“Our competition can ‘rest in peace’”

IIPM is A World of Career

You launched 9X quite suddenly. Why a GEC?
We wanted to launch suddenly. Our competition was least expecting it. There was a sense of fatigue that had crept in among viewers with the existing programming in GECs. Our research showed that people were craving for a new, more powerful connect, with more realistic programming & story lines in soaps. We’ve already raised sufficient funds to keep our plans on track.

But, you are also working with the same production houses that Zee, Star and Sony are working with. How do you expect the programming to be different?
Well, for that you need to see our Balaji Telefilms programming at 9 pm (Kahe na Kahe). It is decisively not the regular Balaji (read: kitchen politics drama) that you see elsewhere. It is more realistic, down-to-earth and has middle class values. I mean, sure that has worked for Ekta Kapoor for years, but people don’t want to see that anymore. All production houses create programming to a brief given by respective channels. I would say that our brief is ‘different’ to them.

Is the GEC space big enough to accomadate more players?
Absolutely. The number of brands in India is increasing and so is the advertising pie. From the advertiser’s perspective, I think that more enticing platforms were needed to make the brand connect. Moreover, nearly 2/3rd of India does not watch TV today and as the number of cable & satellite homes goes up, my market will expand simultaneously.

The buzz is that you are innovating heavily to attract advertisers?
Yes! We’ve launched Platinum, Gold & Silver levels as one time memberships to brands on our channel. Early association will ‘rate protect’ them for the duration of the contract, even as going forward (when TRPs come in), our rates will keep increasing. Vodafone, Future Group, Reliance Industries, have already signed up with us.

What is Peter Mukerjea’s experience with Star India getting on the table for INX?
Peter’s experience of 14 years is a strong backbone for the group. We continue to look at him for guidance on strategies.

How would you define success in your venture?
I want to go back 14 years ago and see what the market shares of these established channels were at the time of their respective launches; and compare them with my market share after a month of launch in 2007. If I’m ‘9 times higher’, I think we’ll be on track!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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