Past perfect

ENTERTAINMENT: A channel repositions itself by offering films in the "history" genre and emerges victorious.

Six months ago when History Channel announced its strategic changes and restructuring of content in India, it didn't imagine the far-reaching success.

TAM ratings have been encouraging too: The channel has seen its weekly reach improving by 72 per cent, while the channel's share has increased by 154 per cent and the average ratings have increased by 150 per cent too.

In addition, the channel's fiscal year '07 growth has clocked 200 per cent till now and 60 new advertisers have been added. How did the success story evolve and why was the repositioning necessary?

Sitting on the 21st floor of Delhi's InterContinental Hotel, the three people largely responsible for the overhauling of History Channel are ready to give all the answers.

"There was a need for us to broadbase the channel while keeping the DNA of the history genre intact," says Nikhil Mirchandani, managing director, South Asia, NGC Network.

He adds, "We are thrilled with the performance of the channel since its repositioning in May 2006. Our objective was to offer 'history' in an entertaining way."

The strategic shift in the positioning happened with History Channel acquiring movies and investing hugely in acquiring hours of content for the channel. With entertainment as its main focus, historical movies shown on the channel have performed even better as compared to other English movie and entertainment channels (source: TAM).

"The channel acquired films in multi-million dollar deals," says Rajesh Sheshadri, vice-president (marketing), The History Channel.

With access to over 8,000 hours of content and in the process of acquiring new content even as we speak to the channel head honchos, History Channel, that started its relaunch in November last year, started hectic on-ground activities to promote the channel besides arranging a spectacular line-up of entertaining programmes for audiences.

"We haven't applied a full stop here and our next phase includes airing new series like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sharpe, Kennedy and Yes Minister," says Joy Bhattacharjya, senior vice-president (programming), The History Channel.

In addition, says Bhattacharjya, there will be Indian-specific programmes like the Mughals "" shown this year in September. Next in line is Jewel in the Crown, an India-specific programme.

Besides on-ground activities, History Channel has tied up with Intach to showcase some of the channel-acquired films in schools and colleges. The channel hopes to start heritage walks sometime soon.

"When the channel was revamped, we were sure of the success, but we didn't expect very stupendous or extraordinary results. Six months after the re-launch, we are overwhelmed by the response," says Mirchandani. For now, we seem to agree with whatever he and the channel are offering.