If you are a couch potato who sits in front of the television (TV) without knowing what to see, fret not. You are among the estimated 70 per cent of viewers who have unplanned TV sessions. Finding the right show among 350-odd channels, however, is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.
It’s here, perhaps, that India’s first and only free-to-air TV guidance channel might be of help. Launched as a full-fledged TV channel this January (trials began in December 2009), ‘What’s On India’ shows up as the default channel on many cable and direct to home (DTH) TV sets.
“The channel is helping viewers across the country in their daily search for best content on TV,” says Atul Phadnis, the company’s chief executive officer. His channel has annual licensing contracts with most cable and DTH operators like Airtel Digital, Reliance BIG TV, Hatway and Digicable. Some big names like that of Dish TV are absent, though.
Set up in 2005, at the inflection point of the analog Indian TV industry turning digital, ‘What’s on India’ is the brainchild of Phadnis who built on his over 15 years of experience in the field of advertising, media and TV. His last assignment was as vice-president of TAM Media Research India where he also headed ADEX India — a division of TAM since 2002 and the country’s largest media revenue monitoring service.
“I had the experience but wanted to build on it. It was a time when set-tops were being made mandatory for TV feeds. But no one was talking of technology to integrate the information that was available due to the plethora of channels,” says Phadnis.
Phadnis’ company, funded by Sequoia Capital and Nexus India Capital, developed the software for electronic programme guides (EPGs), which now power millions of set-top-boxes for DTH, cable and internet protocol TV (IPTV) operators. The EPG technology (or software) enables real-time listings across more than 200 channels. The algorithms have been designed by Phadnis and his team for which his company has filed patents.
The project would not have worked, according to Phadnis, had they not had the first mover’s advantage. Unlike homes in the US, there are no standards for EPG solutions. For instance, DD Direct would have its own format while Sun TV would have another.
Phadnis and his team took two years to build the platform. “It has been designed and developed as a proprietary, indigenous India-specific EPG Production Platform which integrates programming information and schedules from hundreds of TV channels to convert into EPGs. These EPGs are multi-platform, multi-lingual and yet real-time given the dynamic nature of the TV business,” explains Phadnis.
The need for such a platform existed. Studies conducted by Phadnis’ channel reveal that nearly 70 per cent of TV sessions in India are unplanned wherein the viewer does not know what to watch when switching on his/her TV set. Being fully automated, the channel recommends preferred viewing through ‘Now and the Next’ programme options and guides with an EPG scroll on the bottom one third of the screen.
In fact, when Bollywood actor Kareena Kapoor (in an Airtel advt) grumbles that Saif Ali Khan will be responsible for her missing her favourite serial, What’s on India’s EPG programme is also at play. “The set-top box is married to the mobile number (customer ID). When the request is made via mobile (which Saif does), the EPG in the set-top box will remember the timing and the date,” explains Phadnis.
Over the past six months, ‘What’s On India’ has managed to sign up some of the biggest TV Networks as well as DTH operators, cable companies and telcos. And this May, it announced its association with Star Plus as its exclusive content partner for the latter’s celebrity dance reality show Zara Nach Ke Dikha. Under this partnership, ‘What’s On India’ will showcase exclusive excerpts from the show.
Phadnis currently provides listings in Hindi for over 200 channels and synopsis for top Hindi channels. He soon plans to expand this to cover the entire range of channels. There are plans, he says, to translate EPGs into seven more Indian languages starting with Tamil and Telugu with effect from July 01, 2010.
