Ciao'14 | I see a good time for English Entertainment, says Yagnik

2014 saw a lot of fresh variations in the broadcasting industry. Some broadcasters profited while many others failed at accomplishing the same feat. Some saw substantial growth while the others fell short of their set goal. But with all that said and done, overall the whole industry saw ample positive changes.

There are some ongoing changes on the 10+2 ad cap rule; on the other side a new body BARC (Broadcasting Audience Research Council) India was formed and also a couple of other rules from The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

Speaking about the English genre of channels, the category has seen a lot of competition. They have been extending their properties; they have got better shows, have got international as well as Indian content and are also acquiring a lot of traction from the Indian audience.

On this note, Adgully caught up with Saurabh Yagnik, Head - English Entertainment Channels for MSM group. He is known for his deep rooted understanding of the English entertainment genre.

Speaking about how the year has been for both the group channels, namely Sony PIX and AXN, Yagnik said, “2014 has been a very interesting year for us. It was the first full calendar year of activity that we witnessed after the re launch of our channel Sony PIX. How to bring destruction in a way that we break through the clutter and that how in PIX last year, we saw a lot of new activities like the Premier Pixathon, our new HD Channel and the latest one being the PIX school of Bonding. And we continue to momentum on social media and engagement. So this entire put together was something that we look back and feel satisfied with what was demonstrated and the kind of share that we have, so overall a satisfying year.”

“On the other front, with AXN they have seen great stuff happening. We have certain challenges that we need to overcome, but I think we have a full focus and strategy in place, which drives that business. Signing of the CBS output deal was one of the biggest milestones for last year for the AXN. I think the way we launched the ‘Not so ordinary Weekend’ slot and we air the near dead shows among the US was something that we did different.  There were other big properties on the channel like 24, Live Another Day, Supernatural, which premiered on our channel and which we promoted very aggressively. So I think overall a very good momentum on that business as well,” he adds.

Seeking their unique proposition as a premium channel, the channel does not intend to get into language feeds as of now. Yagnik adds, “Typically we address premium audiences in our offering and not main stream audiences. That deficient we will see as per consumer insights. So far our experience has been that people like Hollywood and sample their shows and most of the viewers want it in the English language. Wanting a Hindi etc, we have seen a lot of these Tamil, Telugu movies being dubbed, titled and shown on Hindi channels. That’s not what people come to for an English channel for. So we will keep accessing and looking at it, but the core of our proposition is maintaining, retaining and premium-ness of our offering. Besides that, buying language and dubbing is add-on expenditure so it has a very holistic view of whether it works or it doesn’t.”

Both the channels Sony PIX and AXN saw a great run in the year that passed. Talking about the channels performance Yagnik says, “PIX has been performing very well in terms of channel share and being in the top two in its category. AXN has also been doing well, though I think that we have enough room to grow than what it is today. What I would also like to put into context here is that the biggest issue that we face is the absence of a robust data to track viewership trends because of the fact that the sample size is not that large, so possibly it doesn’t capture in the way the viewership data should be in that category. Having said that we also look at social media which is the helm of the business and the engagement that we get around our properties on social media. Among social media and television viewership we have a decent traction and a good growth for our channel.”

Both the businesses have seen a substantial amount of growth. While one is among the top two in the category, the other one is still making its space. According to Yagnik the market share, tracking and brand health are the three parameters on which the channels have been doing well. He adds, “In all these categories we have seen a robust growth in performance. Our revenues have also seen a good growth. As mentioned earlier that PIX is in the top two positions in the genre. AXN with its new shows and high perception properties has been seeing good traction in both audiences and the advertisers. In the aggregate we are growing well. In this journey of competition we will always have to keep doing better.” Quoting a figure both the channels are growing upwards by 25% in business.

There is always competition and so do these channels have. Every channel tries to be ahead in the curve and so do these channels. Commenting on the same Yagnik said, “It is always great to have competition. Once you have competition it keeps you on your toes and helps you in taking your steps, reviewing your strategy and also thinking of what one needs to do to grow the business more. From our perspective, we talked about three elements of strategies one was to innovate to break clutter, invest in content and build perception. As far as PIX is concerned we have made significant progress in this. One thing that is strongly embedded in our whole philosophy in Sony PIX as a brand is that how can we do something very differently from what has been done so far, which leaves the audience amazed. Differentiation leading to amazement is what is embedded to the channel and that is what we have been doing so far.”  Indeed their slogan says it all, “Stay Amazed”.

Yagnik adds, “On the AXN front, it’s a very powerful and iconic brand and we are happy to be working on such a strong brand. We have two things that we are relentlessly chasing on that business. One is to build the association of the source and the channel and the other is to build the characters around our shows. And our content choices and marketing campaigns are designed on building these two elements well with the viewer.”

AXN has seen shows like Extant, The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, Hawaii 5.0, Sex and The City, Elementary and Supernatural that have worked really well.

On the other side, PIX which is a movie channel has a wide library of English movies and they are looking at showcasing exclusive premiers. To name some Spiderman, Men In Black, Hobbit, Iron Man 1 & 2, Skyfall, the Bond franchise, Captain America, Thor and such kind of movies. On this note Yagnik adds, “In this it’s a much wider clan of movies and what we concentrate on is getting the right content which resonates with our audiences and then serve it to the audience in a manner which makes them say ‘WOW’. This is based on a lot of insights that we try to mine and then reach out to audiences with what is the consumer proposition.”

Knowing that the digital is growing and that it is an important space to be on, these channels are highly active on that front. Yagnik said, “What we have been doing we clearly is that we have been able to create a digital and social media strategy which sort of blends itself to an ongoing engagement than just communication. So what has worked well is that we have defined a very clear personality of the channel and we have tried to differentiate through various means like the content scheduling that we do on Sony PIX the launch of characters like Notty Pixy, the kind of conversations we have defines our personality and ensures that we have enough differentiation while we are engaging with the audiences. Our entire big marketing campaigns are engagement based. Relevant insights are converted into engagement friendly announcements or conversations and from there we build on what we want to communicate.”

Quoting an example Yagnik said, “For PIX school of bonding we discussed the entire thing we launched with Sania Mirza taking up the bond offer and then the whole insight about how to woo your way to a woman’s heart. The entire package was building engagement around those tips and trivia that we were putting out air and bringing out the facts that we strongly the wow facts about bond and bonds desirability and similarity. Similarly, in our other campaigns, we build the whole premise very consistently with what the audience wants. And continuously put forth conversations around it.”

“We have a very sharply defined personality and persona for both AXN and PIX on the social media, which live up to and I think that triggers and helps bring consistency and we make people clear as to what they should look forward to when they come to our channels or social media,” he adds.

While the principles remain the same, the business realities are different for the channels.

Speaking on the viewer’s response to their channels Yagnik said, “I think the viewers like our channel, for the kind of market share we have for PIX. And for AXN I think we have established a local connect since the time we have our operations in India. Understanding the business landscape is much deeper and building that connect with the viewer is making the audience like us, which is reflected in some way on the viewership data and in social media data.”

On a concluding note Yagnik talks about the trends in the coming year. He said, “I see a good time for English and hope that viewership grows like never before. From a pure sentiment point of view of economic activity I think we have the worst behind us and there is momentum as we talk about Ad ex. With more and more brands wanting to spend on this category that will provide us the fuel to keep doing more things differently and innovatively and reaching out to our viewers.” By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit