2017 is a year of content evolution: Vaishali Sharma

Vaishali Sharma, Sr. Vice President - Marketing & Communications, SONY MAX & MAX2, gives her insights on the factors that are likely to drive growth for television in 2017 and how rural market will witness growth for broadcasters.

2017 is going to be a year of evolving narratives – with content consolidation on Television and greater experimentation on the internet; content refresh and a creative rural outreach.

Right from early 2000s, we witnessed an upsurge in newer genres emerging and offering differentiated content; this year we may witness a reverse trend leading to homogeneity within genres. One of the larger reasons for this is new measurement system that restricts the number of cuts within a stratum; hence making it tough to understand diverse audience likes and dislikes. This leads to an opportunity to develop content for the second screen. The second screen will be instrumental in pulling away the niche audiences because of its huge opportunity to customize and personalize content buckets for people across different strata of society and different cities through varied content platforms that are emerging today.

Rural markets will be the next area of growth for broadcasters and  in the next few years become a focus for both broadcasters and advertisers’ alike given the huge underlying potential of rural audiences. The broadcast industry should get a new lease of life when they shift focus to the rural segments. As Phase IV Digitization kicks in this will open greater avenues in rural.

I also feel that it is time for an overall programming refresh. For over 16 years, we have been telling stories with similar narratives across most channels and beyond a certain point we are caught in a creative rut. Previously, we did notice some movement in fantasy-mythological space; but today everyone is waiting to get the ball rolling. We might see broadcasters explore new themes, newer storylines and present content from beyond the realm of existing storytelling– supernatural, for example, could be the next big game changer for entertainment or new themes of empowerment who know what else gets explored.

Overall, content creators will need to shift from being just providers to influencers. There was a time when content on TV played a huge influential role in the lives of people but seems to have got lost somewhere. We need to now move beyond the current narrative and be an industry driven by vision and confidence.