has joined Zee Sports as chief operating officer "" he heads the operations of the company, and oversees the programming and production for the channel. Lovejoy comes to Zee Sports with 28 years' experience in sports television broadcasting, having worked on six football World Cups, three Rugby World Cups and seven Olympic Games in addition to many other global events. He speaks to Business Standard about Zee Sports and its plans for the Indian sports viewership market.
The visibility of your channel is quite low. How soon will it be widely available?
We have been available on Dish TV since the first week of May and a few cable operators have also started telecasting the channel. We are currently in the midst of a major push for wider cable distribution and expect that to happen in full force by November this year.
How do you differentiate yourself from other sports channels?
The immediate differential is that we are the first commercial Indian sports channel. Our attitude is that we are exclusively for Indian viewers rather than catering to many markets simultaneously.
We are open to Hindi programming too "" we have a daily show, Sports Cafe, which is in Hindi and even the English programmes that we produce ourselves can have smatterings of Hindi.
Over time, of course, the differential for any sports channel is the kinds of rights it acquires.
So what rights do you have lined up as of now?
That's an area we're still working on "" it's a bit too early to talk about it at length. Besides, as you know there's so much competition; others are making our lives difficult enough already, so we're wary of putting all our cards on the table!
Is there a sports viewership market other than for "" obviously "" cricket?
Frankly speaking, sports television in India hasn't traditionally been a good business, with the obvious exception of cricket. The stats are quite dismal.
But we do see potential for change and believe we can work on that potential. With Zee's backing, we hope to be able to cross-promote and create a market.
What other sports is there a market for?
Motorcycle racing, for one. There has been an increased interest in motorsports of late and that has a lot to do with Indians spending more money on fancy automobiles.
We also believe many of the Olympic sports have potential here; they haven't been given enough of a chance.
Apart from live telecasts, what kind of programming do you see as your strength?
One thing that's of prime importance to us is providing context "" that is, providing Indian viewers with a background they can relate to, even if they don't know much about a particular sport.
Take the Tour de France, which we will be telecasting live next month. We have already started explaining elements of the race in a way Indian viewers can understand: for instance, the total distance covered in the race is roughly equal to the distance between Kashmir and Kanyakumari.
We also explain the astounding levels of fitness required to average 160 km each day while riding across mountainous terrain. Without this background information, the event would just amount to a lot of cyclists huffing and puffing their way across France.
Likewise, we believe it's much more relevant to say a certain title is worth Rs 2 crore as opposed to saying it's worth £250,000.
You say you want to focus more on leisure viewing than on event-led viewing. What does that mean?
We believe the interest in fitness and health is growing "" that's a natural byproduct of a social/economic upturn, with people increasingly spending more money on themselves. With this in mind, we're aiming at a mix of sports and leisure.
