Adgully Exclusive | Betting big on content: Myleeta Aga, BBC Worldwide Productions India

BBC Worldwide Limited, the main commercial arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), enhances the assets of the same. Having won the Queen's Award for Enterprise, an esteemed recognition for international trade in April 2009, BBC Worldwide has been a growing entity. It comprises of six core businesses, which includes Channels, Content & Production, Sales & Distribution, BBC Magazines, Home Entertainment and Global Brands. Myleeta Aga, General Manager and Creative Head of BBC Worldwide Productions India talks about content development and further plans in this arena in an excusive interview with Adgully.

Being an Emmy Award nominee, Aga's career spans across India, the Unites States, UK, Singapore and Indonesia. She has been at the Travel Channel, Discovery Communications and now is with BBC Worldwide.

"The BBC is a public funded trust organization. BBC Worldwide conducts all the international commercial activities outside of UK for BBC. For BBC Worldwide as an international media company and obviously UK's largest, India is naturally a very important market. India is growing, diverse and is closely aligned to UK, given our history. BBC Worldwide has offices all over the world but in this particular division which is "content and production" we have wholly owned businesses in three places only - which is France, US and India," she said stressing on how important India is today globally.

Aga has been associated with many renowned brands in the industry over her career and is currently producing the next season of Jhalak Diklha Jaa. "Reality television has evolved differently in India as compared to other parts of the world. I have spent 15 years outside India working in non-fiction television. Non-fiction television is actually a very broad term, it includes everything from news to documentary, lifestyle, entertainment programming to reality shows. It is the reality space that really has been growing a lot in India as opposed to factual entertainment," Aga said.

"Indian reality programmes tend to centre on entertainment; so it is dance, song, talent shows, with some formats like Jhalak Diklha Jaa. The partnership with Sony has been fabulous for this show and we are working very closely" she further added.

She goes on to say that every field has its own set of challenges. "TV is growing very fast. Content is also evolving. There is a lot of dynamism. It is an evolving market. All the challenges come with it. Finding great talent from technical people to on air talent and those who can work within the restrictions of schedules and budgets etc. is one of them," she explained.

Aga feels the Indian market has a tremendous potential, and hasn't reached saturation yet. "There are tremendous opportunities because there are all kinds of genres in programming that have not yet come to market. As more and more niche channels launch, food, lifestyle or travel, you will see more opportunities to do different programming. Of course the whole business model is yet to work itself out. It will take time; but obviously these are great opportunities. With BBC Worldwide we have an amazing catalogue in all of these areas, formats and programmes. So we are looking forward to this," she said.

Commenting on the quality of content that prevails today, she said, "As anywhere in the world, there is fabulous content and not so fabulous. I think we have done some interesting, different and popular things on television. Original content needs time and investment - you develop an idea, you put it out and refine it. So know what you are doing, do it well, but try to innovate because that's when you give yourself a chance to do something big and different. I always say you can predict a failure but you can never predict a hit."

Aga's key highlights of her association with BBC Worldwide had been during the shoot of the show Desi Girl for Imagine TV. "It was a large production and we were the guests in the homes of these villages. One of our proudest moments was when they not only let us in and allowed us to make this programme but even enjoyed it. When you make shows with real people, their sensibilities and working with them in a respectful and in a decent manner is not something that just happens. It comes about because you have a team of people who are respectful, who are properly trained and are able to get content without offending. We were very proud of our successful ability to work in difficult circumstances."

Aga further talks about plans to bring in new shows in the next one year. "We have got some BBC Worldwide formats that we would like to bring into the market. We also have plans to do fiction. We have a lot of different home grown ideas for non-fiction next year. We have ambitious plans and are committed to this market," she said. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]