Tata Sky Classic Cinema to bring back magic of retro movies

Tata Sky recently launched Tata Sky Classic Cinema in association with Shemaroo Entertainment for some exclusively curated content. The interactive service was launched with an ad film featuring Sharmila Tagore while the content has some rare interviews of cinema legends by Ameen Sayani.

Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, there are three films featuring a grandmother (Sharmila Tagore) and a grandson. All the three campaigns depict how Tagore gives some tips from classic cinema to help her grandson to take his love story forward. The films end with a voice-over telling the viewer that one can get all classic cinema from the 50s to the 70s on its platform, with behind-the-scene stories and exclusive interviews at Rs 59 a month.

Pallavi Puri

Elaborating on the campaign, Pallavi Puri, Chief Commercial Officer, Tata Sky, said, “It was a conscious choice to portray a grandmother and grandson via the ad to connect with a larger audience. Classic cinema has always had its charm, and we wanted to extend it to as many audiences as possible.”

Tata Sky’s interactive services have received a good response and hence the platform is launching more services for its subscribers. As of today, Tata Sky has a subscriber base of 17 million and at least one interactive service is active for all of the subscribers, Puri tells us.

Classic Cinema will purely be promoted on Tata Sky and its platforms. The channel will show two movies in a day along with a lot of content around the movie. The content will be aired thrice every day. Apart from movies, Classic Cinema also has specially created content such as ‘artist of the month,’ ‘biographies of legends,’ and ‘filmy quiz.’

Asked why viewers would subscribe to Tata Sky Classic Cinema when Zee Classic already exists and some of the movies are available on demand, Puri explained that Tata Sky Classic Cinema has a different offering. It not only offers trivia around the film but also an ad-free experience, which a subscriber would not get on a broadcast channel. It has gone beyond showcasing the movie with a mix of content, product and format.

Hiren Gada, Director, Shemaroo Entertainment, added, “We have carefully gone through the programming of broadcasters for the last three years and that’s how we have curated this content.”

Puri and Gada are positive about this association as this is not their first. They have earlier associated with various services like comedy, miniplex, Tata Sky gurus and much more on the platform. Tata Sky will not be partnering with any other content provider for this service.

Asked about the objective of this association, Puri said, “The thought behind Tata Sky Classic Cinema was to bring alive those iconic movies and relive those epic scenes, which are etched in some of our memories in an ad-free and break-free format. This service is targeted to not only lovers of classic films but also gives the audience of today an opportunity to connect with the glorious era of Indian cinema.”

Gada added, “Tata Sky Classic Cinema brings to the audience some of the finest work of the greatest filmmakers of Bollywood. With a very contemporary look and feel, the service is designed specially to reconnect golden era of Bollywood with today’s audience. The programming of the service includes tastefully done shows created by our young and enthusiastic team and movies that have gone missing from television. Shemaroo has one of the biggest libraries of film content and with our experience and expertise in the genre, we have been reintroducing retro in a new avatar with each of our products.”

Both Tata Sky and Shemaroo will benefit from new subscribers to this service. For Shemaroo this is an additional source of revenue. When asked about the widening gap of movies coming to television early, Gada explained that they do not bear the losses when that happens. In fact, movies fade away quickly nowadays and hence come on television faster than what we witnessed a few years back.

Explaining how Shemaroo does its broadcast partnerships, Gada said, “On television, if we give a set of movies, for instance to the Viacom18 group, that set of movies will not be given to other broadcasters. In that sense, there is the exclusivity of movies for the broadcaster for the contract period. On digital it is different. There is no exclusivity factor on digital.”

For Gada, the contribution of such partnerships is substantial. He also added that digital partnerships with players like Netflix, Hotstar, and others comprise 20-23 per cent of their top-line revenues. While DVDs don’t exist today, the content is available in the digital format.

Sukesh Nayak

Sukesh Nayak, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, said, "#KyaDinThe is a campaign to celebrate the good old classic cinema from the golden era of Bollywood brought alive by Tata Sky Classic Cinema. We got Sharmila Tagore to play the role of an endearing grandmother who helps her young teenage grandson get inspired by watching classic scenes from the golden era hits to win over his love in the good old fashioned way. When gestures were special and personal. Making someone special feel truly special."

To celebrate Hindi cinema’s iconic era, the service showcases RJ Anmol’s exclusive interviews with cinema legends such as Zeenat Aman, Dharmendra and much more. Through ‘Tata Sky Classic Cinema’, subscribers will also enjoy rare and vintage interviews by legendary radio announcer Ameen Sayani with cinema stalwarts, interspersed with exclusive behind-the-scenes images and videos. The service will be given free for the first 10 days for subscribers to sample and is available to all Tata Sky subscribers on #318.

The TVCs:

(Confession):

(First Date):

(First Fight):

Credits:

Client: Tata Sky

Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

Executive Creative Director: Sukesh Nayak

Sr. Creative Director (Copy): Nishant Pratap

Sr. Creative Director (Art): Pratheeb R

Creative Controller (Copy): Chhavi Sahni

Creative Controller (Art): Soumen Nath

Vice-President: Jaikishan Menon

Account Director: Karuna Nayak

Senior Account Executive: Sharon Faria

Planning Director: Priyanka Nair

Production House: The Hot Films

Producer: Payal Arora

Co-Directors: Sana Ahmed, Beeswaranjan Pradhan

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