The target is to go to the next 100 million homes: Discovery's Karan Bajaj

Interview with Karan Bajaj, senior vice-president & general manager for South Asia, Discovery

We have an interesting and a particular challenge on hand — attracting a bigger denominator of consumers yet maintaining the dignity and essence of what Discovery is, Karan Bajaj tells Vanita Kohli-Khandekar. 

What is the big plan for reinventing Discovery?

If you look at the Indian market with its 270 million homes, at the top end are five-10 million homes, 150-160 million in the middle and 100 million at the bottom. Discovery historically has had strong affinity to the top five-10 million households. And you know what’s happening there. (The audience is moving to different digital platforms to consume the same content). Our number one priority is building a robust core business. On the core side there has never been a loss of form. It is simply a question of figuring out how to get the consumer interested across platforms and that is how we have skewed our investments for the last two quarters (of this year). All brands have a defined purpose. On TLC we’re taking a strong stand on girl power starting with Queens of Comedy launching on TLC in August. On Discovery, we’re celebrating mavericks, millennials choosing to tread away from the worn path. That’s why we’ve India’s Best Jobs, a take on the fresh, exciting new professions in India. Then, there is Breaking Point about millennials in the Army in the toughest commando programmes. All of our fresh programming is coming through now.

Next we will be going to the next 100 million homes. Jeet, a factual general entertainment channel or GEC for small-town India, should be out in the next six to eight months. A rural, free-to-air channel would be launched early in 2018. It will be 80 per cent library (which has educational value) but we are researching it first.

A GEC means fighting with the big boys such as Star or Zee? Does it put Discovery a clear leader in its genre at risk?

Every company, say a P&G or HUL, has to ask themselves at some point, “Do you want to continue being leaders in your own category or do you want to venture out?” It is a creative and marketing risk. Do I end up being a small player in something? I can’t predict that. I can only put together the best team with the best intent.

Jeet is not exactly a GEC the way we think of it. It is a GEC in a Discovery-ish way. These are stories that feed off fact, that blur the lines between fact and fiction. It is about ground up, local and original programming. We are doing a 65-part scripted, dramatised version of yoga exponent Baba Ramdev’s life. 

There is Saragarhi on the 1897 battle between 21 Sikh soldiers and 10,000 Afghans in the North West Frontier Province (now in Pakistan). There is Anjaan, an X-Files kind of format. We are choosing stories in mass entertainment, but with a level of inspiration, like the films Dangal or MS Dhoni. That is why the tagline is “Mujhe Kuch banna hai (I want to make something of myself)”. The idea is to expand reach into small-town India. We are working on getting appointment viewing and delivering male audiences, which are unusual in GECs.

Why is Discovery losing viewership share in the core factual genre, those five-10 million homes?

There are two shifts happening. The shift from TAM to BARC has widened the sample and increased the proportion of rural (from almost nothing to 67:33 urban: rural). So there has been a correction and every genre within the top five-10 million homes has seen a drop. The second shift is the consumer in the top five-10 million homes is a bigger multi-platform consumer than earlier. So, the business on the core side is affected. But factual viewership on digital is about 10-15 per cent of the total against two per cent on TV. What we need to create is a multiplatform content offering. We are creating content which is native to a device or platform. For example, three to five minute videos for the mobile. We are making very significant announcements soon. (In April this year Discovery Networks Asia Pacific announced two partnerships — with VS Media in Greater China and Tabilabo in Japan.)

From a TV perspective there is a singular, clean, consciously led re-invention. So we are doing strong boundary breaking programming on both. Discovery is urban/male, about mavericks and creating your own path. That is why India’s Best Jobs and Breaking Point. TLC has a very urban, female skew therefore Queens of Comedy or The Venture all of which celebrate the women of today.

What is the game plan in sports? (Discovery launched DSPORT earlier in 2017)

Sports is very interesting for us globally, as you know. Eurosport was always strong. Now, we’re doing the Olympics in Europe. We’re very interested in an aggressive expansion strategy in India as well and will make the right moves when we’re ready.

What will the new Discovery look like, say two-three years down the line?

I’m most interested in this idea of scale with purpose. On the one hand, we want to be a sizeable media company in India versus keep playing somewhat at the outskirts as we’ve done until now. However, we’re crystal clear that we won’t do so by just adding to the abundant noise on television. We want to stick to our ethos of being purposeful and transforming lives for the positive. That’s why it’s such an interesting and a particular challenge — you have to attract a significantly bigger denominator of consumers yet maintain the dignity and essence of what Discovery is.