"Throwing money is not the strategy": Gaurav Banerjee, STAR

Something big is happening in the world of Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs). Identified traditionally with soaps or 'saas-bahu' dramas, the channels are spending money on a variety of mega shows ranging from Mahabharat to Saraswatichandra, 24 and Jodha Akbar.

Why are such large sums being spent on content? How does the business logic of such large investments work?

To find out this and more, afaqs! caught up with Gaurav Banerjee, executive vice-president (content strategy), STAR India, to understand the underlying currents that are forcing change.

Edited Excerpts

Doordarshan also attempted lots of content around our literature. Ramayana and Mahabharat were made at that time as well. Our effort is to find stories and characters that have been part of our tradition and find moments of relevance in them.

The world is full of great stories that must be told, so why not pick them from mythology? The stories are good, the characters are powerful, and the themes are very interesting. Why not find a way of making them come alive?

Our viewers are looking for something which is fresh and new. A show will not work because it's mythological or because it shows gods and goddesses. It will work because it's new and people are seeing something they have not seen before.

The effort in Mahabharat has gone into doing the costumes, the ornaments. We bring in a bit of glamour but it also looks real. Also, the depiction of characters is layered.

For example, our Satyavati is a different Satyavati. She is chasing desire and believes there is nothing wrong in that. Or take Shakuni: there is a reason for his blind hatred against the throne of Hastinapur. He is a loving brother and his sister has suffered the gravest injustice.

We are telling the story of the Mahabharat in 2013 and therefore the reality of 2013 must go into how we write the story. The characters are neither black nor white.

Also, the shooting of the show is not just the scale of the graphic but the scale of outdoor that we are putting out there.

I think great historicals are possible because we have an awesome history, great narratives, and fabulous heroes. We are on the lookout for exciting stories to tell in the historical space.

Having said that, I have not been a fan of recent efforts because some of them are trying to take too many leaps of imagination and that's a worry. When we take a leap of creativity in depicting a character from a thousand years ago that's fine but when we do that with characters which are closer in time and we know a lot more about, that's a bit of a challenge.

The industries are merging and people want to work on TV and in films. It is becoming one talent pool which works in both areas very closely.

Long ago, there was a perception that films are a big deal and TV is something you do on the side. Today, everybody realises TV is a big deal too. Even big stars know that they haven't fully arrived unless they have a successful piece of content on TV. Also, Bollywood realised that to reach a mass audience it needed satellite TV.

Hence, in multiple ways, TV is the backbone of our entertainment industry, fundamentally because this is where consumers are spending more time. One week of my show is bigger than any Bollywood film theatrical business at any point in history.

Something has clearly changed. The Indian television market is maturing and we are going to see a lot more investment in content and storytelling than we used to earlier. A lot of the investment in the past went into buying formats of western shows and getting Bollywood film stars. From STAR India's perspective, we want to break that mould.

We are interested in finding innovative, original ideas instead of just spending on a format or a Bollywood star. So, when we did Saraswatichandra, the investment was in finding a great director, make it on a big scale, shooting it outdoors and creating a majestic set.

Similarly, in the case of Mahabharat, we have researched that project for over four years. We tied up with Devdutt Patnaik, one of India's best known experts in mythology and got a set designer who has made the biggest sets on television. We have also invested in putting together a very good writing team.

Our belief is that the leap consumers expect is not only with a film star or a game show or a dance show; the leap that they wish to see is in characters and stories. We at STAR believe that we can deliver that consistently.

The only business logic is that if we spend more on content, our quality will go up and therefore the number of minutes the consumer spends on our content will go up. We will, therefore, be able to monetise more effectively. At STAR, we believe that throwing money is not the strategy: it is to deliver a much better story with finer characters that can connect in a big way.

'Diya aur Baati Hum' is a leading show not because it costs dramatically more but because it has a most powerful story which connects very well to the largest part of India. So, the focus is on finding the right stories, characters and getting those journeys to appear more aspirational.

Yes it is. Star Plus was the first about two years ago to launch an HD channel and became the first player to move all the content to the HD ecosystem. We started shooting with HD cameras, recording on Dolby and we were the first ones to create real HD. There was a lot of technical investment at that time. What we are seeking to do is really up the level in every way if we have a grand story to tell.

The biggest change that we are seeing - and need to see more of - is in writing. Technology enables writers to be more imaginative and we are at the cusp of creating big ticket, differentiated shows.

We would still want to tell universal stories - what we call blockbusters, the ones that will work everywhere. We also want to tell stories that will work well in a particular market like LC1. For example, our fiction show, 'Ek Ghar Banaunga' is based in UP and we would be happy if it does well in that market.