Adgully Exclusive | Inspiring people to care for the planet: Nat Geo's Keertan Adyanthaya

National Geographic Channel is synonymous to adventure, nature, exploration, history, wildlife and people in general. The channel was launched in India on July 1st, 1998. With a very varied listing of programmes, the channel has time and again come out with homregrown show formats.

The channel which is currently distributed to over 45 million homes in India, on an average gets over 54 million viewers a month. The channel all through the year has come out with various initiatives that featured adventure, nature and innovations. The initiatives by the channel have been well recieved and created a buzz with the fact that it partnered with valuable brand names. Combining the values of the brand with the initiative's central thought the channel churned out value experiences for its viewers.

Late in October this year the channel came out with the two initiatives. First being the channel's collaboration with Indian Army for its mega property' "Idea presents Nat Geo Mission Army". Through this series, the channel looked at taking five shortlisted citizens, through an exclusive journey, out of which only one among the five will win the grand prize of being a part of an Indian Army Mission abroad. The other initiative was the much talked about -Nat Geo Green Conclave 2010. The initiative served as an exclusive national platform to discuss, debate and determine the path forward for the planet.

Adgully caught up with the man of the hour Keertan Adyanthaya, Managing Director, Fox International Channel & National Geographic Network India, to find out more about the long list of initiatives from the channel and the startegy in place to do so.

The channel recently was in news for two of its initiatives with two leading names in the automobile industry like SkodaAuto and Volkswagen. Nat Geo in association with SkodaAuto flagged off the month long "SkodaYeti Right of Way Expedition'early this month. The initiative will be a 30 days of thrilling adventure across 4 states, 3000 kms of terrain, 17 rivers, 4 mountain ranges, 5 forests and endless miles of desert sand.

On the other hand quite different from the aforementioned initiative, the latter one with Volkswagen was to discover India's most innovative and creative ideas in the field of technology, reengineering, and environment.

While signing off, Adyanthaya, says, "I think our thought is what more and more young people and old people believe in today. Climate change, global warming, ozone depletion etc are facts that surround each one of us today and are not alien concepts anymore. These issues are also affecting the masses at a social and economic level. Besides climate change has been caused by our irresponsible living. So we ourselves are causing the problems that we are facing today. Hence it all boils down to our belief- inspiring people to care about the planet." | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]