Regional is an important space as we go forward, says Viacom 18 CEO

The ETV bouquet of entertainment channels in Marathi, Gujarati, Bangla, Oriya and Kannada, will be soon re-christened as Colors Marathi, Colors Gujarati and so on. Viacom 18's joint-venture partner, TV18, had acquired these channels in December 2013. While Viacom still awaits the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to pick up a 50 per cent stake in these channels, Sudhanshu Vats, CEO of Viacom 18, in a conversation with Ajita Shashidhar, talks about the company's strategy to expand the Colors (Viacom 18's flagship Hindi channel) franchise into the language markets through the ETV channels. Excerpts:

Q- Can you tell us about your current association with the ETV channels?
A- TV18, being one of our partners, the arrangement we have is while the management remains with Prism (TV18 has invested in ETV under Prism TV), we continue to look at synergies. Viacom has applied to the FIPB for permission to invest equivalent of 50 per cent into Prism. Once that comes through, Viacom 18 will start looking at Prism. As of now Prism has independent management.

We are looking at synergies in terms of programming. So, a few of our marquee fiction programmes like Balika Vadhu, Uttaran, Madhubala, we looked at whether there is room for these stories in some regional languages and we found an outlet for a couple of them. Uttaran has been remade in Bangla and Kannada.

We also looked at synergies in some non-fiction marquee properties. So, Big Boss was made in Bangla and Kannada, we do Jhalak Dikhla Ja in Kannada. It is the top rated non-fiction show in Kannada.

As a result of all this, the performance of the channels has been consistently going up in terms of viewership.

Q- What was the viewership share of these channels when the acquisition happened?
A- The viewership of each of these channels was different. If you take the example of ETV Kannada, in 2013 December it was at No. 4 in the Kannada general entertainment space (the market leader is Udaya TV). From there it has gone on to become a strong No. 2. In terms of absolute viewership, it has nearly doubled. ETV Marathi's viewership has also nearly doubled in the last two years. The team, however, has struggled in Bangla, where it is a distant No. 3, but there also from July 2013, we have managed to double our share on a small base. We are still at No. 3 but the gap has reduced.

Q- When did you think about the re-branding exercise?
A- We realised that we could take this synergy at the brand level also. We have taken permission from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to rebrand the Prism channels. So, Viacom 18 lends the brand Colors to Prism for a royalty, as our legal and regulatory approvals are still pending. We will formally take charge of the channels only after the legal and regulatory approvals are done. Before that it's an independent management that manages it, we share some synergies and thoughts with them, as TV 18 is our key partner.

We are now taking the footprint of Colors into the regional spaces through this arrangement.

Q- ETV is quite a well-entrenched brand in all these markets. Won't the re-branding exercise create confusion?
A- We have done a lot of research in all the five markets to understand what do people think of ETV and what do they think of Colors. ETV as a brand, brings with it a legacy.

It was the first brand to go regional, but over the years its viewer profile has aged. Colors as a brand brings with it modernity, innovation, contemporariness and ability to connect with the youth. From the point of growth of viewers and ability to get younger viewers to re-appraise the programme and content, it was better we gave it a new name. From a viewers perspective it made sense, strategically, it made sense for us to expand the footprint of the brand. It's a reasonably good marriage of what is strategically needed by us and what is the viewers' perspective and what is good.

Content has started to become contemporary and younger. We have started to look at shows which will help us get younger viewers. We are doing shows more oriented towards today's issues. With the Colors re-branding there will be a few new shows that will mark the change.

Q- Do you plan to look at newer geographies?
A- Regional is an important space as we go forward. So, our first priority is to get the regulatory approvals and manage this as Viacom 18. Then, we will look at what we could do. We will definitely look at other regions where we don't have a presence. It is clearly our thrust area, there is no doubt about it.

Q- How important is regional for networks such as yours? Do you expect more regional deals happening?
A- There will be more consolidation in this space. That's a good trend as there are far too many players otherwise.
Regional continues to be an important space for everyone. If you look at viewership, Hindi viewership is about 44 per cent, which includes Hindi general entertainment channels at about 29-30 per cent and Hindi movies at about 14-15 per cent. Regional viewership is about 30 per cent.

About 41 per cent Indians speak Hindi and 59 per cent Indians speak different Indian languages. There are more people who are consuming regional languages and what I know is that the pride in regional languages is not coming down even with the younger generation. So regional languages are there to stay.

Q- Would you also be looking at making regional films?
A- Wherever we will have a broadcast footprint, our ability to do films there will go up. So, as we go forward, will we look at a regional footprint of films specially where in future we will have broadcast footprint, the answer is yes.