Interview: Keertan Adyanthaya, MD, NGC Network India & Fox International Channels

“There is going to be high growth in the regional space. We cater to such fractionalisation by providing the channel in multiple languages. Currently we have 5 languages and going forward we would love to be present in every possible Indian language”

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | May 29, 2013

Keertan Adyanthaya

It's been over three years that you have headed factual entertainment channels at Fox International. How has your journey been so far in terms of achievements?

The journey has been fun, like the tagline of Fox Traveller. On a serious note, it has been a pretty productive experience. We launched Fox Traveller and took it to the top of not only travel and lifestyle genre but also the English entertainment genre. We launched our entire portfolio in HD and made sure that our channels are available across all digital platforms. We strengthened the National Geographic Channel at a time of increased competition in the infotainment category. We aggressively distributed our channel from the beginning of digitisation in smaller markets also. We travelled from 8 hours of locally produced content every year to 100 hours. Today, NGC and Fox Traveller have over 3 million fans on Facebook. And last but not the least, the wonderful team I work with is a huge achievement for me.

Anything that you think you could not achieve?

We want consistent leadership in every genre we operate in. While National Geographic Channel managed to beat Discovery for a few weeks last year, it couldn't sustain the leadership. That's one thing that I want to do and we are working towards that goal.

Now that entire country will soon go digital, where do you see the factual entertainment genre five years down the line and how prepared are you to cash in on the new environment?

We see digitisation very positively for the entire television universe. Earlier we were struggling with absence of sufficient bandwidth, hence the quality was suffering. Now without those constraints, television consumption is bound to grow specially the genre in which we operate into. Our industry changes so fast that predicting anything for five years is not very realistic. We look at 2-3 years... In my view, with time and technologies, there is going to be high growth in the regional space. We cater to such fractionalisation by providing the channel in multiple languages. Currently we have 5 languages and going forward we would love to be present in every possible Indian language.

As for English viewership, I don't see that much growth like we see in language viewership. The English-speaking population is about 14-15 per cent in the country. I would say that English viewership is very much like our taste for international food that Indians want to eat once a week. Rather, the younger audience consumes English content in a big way as they like to go to McDonald's and Domino's on a daily basis. The majority of older audiences consume content in their own language. When the younger audience will grow older, they will be back to their own language.

As a network, we never believe that we deliver English-speaking audience. We deliver audience… the audience of SEC AB, 15+ years who matter for advertisers. We keep a close eye on growing viewership in a particular language and once we find that the viewership is large enough to support the cost of dubbing, we launch the feed in that language. Currently we have a single advertising beam for all the languages but in future, when we have a large enough viewer base to acquire separate licence for each regional market, we will have separate ad revenues for each market.

How do you compete with the English entertainment and English movies genre?

Factual entertainment is way ahead for English entertainment and neck and neck with the English movies genre. To grow more we need to make content more relatable and accessible. We need to make it a two-way kind of communication by interacting with our viewers through various activations. Internationally, infotainment channels do far better than in India. Even as we are neck and neck with the English movies genre, our ad rates are much lower. This is also an area where we have to work hard.

Among all the brands of Fox International in India (National Geographic Channel, Fox Traveller, Baby TV, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Music and National Geographic Channel HD), a few are already household names, but some  are yet to pick up. Do you see digitisation helping to provide a big push to them?

We don't believe in carriage fee based model at all. So we stayed away from spending tons of money on carriage unlike many other channels. Worldwide we operate as a pay television network and paying huge monies to cable operators in India is completely contrary to our worldwide model. Now, with the possibility of carrying 800 channels in DAS regime, we see that viewers and cable operators will be hungry for content and then our segmented channels will be in demand and grow eventually.

There are still several channels under Fox International that can find space in India post complete digitisation. Which channels do you see having a stronger potential to write another success story?

We believe that we have a pretty effective portfolio. With digitisation taking place across the country, this is a phase of consolidation and may be after a year and two, we consider introducing new channels. We are evaluating and nothing has been finalised yet.

Do you think the Indian market is mature enough to accommodate segmented channels, especially for brands like Baby TV? If not, how much time would the Indian market take to attain that maturity?

Talking about Baby TV in particular, it definitely has a great potential because India has the highest number of babies born every second. It teaches little babies about colours, shapes, alphabets, nursery rhymes and also teaches your children to express. This is the only channel available for toddlers. This is a pay channel with no advertising at all because we believe that the children at this age should not be exposed to advertising. Hence this channel's expansion is completely driven by subscription revenue. Similar is the case with Nat Geo Music which is all about discovery of different forms for music. We are re-looking at its positioning.

I think the Indian market is maturing now. With digitisation, the choice has shifted to consumers' hands. They will consume content and channels like they consume any other item depending on their choice of brands. As we go forward, many of the niche and segmented channels will not be supported by advertising as much as they will be supported by subscription fees. If you ask about timeline, I'd say, it will take two to three years to reach that level.

Household names like Nat Geo and Fox Traveller may be advertisers' obvious choice but how difficult is it when it comes to monetize more niche and segmented brands besides the subscription revenue model?

As you go more segmented, like for example Nat Geo Adventure, while it may not have so much advertising support, what we may do is to perhaps have a tie-up with adventure sports or an adventure tour & travel company and offer customised adventure holidays and sell that on the channel. So there are various models of getting revenues and we have to explore those models. Each channel will have to look at it in a different way.

Is the factual entertainment genre already getting a bit crowded?

Yes, it is crowded but that is a part of every business. There will be competition in every genre and especially in India, we see maximum competition in comparison to the rest of the world. Considering the expensive entry and huge effort and investment in production of shows, you will see only large global networks like us operating in in the factual entertainment genre.

According to you, what are the three things that are key to the success of a factual entertainment brand/channel?

Distribution, distribution and distribution! Well, this is the most important criteria. Clutter-breaking content is the second key to success followed by interactivity or two-way communication.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com