Viacom18 looks to expand regional channels portfolio

Media firm Viacom18 is looking to expand its regional channels portfolio, especially in southern languages, a top company official said.
"We have got to be present in more regions than what we are present now. We will keep evaluating other languages and regions, particularly in South India,"Viacom18 Chief Executive Officer Sudhanshu Vats told PTI.
Viacom18 operates various regional entertainment channels like Colors Marathi, Colors Kannada, Colors Bangla, Colors Oriya and Colors Gujarati, which were earlier under the ETV umbrella.
Last year, when the company had re-branded the five ETV channels under the Colors brand, Vats had said, "59 per cent of the country converses in regional languages. Today, regional TV channels command the second largest viewership in India."

According to a recent FICCI-KPMG report, regional general entertainment channels had a viewership of 29.6 per cent in 2015.
Among regional markets, Tamil channels occupy the biggest share -- 25.7 per cent -- in viewership and the Telugu market is the second largest with 24.4 per cent viewership share.

Kannada enjoys a viewership share of 11.6 per cent, while that of Malayalam is 9.2 per cent.
The company recently launched its ad-led video on demand (VOD) platform Voot, and in the next 12-24 months, it will be evaluating both freemium and subscription-led models.
"We are working on the payment gateways. As we go into subscription model we will need to give more value adds.

"The product that we have, this might be a more basic feature product, we will need to add more features to it, so that we are able to command some amount of premium or value to the consumer. In India, my sense is that both models (free and subscription-led) will hold," he said.
Voot has a large repository of kids' characters in the Indian OTT (over-the-top) space with characters like - Dora, Spongebob, Motu Patlu, Chhota Bheem and Pokemon, and going ahead, the Voot Kids could be subscription-led.
"The advertising in India for kids is a challenge. As the payment ecosystem develops in India, one of the candidates for going into subscription VOD could be actually our Voot kids. There will be some amount of advertising which we will be able to get, so while it's a challenge, there is some advertising in this space as well," he said.

"We have got 7,000 videos and 80 characters on Voot kids and have six out of top 10 (characters). Our kids piece (on Voot) is very strong," he added.
Viacom18 announced its plans to foray in the Hindi movie genre and Vats said Rishtey Cineplex will be launched in a month's time.