afaqs! news bureau
Media

Bloomberg UTV: Educating the Educated

The English business-news channel has launched The Assignment, a reality show, to broaden its audience base

The business-news channel, Bloomberg UTV has announced the launch of its reality show, The Assignment, which will begin on September 18.

Showcasing the two distinct ends of the Indian business spectrum, The Assignment consists of interesting challenges that participants from leading corporate houses will take on. The show will not only put to task the participant's presence of mind and decision-making abilities, but will also capture the individual's ability to pull off the task most effectively.

Bloomberg UTV: Educating the Educated
The Assignment is based on the insight that there is a mad race to get into top B-Schools, and then land a brilliant salary package with one of the leading companies. And the people who get into this environment come with a know-it-all chip on their shoulders. However, beyond the big companies, there are home-grown businesses that are very successful and are also fuelling the growth story of India.

"The programme is for such know-it-alls -- the bright, upcoming executives who have got the best of education and are very successful in their careers. We put them into successful home-grown businesses and test their learning," says Deepak Lamba, business head, Bloomberg UTV.

One instance of this is a distribution-executive of an FMCG company being put into the business of Mumbai's 'dabbawallas' -- the strong point of both businesses being the distribution. Similarly, an executive from a QSR (quick service restaurant) such as McDonald's or Pizza Hut being put into a similar chain, such as Jumbo King Vada Pav.

"Accustomed to a particular way of life, executives from corporate India are moved to domestic businesses for a day, to run the show. These business houses might not have the finesse or the polish of the MNCs, but are still rock-solid and efficiently run business operations. Being thrown into such an environment will provide India Inc's brightest minds with an altogether unique learning experience. The essence of the show is to capture all this," Lamba adds.

Through this programme, the channel is looking at engaging company executives, who do not watch TV for long, and also attract viewers who are interested, but do not understand the nuances of finance. Targeted at young executives in their early 30s living in metros, the show is expected to get eyeballs from home-grown services and companies, as well as young business executives.

The daylong Assignment breaks the comfort zone built by respective work environments and opens up an engaging story of cross-learning. Each episode will feature one contestant who is on the fast track to his career and is nominated by the company heads.

The 13-episode show will be aired every Saturday at 8:00 pm, and will be heavily repeated during the daytime on weekdays. The channel has chosen conversational language to suit the format of the show.

The weekly show will be hosted by Cyrus Sahukar. On the choice of host, Lamba says, "He connects with the target audience, who have grown to become business executives watching him."

The insight to launch the show came from the channel's research undertaken a couple of months back, which reflected that most of the programming on the channel is dedicated to news, markets and features. So, in order to bring in a disruptive format and get more eyeballs, Bloomberg UTV has decided to introduce the reality show. The target audience for the channel is males in the age group of 25+ in SEC A and B.

"We found that the young executives of India expect more than news. Therefore, there is a need to be more than just the marketing and market," says Lamba. He adds that the show will have a resonating effect on the channel's viewership.

The show will be marketed through various media, such as TV, OOH and print. The channel has already rolled out the promos on the UTV network.

The reality show is sponsored by Nokia; the print partners are Business Standard and Business World; while the outdoor partner is Zenith Outdoors.

The channel also recently announced the launch of another reality show, The Pitch for budding entrepreneurs.

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com