We want to be screen-agnostic in the new world: Sudhanshu Vats

Another issue was the ability to attract and retain talent: Sudhanshu Vats

When launched in 2007, Viacom18 was the new kid on the block, in the highly competitive market that is Indian broadcasting. Over the past decade, it emerged as a formidable entity in not only television with flagship Hindi entertainment channel Colors challenging the status quo but also in movie production and live events. Sudhanshu Vats, group chief executive officer, to Urvi Malvania on the journey and the challenge of storytelling in India today. Edited excerpts:

As the newest entrant in Indian broadcast, what challenges did you face? 

When you are one of the last entrants, ability to the build the brand, to get the right placement and the right revenues for subscription would be among the first. These are areas where legacy helps. Especially in distribution, it has always been a challenge; while it’s a B2C (business to consumer) business, it operates on a B2B (business to business) model. It’s all about negotiations and you’re invariably getting a percentage increase on what your past is. 

Another issue was the ability to attract and retain talent. Both a challenge and an advantage. Finally, the ability to find resources to grow fast enough to play catch-up (with the existing players).

There would have been some advantages as well.

One advantage, perhaps the biggest, is that you have to think out-of-the-box. Not doing so is not an option. So, the freedom to take risks has been the biggest advantage. Second, the ability to attract and retain talent, as long as you’re ready to set the right culture and right tone in the organisation. This is a fairly recent thing. It might not have been possible 40 years or even 25 years earlier. New-age workers are more open to working in new places/companies.

Finally, we could do things and push the envelope at lower costs. Existing players have to pay over the rate they are already paying; a newcomer starts with a nominal base and so the costs are initially lower for them.

There have been some major changes in the country and in the industry over the past decade. How has Viacom18’s journey been impacted by these?

First, the country landscape has changed in that we had a new government. A party won with such a majority for the first time in 30 years. There has been a revolution of sorts in the polity. The second thing that has happened is financial inclusion and the digital stack the government is building. These are fundamental shifts.

At the industry level, three or four things have happened. The most significant is digitisation of cable. Most of the country is moving to digitisation, barring Tamil Nadu, I think. This has expanded the capacity of the pipe, so more content can go through, which helps newcomers like us. 
 

Data speeds and quality have increased, thanks to likes of (Reliance) Jio, leading to more consumption of video content on the go. That’s a substantial development for the industry. Then, there is the phenomenon of convergence, in India and globally, between tech, media and telecom companies,  interesting to observe.

The constant in all this is that we at Viacom18 are storytellers; we will continue to be. If I have to sum it up in a nutshell, we want every story to find its audience and every audience finds its story. Given the developments, to achieve this we have to be more tech-savvy and invest in our digital products. We believe we need to be screen and pipe-agnostic in the new world, to be the kind of storytellers we aim to be at Viacom18.

With the growth in distribution bandwidth and expansion of genres, has the dependence on Hindi general entertainment channels (Hindi GECs) decreased from a revenue point of view?

GEC’s are very important to any portfolio and have always been. In the medium term, they will continue to be as important. Having said that, we’ve managed to reduce our dependence on Colors (their flagship Hindi GEC). Eighty per cent of our ad sales five years before came from Colors. Today, that number is close to 50 per cent.

As a company, we want to build a more balanced portfolio. As a company, we’ve seen 40-fold growth (since launch) and it’s come at the back of the four new businesses (live events, cinema, digital and merchandising), in addition to television, which continues to be our mainstay.
 

So, there’s scope for portfolio play between these businesses. For example, in a year like this, where there’s been pressure on ad sales (because of the new Goods and Services Tax) in the two quarters that have gone, and even this quarter looks a bit tough, films have performed very well. So, this year, we’ll get a huge fillip out of our film business. That’s the portfolio play I was referring to.

Given the recent spate of controversies over movie and TV content, has it become more difficult to tell stories and innovate with storytelling?

There are challenges, for sure. As content creators, we need to continue to tell our stories to the relevant audience. Also, while at one level it has become difficult, it has also become easier in a way, with the evolution of digital. The number of stories you can tell has gone up. More, on digital, if the content has legs, it will reach the relevant audience.

There will always be people who will raise objections. At times, this is because of lack of understanding and knowledge. The pulls and pressures of society are part and parcel of life. It can’t be all smooth sailing and questions will be raised. As content players, we need to do things responsibly. In the case of Padmavati (the controversial movie), we are very confident of what we have shown; people have not seen the film yet. Once they see the film, most of these issues will be resolved.

Finally, as content creators, you need to operate on the edge of the box — and, continue to innovate and expand the box. We’ll continue to make content on TV, digital and cinema which question our thinking as we go forward.