Multi Screen Media (MSM) or Sony, is having a great year. It recently rose to number two position on the Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) charts, after Star. This is, largely, on the back of three new shows — Bade Ache Lagte Hain, Saas Bina Sasural and Kaun Banega Crorepati. The Rs 1,000-crore Sony, however, has always been the odd one in the Rs 30,000-crore television industry. It has steadfastly done good programming, been an advertiser's favourite and yet never quite made it to the top. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar spoke to Chief Operating Officer N P Singh to find more about the company’s plans. Edited excerpts:
What has changed in what MSM was doing?
There is a consistency in strategy that we did not have earlier. We kept changing our strategy and programming and, therefore, had intermittent success. There is a lot of focus now. We have chosen a path and we are following it with a greater degree of rigour. We are very clear about whom we are addressing — the women in the age group 18-35. We don't want to lose focus and have followed this to a T in the last one year. We have even give her (our viewer) a name, Kusum.
All our content is talking to her and we have picked up shows that we hope will resonate with her. We are also looking at more family-oriented programming like Kaun Banega Crorepati. We have used (the success of KBC on Sony) to funnel viewership to our women's shows.
Also, now we have a very strong portfolio. We are the only company with two of the five Hindi GECs (SET and Sab TV). We have a very strong Hindi movies channels with Max. (MSM also has rights to several lucrative cricket tournaments). And now, we have started with a very strong focus on fiction. That is what is giving us consistent ratings and growth. Non-fiction gives a lot of spikes and then the viewers go away.
You tried this whole tack earlier with programming from Yash Raj Films (YRF). Why didn't that work?
What we brought to TV with the YRF shows was an international look and feel. They were nice shows, but lacked mass content. They were more focused on the male. That strategy doesn't work on television.
Sony's success has always been a flash in the pan. Is there reason to believe this might be different?
We have always had very good shows, which did well— Jassi, Heena, Kusum, CID. But somehow, we never made it to number one. So, we are now following a consistent and sane strategy because we want to be a profitable business. We are not running the business on ego.
Do you miss not owning distribution assets?
Being platform-agnostic has helped us. We are favourites with cable and DTH operators because they know we don't have a competing company. We have One Alliance, (a joint venture with Discovery), but nobody is threatened by it (because it only distributes channels and doesn't own any pipeline).
There is some talk among broadcasters about doing programming in-house, à la the US. This will help tackle rising programming costs. Your view?
There is merit in doing programming in-house. For instance, we do a large scale show, Xtra Innings for Max, which is in-house. It saves on costs and gets us better margins. So, for non-fiction and in some areas, doing in-house programming makes sense. But for fiction, the way the market is structured right now, (lots of fragmentation and choice of ideas), it makes more sense to outsource. It has worked beautifully for us. Also, non-fiction programming is done in a very controlled environment. Fiction has too many variables, writers, actors etc. So, we are not ready to take fiction programming in-house.