Surina Sayal
Media

TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't

Panellists discussed the 'why' and 'how' of regional language channels and shows, what works, what doesn't and the way forward

An interesting panel discussion on Day One of the TV.NXT event revolved around 'The languages that work in TV and why'. The discussion saw distinguished panellists such as Nitin Vaidya, chief operating officer, Zee Entertainment Enterprises; Ravish Kumar, head, Jalsha and Pravah, STAR TV; Sunil Mehta, vice-chairperson and managing director, Cinevistaas; Punitha Arumugam, CEO, Madison Media; Devika Prabhu, associate director, programming, Disney; and Santosh Nair, COO, UTV Television, while the session was anchored by Atul Phadnis, CEO, What's on India.

TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
Phadnis started off the discussion by throwing light on some facts and figures. He said that regional content first tasted success in the South market. Here, it was able to attract 85-90 per cent eyeballs. In the non-South market, languages such as Gujarati and Punjabi haven't taken off very well.
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
In Gujarat, Gujarati channels were able to garner only 5 per cent of viewership, similar to the trend in Punjab, where Punjabi channels had only about 7 per cent viewership. In comparison, languages that worked were Marathi - which has 19.9 per cent share in the Maharashtra market; and Bengali - which has as high as 45 per cent share in the east. Oriya, too, monopolised the Orissa market with 26 per cent viewership share.

Phadnis posed a question to Zee's Vaidya, who has been in the regional space for long, regarding what makes or breaks a particular category.

TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
TV.NXT: Why one regional TV works and other doesn't
Vaidya provided a historical perspective, taking the audience back to 1999, when Zee Marathi was launched. "At that time, television was dominated by Hindi. There were some Marathi shows as well that were popular, but after the microwave link, Marathi shows were relegated to non-prime time, while South Indian language shows were given some primetime preference - without which Doordarshan would not have been able to garner much viewership in the South.

"Thus, other language shows, however good, were pushed to other time slots. With this, the growth of these language shows decreased. Even production houses stopped producing these."

He also pointed out how the first programmes on Zee Marathi were dubbed Hindi shows and these received huge criticism, while an original Marathi show did extremely well. Later, Zee also stepped into Bengali, Gujarati and Punjabi. The Marathi channel market size was valued at Rs 60-70 crore in 2003and has grown to Rs 400 crore today.

Regional languages have given Hindi channels a direct competition. In 2008, the share of Hindi channels went down to 24 per cent. Realising the threat, Hindi channels got their act together and this figure has now crept up to 35 per cent.

Phadnis directed his next question to STAR TV's Kumar, asking him what it was like to launch the regional channels, Jalsha and Pravah, in recessionary times and whether STAR has been on track with things going as planned.

Kumar shared how STAR Jalsha was launched in 2008 and in a period of just nine months, went on to become the No. 1 channel in that genre, with 45 per cent share of the Bengali channel market.

"This was because we questioned 'why should the channel be secondary to any other Hindi channel?'. So we had the highest quality for our shows, we bought a movie library, we brought in new, fresh faces for shows," he said, adding, "We actually brought Hindi GEC quality to regional. It was simple - why will someone not consume something they enjoy in a language that they are comfortable with?"

The idea he put across was to bring quality to regional channels, with which he expects the market to grow significantly in the coming years.

Madison's Arumugam shared the 4 C's for regional channels - Contact, Connect, Context and Cost. "Firstly, are they able to 'contact' the audiences - here Punjab works in terms of contact. Secondly, connect, which is the stickiness with the channel. For example, the time spent on Gujarati channels is fairly low in comparison with Tamil channels, where if the former sees about 200 minutes spent on the channel by a viewer, Tamil channels have about 2000-3000 minutes of viewership. One reason for this could be that the content is not interesting."

Similarly, she cited how context and cost play important roles, where there has to be relevance of language (in terms of the, say, situations) and in terms of cost. She said that the share of budgets on Hindi GECs have not gone up. While earlier, if Rs 40 crore was being spent for Hindi channels, today the same amount is being spent but is shared between 3-4 players.

Phadnis also discussed how Cinevistaas' Mehta was among the first to dub a popular Hindi fiction, Junoon, into Tamil. This show ran for five years on DD (1993-98). It turned out to be a craze in Tamil, too, with the GRPs helping them garner unprecedented revenues and audiences.

He said, "No longer is content only related to the Hindi GEC market. Eyeballs for regional shows are increasing year on year and I think regional is definitely the way to go."

Disney's Prabhu said that to succeed in regional, one has to be relevant to the consumer. She added that Disney is expanding reach and allowing the viewer to experience the brand as much as possible. "Dubbing is a great opportunity to increase cross cultural consumption," she said, sharing that Disney is dubbing a Tamil poet's work into Hindi to share with these viewers. However, she cautioned that when dubbing, the idea is also to make stories relevant and bring iconic characters that audiences can connect with.

For example, for a southern language show based on a young stuntman, a character was given a 'Rajnikant' persona and this went down very well with the audience.

Here, Arumugam added that some content is language neutral, such as shows on NatGeo, Discovery, and children's shows.

Phadnis directed his next question to UTV Television's Nair, asking him what he thought was the current flavour and was there a success formula for regional. While Nair said that there was no fixed or guaranteed formula, there have been instances where regional shows have outperformed Hindi shows and in fact, inspired Hindi GECs to create shows based on these.

For example, the popular Hindi show, Pavitra Rishta, was inspired by a show from the South. "Channels can amend and make some changes to the show idea and these can really work," he said.

Vaidya also pointed out how the popular show, Dance Bangla Dance, was later done in Marathi and eventually, on a national scale in Hindi, just like the hit show SaReGaMaPa has been a hit in all languages. In fact, Zee Marathi got a rating of 23 for the SaReGaMaPa Lil Champs Finale show in 2009.

"The amount of experimentation done in regional channels and shows in the last 10 years is remarkable," said Vaidya.

'What next?' was the next question, to which Vaidya said that in the Gujarati and Punjabi space, they and the others probably lack conviction, strategic design and leadership, or a mix of all three.

Kumar closed the conversation by saying that one needs to enter the regional market with a clear proposition. "The question is 'what am I bringing to the party?' Unless you can stand out and be unique - don't bother."

The event was organised by afaqs! in association with Big CBS (main sponsor) and STAR News (associate sponsor). The other sponsors include UTV Action, Bloomberg UTV, Sony PIX, Sahara Samay and Mastiii TV.

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