Local concoction

ENTERTAINMENT: Discovery set to beam local content

Discovery Travel will soon acquire a local twang. Starting September, the lifestyle channel will include two new Indian-produced shows, reportedly on cookery and travel. A third is scheduled for early next year. About 10-15 per cent of the channel's programming mix will be produced locally by mid-2008, according to Aditya Tripathi, vice-president, lifestyle, Discovery Travel and Living. "We will always be an English channel with an international feel, but there is always room for experimenting with local content, especially once you've defined yourself in the minds of the consumer," he says.

Is the network nervous that the launch of local content may backfire, considering they differentiated themselves from their competitors (Zoom for example) based on "quality, international content"? Tripathi is unambiguous, "Our Indian content will be of the same genre targeting the same audience, very international in flavour, and in fact will even be telecast in other countries."

Travel and Living can afford to be optimistic today. When it launched in October 2004, it positioned itself as an alternative contemporary channel. One year later however, TAM Media Research showed that TV rating share for Travel and Living in the primetime slot for English entertainment genre was just 2.7, compared to 4.1 for Zee Studio and 7.5 for Star World. According to Tripathi, all that's changed, "TAM ratings for week 53-2005 to week 10-2006 (All India CS4+), indicate that we have significantly higher viewership than Star World and Zee Cafe across India for both primetime and daytime viewing."

The viewership is raking in money too. Tripathi indicates that advertising revenue targets for the first half of the 2006-2007 have been achieved in half the time. "The Rs 10 lakh deal, signed on with trepidation, has become a confident Rs 70 lakh deal," he says. "The advertisers' profile hasn't changed, because our positioning has been definitive from the start, so Nokia still markets its N-series and Samsung it's plasma televisions."

The channel is now working on perfecting its programming mix which started with a large repertoire of travel shows from Discovery. "At any given time, we had 40-50 per cent devoted to travel shows. Today, travel contributes to only 20 per cent of our product mix," says Tripathi. With 12-15 new programmes every quarter, the channel is now pitching individual shows, rather than the brand itself. Explains Tripathi: "Our philosophy has been that you could be surfing channels and get to Travel and Living and always find something appealing to watch, but we are now going to introduce programmes that will have dedicated following." It will be one among many vying for the dedication of the elusive Indian viewer.