Adgully Exclusive | HISTORY Channel hits Indian TV sets; Aiming to increase the factual entertainment consumption!

HISTORY, the world's leading factual entertainment channel, launched its India edition as part of a joint venture between TV18 and A+E Networks. The launch is a significant milestone in the Indian media space as it marks an alliance between TV18, India's most dynamic television media conglomerate and A&E Networks, pioneers and world leaders in factual entertainment.

HISTORY is the first in a bouquet of factual entertainment channels to be launched by the joint venture. The channel is now available in 6 languages, English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali & Marathi, across all major markets in India and will reach out to more than 50 million households in the launch phase itself.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Sangeetha Aiyer, General Manager, Marketing, AETN-18, said, "The basic idea behind this initiative is to broaden the audience base and increase the genre."

Worldwide, the factual entertainment genre has undergone a transformation with greater emphasis on creating fact-based entertainment, thrill and action formats that appeal to a much wider audience.

She says, "The trend worldwide has evolved from fictional to factual. Also audience's viewing pattern works in a cyclic manner. Once there is fatigue level among the viewers in fiction then they switch over to factual channels."

In the mature markets fiction based content consumption is at 18% whereas the factual based content are at around 15%. But in Indian market the factual program consumption are at around 1.5% and are growing rapidly.

As told by Sangeetha Aiyer the channel wants to increase the factual entertainment consumption in the next five years. She says, "The whole experimentation with the format is that facts or the information becomes the premise and is presented in entertaining manner. Facts are given in small dozes and in entertaining way."

It has also been observed that a change has been happening over the last five years in a way viewers are consuming television. Good tv is what everybody is looking at.

Adding as an insight as to why people watch factual based programs, Aiyer said, "the sheer visual appeal, never before experience, picturesque locals, high production values, all work as attracting and differentiating factors." They also intend to come up with shows which fit into the sensibility and taste of Indian audience. On hindsight also adds not necessarily local for locals sake works though.

Aiyer, while talking about the brand associations; mentions that the channel already has 10 to 12 brands on board. "Brands like NIMA, SONY, ING VYASYA, are already in the kitty and others are still coming in!" she said.

As a channel, HISTORY has transformed itself by using very innovative formats that move away from the traditional concept of History being about dates, B&W footage, World War II etc. That DNA of innovation is being replicated everywhere including the marketing campaign.

It will be available across leading cable TV platforms such as HATHWAY CABLE, IN CABLE, DEN Networks and leading DTH platforms such as TATA Sky and DISH TV as well as other leading independent analogue and digital platforms in the country. They have already garnered 80-85% connectivity in all major markets.

The string of innovations began with the channel announcing its association with Salman Khan, Bollywood and India's most popular movie star to be the face of the channel in a first-of-its-kind attempt to broad base the appeal of HISTORY and the factual entertainment genre.

With such transformations and innovations, the channel is expected to push the acceptability and popularity peddle a few notches higher. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]