about his future strategy, including how the introduction of CAS and DTH would change the shape of broadcasting. Excerpts: How does Star plan to hold on to the top slot?
We have been at the top spot for six years, from July 2000 to July 2006. We have a leader in Star Plus, which is the undisputed King Kong of general entertainment channels. For the first time in six years, we are seeing some intelligent competition from Zee.
To maintain our top position, we have new additions in our programming every year and refurbish old thoughts with newer ideas. We have spruced up our weekend programming in the last 9-12 months with properties like Baa, Bahu aur Baby, Thodi Si Zameen Thoda Sa Aasman, Sai Baba and Prithvi Raj Chauhan. Antariksh is a weekday primetime offering. We are creatively abuzz right now. As for Kaun Banega Crorepati, we are going to have KBC III, IV and more. We will be having roughly 300 episodes of KBC in seasons of 50-60 episodes each year till 2012, so as to not fatigue the format. We have already signed the licence agreement with Celador, the owner of the original Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for five years. We also have on board advertiser-funded programmes and are looking to integrate products and brand in our serials. Unlike films which are a one-off thing, in-serial brand placement will have a longer contact and recall with the viewer.
What about your international distribution? That's a week spot for you unlike in the case of Zee Telefilms?
[As a broadcaster] Zee was first off the block in the international market and it is big and successful there. Our parent company is a big international player and that has its own advantages and disadvantages. In the US and UK, our parent is already big and successful. I see a big push coming in our international business from the new media like broadband, IPTV and mobile.
Even after 14 years in the country, you are seen as a Hindi language broadcaster.
We already have Star Vijay in the Tamil segment, which is a break-even operation. The dynamics of broadcasting in south India are such that the Sun TV network has a complete stranglehold over the region. We will be entering the Telugu market next year, where the presence of Sun TV is strong but not that impenetrable. We are already in the Bangla segment through Star Ananda. We'll begin to put general entertainment content on Ananda and may even spin that off into a separate channel later on. We will also be taking the formats of our successful Hindi programmes into regional languages without essentially translating them. We'll grow organically as I don't see the possibility of acquisitions here.
Star One and Star Utsav were launched to reduce the excessive dependence on Star Plus. Has this worked? The brand positioning of Star One is now similar to that of Star Plus.
Star Plus is our biggest channel and revenue driver but our dependence isn't what it is depicted to be. The dependence is magnified because it works for us. Once newer technologies like Direct-to-Home and the Conditional Access System come up and distribution models change, the newer smaller channels will also start deriving their true value. I believe in the "long tail" of programming where there are viewers (small as the number might be) for every kind of genre. Distribution-led consumer-paid models where viewership equals revenue, are bound to come up.
We did some differential programming on Star One as compared to Star Plus. However, the current framework doesn't allow content to be differentiated as the "long tail" isn't that developed. The viewership of Star One is more among the younger audience and Star Plus is more for the mainstream family.
How are you plugging gaps in the Star portfolio?
The biggest gaps are the regional channels which we are working on. Kids are taken care of because we distribute Disney and Hungama. Sports content was the other gap but with the Neo Sports deal, that has been plugged. There is no truth in the talk that our ESPN-Star Sports venture is under strain on account of Neo Sports which is purely a distribution deal. We have not underwritten anything for Neo Sports and we are not buying a stake in it.
Will Tata Sky help prop your broadcasting business?
DTH should be broadcaster agnostic. Lousy content won't help us even if we own 20 per cent of Tata Sky.
The regulator's fixed a Rs 5 ceiling for each channel ...
Capping retail prices without a view on input costs doesn't make any sense. It is coming out of the telecom thinking. Creative expression is not commodity-driven.
Are you looking to enter film production? Or buying stakes in production houses, as you did in the case of Balaji Telefilms?
We are not into making films as that will be an unnecessary diversion. We will be into broadcasting, DTH, satellite, cable, IPTV, broadband, mobile ... but not in theatrical business.
As for buying stake in production houses, Balaji is the biggest and a very strategic supplier of our content. Everyone wants to protect their supply line. Beyond that, there is no tangible benefit in buying stakes.
What about your plans beyond broadcasting?
We already have indya.com. We are working with Fox Interactive globally. We have the internet rights for ICC's Champions Trophy and the World Cup. We've recently launched a service where viewers can catch an audio synopsis of our serials on their mobiles. Publications and merchandising are also in the pipeline but it is too early to comment on that now.
What is the strategic intent behind buying internet companies?
I can't talk about acquiring any internet companies but we are strengthening our internet property indya.com. We got 1.1 billion hits and over 234 million page views when we partnered the ICC for the Champions Trophy. We are also planning to work with News Corp's other internet properties like myspace.com, rottentomatoes.com and so on to offer a product for this market, which is expected to grow at 50 per cent per year in the next five years.
