Spirit W | Betting on content with historic connotations: Sangeetha Aiyer

Not too long ago, television entertainment in India was stagnant. The Hindi general entertainment channels churned out the same old content with new looks, the news genre was, let’s say, just there, music channels were gradually becoming teenage focused channels etc. Many viewers then were seeking to watch something new, intellectually high standard, yet entertaining. The 2011 saw the launch of HISTORY TV18, a factual entertainment channel. The channel looked new and promised to offer something new. Sangeetha Aiyer’s joined HISTORY TV18 group at the time of its inception and has been a key growth driver for the channel. Industry personnel talk about her strong brand marketing acumen and expertise and experience in brand management, content planning and activations which have stood her in good stead in her career.

Adgully caught up with Sangeetha Aiyer, VP & Head, Marketing A+E Networks, TV18 to know how successful the new initiatives have been for the channel, the channel’s short term and future plans, the progress made by the factual entertainment channel till date and much more.

Aiyer holds the responsibility to increase the reach of the channel, strengthen the audience base, expansion of factual entertainment genre and also looks after the marketing activities to drive engagement.

When it comes to content, the channel has always come up with a distinct show line up. Expressing her views further on this Aiyer said, “The big highlight for us has been the emergence of the arty factual genre big time. Pawn Stars is a sub-genre which we at HISTORY18 introduced with the launch of this show a year and a half ago within factual entertainment and it’s taken off quite well and we also launched various shows like Counting Cars and others. We are really happy that this sub -genre has worked well for us, it’s a whole new content that viewers are experiencing.” 

Pawn Stars is the number one show in the arty factual genre, and week on week has been appearing among the top 3 shows.

She went on to explain how the audience reach for artists such as Dynamo and before him Pawn Stars is wide and subsequently reflects in the popularity of their shows. “Coming to magic, it's so deep rooted in the Indian value ecosystem. Magic which we dabbled with a year ago was with Dynamo and we consistently used magic to pepper our content mix for that tactical spice and viewer experience. We started with Dynamo, which is one of the most viewed shows on the channel and have taken it forward with another magic show titled Criss Angel, which we will be launching later this year,” she shared.

Dynamo has been extremely popular as he personally has over 2 million twitter followers and out of this sizeable chunk most of his followers are from India.
“Last year we had Pawn Stars as a part of India tour where we had three generations viz. grandfather, father and son .We took them to Taj Mahal in Agra and it was a huge success with the masses and also on social media. Dynamo too has been another success story for us. We received good response for Dynamo being a non -Bollywood event in India and it's huge. In a span of two hours loads of youth, nearly 11,000, engaged with us on day 2 of the event and our system crashed,” informed Aiyer.

The channel also aired one of India’s most known television show, Tamas. When asked the reason for airing a show that was popular a couple of decades ago Aiyer avers, “Tamas was a huge critical success for us.  In fact it’s one of those topical shows that rated in the week that we've put in. I think Tamas was also important to us as it's a show which is three decades old and in today's Indian political scenario we have made it relevant to our young audience. It may be not relevant to the 45 plus age group audience to watch this show as they have grown up watching it, but it’s a big deal that the 18-25 year old youth today resonates with it. The show is an important part of India's history.”

Most of the regional GEC channels intent on bringing in the international formats to India but does HISTORY18 plan to air localised content for the benefit of its viewers?  “Currently we are not using local or Indianized content just to fill in the hours, instead we look out for content which is extremely relevant like The Greatest Indian and Bollywood @ 100 which have strong historic connotations to it and also have been a marketing and television success.  We have mix of 80-20 percent, and 80 percent content has been piped from international and parent A+E company,” she shared.

Aiyer is confident that going forward this genre will grow and as and when this happens, increase in revenue will enable them to produce original content. The idea is to increase the pie with content which is relevant to history and the audience.

Commenting on the channel’s social media and digital initiatives and briefing us about their TG she said, “When we look at television traditionally in India, HISTORY TV18 is a very niche genre, so therefore our marketing budgets tend to be in that kind of space. From day one of inception of the channel we have been focused on strengthening our digital footprints and our social messaging very strongly. Given the fact that today's India is young India with 60% population below the age of 35, mobile screen has become the primary screen and television screen has become a secondary screen for them. We have always endeavoured to focus on social and digital media very strongly.” Most of their properties are focused on digital and social media, supported by traditional and mass media.

Aiyer believes that HISTORY TV18 has made great progress as a channel. From a larger perspective the channel is glad to have lived up to its promise of the channel’s tagline viz. ‘Kuch Naya Dekho , History Bante Dekho and  bringing content in the new sub -genre  to the Indian audience.

The new line up in the near future includes Bharat Ek Khoj, one of the iconic shows on Indian television, for which talks are on with Doordarshan.
On asking how the year 2014 has been so far for the channel, she said, “As of now, year 2014 has been great for us. The last 10-12 weeks of this year has been superb, we are back in the 6 metros with the consolidated number one position. Yes there is ruffle happening between the top 3 players. HISTORY 18 is back with a bang in the metro markets and has also been the strong contender for the No. 1 position in the all India town class.”
The channel is also working on a game show, believed to be in an Indianised format, which is still in progress.

Commenting on shows that will work in their space and be popular with audiences Aiyer on a concluding note said, “In terms of shows, storytelling should be unique and something that has not been attempted earlier in the Indian audience space. Shows which we focus on should be integral to history and also make business sense to the advertiser. We are in talks with loads of clients and by the next quarter we should see something on history.”

A marketing professional with over 14 years of experience, Aiyer, before joining the Network18 group, was associated with brands such as Times Television Network, Arvind Mills, STAR India and Reliance Media Network. She has worked as General Manager, Marketing for HISTORY TV18 before she was appointed as the VP & Head, Marketing A+E Networks.