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Arriving on the scenes in July, 2008, Viacom18's Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) Colors had shot to the top of the viewership charts. But over the last five years, it has ridden a few troughs and crests. Currently vying for the second spot in the Hindi GEC space, the channel might have ceded ground to the leader, Star Plus (Star India's flagship GEC), in the second year, but it can lay claim to a business that turned profitable in the third.
It bucked the trend of saas-bahu sagas ruling the prime-time at the time of its launch, with fiction shows on social issues and mythology (Balika Vadhu and Jai Sri Krishna, respectively). It busted the stronghold of GECs established for decades such as ZEEL's Zee Tv and Multi Screen Media's Sony Entertainment Television, apart from Star Plus. Another national GEC launched by the joint venture of media majors Alva Brothers Entertainment and Turner International, Real, had launched and packed up in a year in 2009, failing to make a mark with its content that eschewed family drama.
Colors never let any such cloud creep in on it but it lost its lead to Star Plus by mid-2009. Star Plus, the incumbent, was overhauling its own programming mix by then, adding the eyeball-grabbing format of Saach ka Samna, and breaking away from the Balaji Telefilms mould in fiction.
Colors had experimented with programming which led to the creation of two of its longest running shows -Balika Vadhu and Uttaran, that were strong in their social commentary. It also struck gold with its weekend non-fiction strategy, buying properties such as Khatron K Khiladi, Jhalka Dikhlaa Ja and Bigg Boss. While the fiction shows earned it its bread and butter, the spikes in ratings and hype were fuelled by such shows.
Rajesh Iyer, director - marketing, Colors reveals, "When we launched the challenge was the unavailability of reach (wide) media, especially GECs. This meant we needed higher share of voice on other media. The other challenge was we had a schedule with eight properties and some big-ticket movies. Our conscious strategy was not to promote all properties, we went with 'one + two' strategy across markets which meant Khatron K Khiladi was promoted across all markets and chose two more fiction properties to promote depending on consumer preferences. Once the channel was launched we went market by market to establish our products." A year later, it launched a brand campaign that simply said 'thank you' to all the viewers who had appreciated the channel and its content.
However, while disruptive programming did work in the initial stage, people's expectations from the channel rose a lot in that one year of launch, according to experts. But the channel, it is observed, failed to reinvent and refresh its content to retain a sense of novelty, sending ratings south.
LESSONS FROM THE PAST
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WHEN YOU SEE COLORS, THINK OF...
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To add to its woes, the channel saw some senior level exits in 2011. The founding CEO Raj Kamath and the programming head Ashvini Yardi decided to move on, leaving a gap in the channel's strategy.
When Raj Nayak took over as CEO in April 2011, he had a two point agenda - get the current team's confidence to go up and take the channel back to winning. He recalls, "There was some amount of insecurity in the team which is natural when any new boss walks in. But I knew this is the team that had beaten the biggies in the first year of launch. Over time, we bonded as a unit. Today, I am proud to say that Colors has one of the lowest attrition rates (2 to 3 per cent). Almost 90 per cent of the team is the same."
But people management aside, there are lessons in programming that the channel is looking to unleash. It had learnt quickly that success brings with it baggage and one has to continuously reinvent. The very shows that made Colors a popular GEC led people to typecast it as one focusing on social issues. Nayak reveals that there was a time when people came to him with scripts they thought only Colors will carry. Team Colors learnt the importance of variety.
Thus started the era in the brand's life of ensuring variety. In the offing is the latest season of Bigg Boss, the reality show where celebrities are confined in a house for 90 days, and voted out, till one of them is left behind. In fiction, it is gearing up for the Indian remake of the TV series '24'.
It also learnt from tweaking time-slots. It had tried shifting one of its prime-time properties to the afternoon slot, considered dead by many industry experts. The tactic failed and the show was eventually pulled off the air. "The afternoon slot is when viewers want to catch up with the prime-time repeats. For them, that is a fresh episode since four GECs are vying for the their attention in the evening," reveals an observer.
Its movie shopping spree that left it with a library of close to 400 titles also saw some course correction. Over time, it sold the library to Star. Those in the know say that the returns on investment were not as expected. Now it is back to acquiring some blockbusters such as Raanjhana and Go Goa Gone, hoping to strengthen its hold and recover that elusive number one spot.
