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Geography lessons in your living room

Beginning January 26, Discovery Channel will start a new series called Discovery Atlas, a vivid portrait of some of the world’s greatest countries seen through the lives of their extraordinary people

New channels, new marketing tactics, and new programming variety. Discovery Channel, while seemingly unbothered about the first two, seems to be riding high on the third component. While other channels in the genre provide content suitable for adult viewing in their prime-time bands, Discovery Communications wants to continue to pursue its mix of alternative entertainment for the entire family. Offering content with variety seems to be top of the mind at the company.

To further its aim of providing “Real Life Entertainment for the Entire Family”, Discovery has unleashed what its executive vice-president and managing director, Deepak Shourie, calls “one of Discovery India’s most ambitious” projects. With the prime-time band of 7pm-10pm as the main driver for increasing viewership, Discovery is starting a new series called Discovery Atlas, a portrait of the world’s greatest countries seen through the lives of their extraordinary people.

Geography lessons in your living room
Deepak Shourie
Each two-hour episode of Discovery Atlas, one of the most ambitious high-definition projects ever commissioned, provides narrative, stunning imagery and cutting edge special effects to capture the world like never before, allowing viewers to explore their world and satisfy their curiosity. A complete visual record of the history, civilisation, geography, industry, technology and people of various countries will be showcased in the series.

Discovery Atlas premieres at 9pm on January 26. The episodes will be repeated the following Monday at 8pm. Each episode will take up a new country. The countries that will be featured are Australia, India, China, Mexico, Italy, South Africa and Brazil. Episodes on Russia, France, Japan and Egypt are currently under production and will air later in the year.

Shourie says, “This is the ultimate television phenomenon. Discovery Atlas promises to inspire viewers through captivating photography, highest quality production values and compelling stories that strike at the heart of a country and its people. It brings incredible depth and scale to some of the world’s most fascinating countries, capturing what is at the heart of Discovery – creative storytelling and the joy of learning something new.”

Discovery is not shying away from promoting Discovery Atlas, which has already drawn sponsors such as Vodafone, Motorola, Honda, Naukri.com, MetLife and GaurSons India. The channel has rolled out a 360 degree campaign for the new show. The media carrying the promotion include television, radio, online, print and outdoor. Besides Discovery, the new programme will be advertised on a few entertainment, music, English movie and mass channels. Though Shourie refused to divulge the advertising budget for the promotion, he described it as being extensive.

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