The evolution of what was once known as History Channel continues. The channel, which was re-branded Fox History and Entertainment a few years ago, will now be known as Fox History and Traveller. As the name change suggests, the larger focus on travel is driven by the growing popularity of the travel industry in India. Fox International Vice- president (marketing) Debarpita Banerjee cites examples to support the channel’s decision: “The travel industry in India is booming, online travel sites are growing and India has seen the entry of several travel-related magazines in recent years.”
The decision to focus on travel-related content was tested for a few months before the rebranding exercise was announced. In January this year, the channel launched a travel band (9.00 pm-10.00 pm) during primetime. It played internationally produced travel shows like Earth Tripping, Frankincense Trail, David Rocco’s Dolce Vita among others. “Our ratings almost doubled during this time and hence we decided to confirm this new direction,” explains Banerjee. The focus will now be to devise innovative travel content for the local audience.
The travel band will now be aired for a longer time — between 8.00 pm and 11.00 pm every day. While the channel has a repertoire of international content to fall back on, it is giving a larger thrust to locally produced content in the travel genre. Two new shows —What’s with Indian Men and Twist of Taste with Vineet Bhatia — are in the offing.
Fox History and Traveller operates in a space broadly termed as infotainment. According to data provided by media viewership research and analysis firm TAM Media Research, the infotainment genre had a 1.2 per cent share of the total television viewership universe in 2010. In the September 2010-April 2011 period, Discovery Channel (55 per cent share) leads the space, followed by Fox’s sister channel National Geographic (22 per cent share). Other players in the space include Animal Planet, Discovery Turbo, and NATGeo. Fox History and Traveller has a 5 per cent share in this space. With the focus on travel, the channel will also compete for eyeballs with travel channels like Discovery’s TLC and lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times.
Banerjee says Fox will differentiate itself on local content. “The shows will be more youthful and capture the way young India travels,” says Banerjee. “Unlike lifestyle travel channels, we do not want to simply portray a beautiful place but look at celebrating the fun around a destination,” she adds. The re-branding will be supported by both on-air packaging as well as off-air advertising.
The channel, which currently beams in English and Hindi, might consider regional feeds like Telugu, Tamil and Bengali in the near future. Competitor Discovery is also upping the ante — Discovery Network recently launched the Bengali feed for its Discovery channel, in addition to existing feeds in Tamil and Telugu.
“One of the challenges that niche channels like Fox History and Traveller face,” says an analyst who doesn’t wish to be quoted, “is that in India they have not been able to bank on subscription revenue, given the market is not digitised. However, with the rapid pick up in DTH and digital cable, these niche channels will definitely gain traction,” says he. He also believes that advertising spend on these channels, though small (less than 3 per cent of the Rs 11,000 crore television advertising pie) will increase with advertisers targeting premium consumers.
