs from the play list, which will be played on the channel later with the photograph of the person whose play list is being aired. This will give viewers a chance to dictate what they want to see in a particular time band.”

Adyanthaya also says that the channel plans to showcase live performance of bands touring Asia. Some of the popular bands are already on air such as The Doors and the channel plans to bring many more such concerts to its viewers.

He says, “We plan to bring interactivity because it is a logical step. Our viewers are young with specific tastes and are also tech-savvy. To bring in something like this will only help in delivering what our audience wants to see and listen.”

He says, “In terms of content, we are also looking at bringing a product that will be a mix of hip hop, rock and pop music for 2006.”

When VH1 started rolling a year ago, there were two main objectives. One was to get its distribution in place and reach 12 million households. Two was to be a choice as the first port of call for any international act that came to India.

Adyanthaya says, “We have taken a number of marketing initiatives in the past 11 months to fulfil our objectives. We have initiated several marketing activities, wherein we have tied up with unconventional places such as gyms, salons and movie halls. Today, we have been successful in reaching out to around 13 million homes, which is more than our initial target. We have brought in performers such as hip hop band Flipsyde, Sting, Mark Knopfler and Satriani to India.”

He adds, “As a channel, we have fared pretty well in this one year with all our partners, including advertisers and music labels, having shown faith in us and come back to us.”

© 2005 agencyfaqs!

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