National Geographic: growing strong

agencyfaqs! News Bureau

NEW DELHI, September 12

The National Geographic Channel has created history of sorts by crossing a subscription figure of 20 million in C&S homes in the Asia Pacific region. This makes it one of the fastest growing television channels in Asia.

The feat, accomplished in a period of two years, makes National Geographic one of the more successful channel launches in the continent. Ward Platt, managing director, National Geographic Channel Asia, claims, "A mix of quality branding and high calibre entertaining programmes has helped us in attracting viewers and, consequently, ratings."

In the Asian region, India is one of the fastest growing markets for the channel. In the first nine months of the current year, the channel saw a 54 per cent jump in subscription in the country. From 7.8 million homes in January this year, its subscription stands at 12 million homes currently. During the same period, the channel's distribution in Malaysia grew by 30 per cent to over 3.75 million homes, and in Taiwan, by 17 per cent to 4.8 million homes.

Upbeat about its performance in these countries, the channel launched its 24-hour distribution in Korea recently, which saw the total subscription jump to over 1.1 million homes.

As part of its effort to customise its product to suit specific markets, the channel has introduced Chinese subtitles in Singapore, Mandarin voice-over in China, Korean voice-over and subtitles in Korea, Hindi voice-over in India and Thai voice-over in Thailand.

Peoplemeter figures in Taiwan and India indicate that with a loyal audience, National Geographic is one of the more popular cable channels for advertisers as well. This has attracted over 250 new advertisers to the channel in a period of less than a year.

The next step in the channel's growth strategy is to launch the channel in new markets, such as Japan, and expand its distribution through local feeds.

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