Once considered the most favoured music destinations on TV, Channel V has now transformed itself into full-fledged youth-focused general entertainment channel with format shows and daily soaps. From entertainment shows such as– V Pop Stars, V Get Gorgeous, to shows creating social awareness such as Gumraah, it has been a long transformational journey for the Channel. Talking to Piyali Mandal, Channel V’s General Manager and Executive Vice President Prem Kamath shares how the company has managed to create a niche for itself in the highly competitive market and how it plans to establish “V” as a premium youth brand.
The recent TAM ratings say that Channel V does not figure in the top five general entertainment channels (GEC) category. From being a top music channel to be ranked among the top twenty general entertainment channels, how does it feel?
According to TAM data that we have, as of week 50 in certain category, we are the 7th in viewership across GEC's. If you see the channels ahead of us, they are serious heavyweights of the genre and have been leading the pack since the genre took shape in our country, while we are just getting started with daily programming.
Within our audience, we have grown healthily and continue to add new audiences to our viewership but the leadership will not come overnight.
Our original revamp started in 2009. Within years, we are already flirting with the top 10 channels in the country, if it continues (the pace of growth), within the next three years we will be in the top 4 Hindi entertainment channels in the country among the youth, displacing some of the established heavyweights of the industry.
But, you were the top music channel; do you regret the decision of completely moving away from music?
No, we had realized that music was gradually becoming commoditized. All the music channels are playing the same list, then how do you differentiated. Moreover, the consumption patterns of the viewers have also changed. People can view music videos on the go. They need not wait for a song to come on TV. To keep your viewers hooked you need something more than music. So, we decided to move away from music.
We have dropped music programming with a focus on original content and have hence distanced ourselves from the music genre.
We are in a unique position as we’ve carved a new genre for ourselves, away from the niche of music channels that are loosely called youth entertainment. They simply don’t have enough original content to be referred in the same breath as us.
Your competitors in the music channel category are still doing good, even if it is a commoditized market.
By October 2011, Channel V was leading among the Indian youth; by October this year it was nudging for a spot in the top ten channels list— far, far ahead of the pack of other channels that have pretensions to speak to the youth.
Channel V is today two and a half times the size of Bindass and MTV, more than twice the size of India TV and Discovery and nearly twice the size of UTV Action, Aaj Tak, and ABP News.
Have you lost the urban audience who used to associate with the uber cool Channel V?
Data shows that we've actually grown in Mumbai and Delhi, if we are to use these markets as the benchmark of urban India. In terms of viewership, if we were to compare the 2nd half of 2009 to the 2nd half of 2012 (since stopping music), we have grown almost 4 times!
How are you planning to take the channel beyond television programming?
The brief to the channel in 2009 was to establish itself as India’s leading youth brand and for that, the channel had to evolve beyond mere television programming.
First there’s Channel V’s Nokia India fest: India’s biggest college festival in which over 2500 colleges participate. In its third year on the channel, it is going to be bigger.
There’s also an ambitious venture into the F&B sector, The V Spot Café+Bar. There are 2 outlets – Saket and Gurgaon in less than 2 years of launch. The channel plans to launch 30 outlets over the next 3-5 years across Tier 1&2 towns.
