Adgully Exclusive | STAR One's Nikhil Mirchandani betting big on digital

STAR One was launched in the year 2004 under the bigger banner of STAR. The channel started off by programming a mix of shows with storylines that ranged from teenage issues, socio-legal issues etc. The channel saw some successful shows and immediately caught the audience attention with shows like Siddhant, Remix, India Calling, Hotel Kingston, Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai, Special Squad and of course The Great Indian Laughter Show followed with The Great Indian Laughter Challenge.

The show broke through the patent programming which included family oriented soap-operas; the channel was also the first one to explore the talent in the stand-up comedy space. The channel was the first one to launch a talent show and honour the best stand up comedian in the country and in its second season the show saw entries from across border too.

STAR One since then has constantly tried to reinvent it's programming with newer content and stayed relevant to its TG. The channel is trying to cater to the young adult across one million towns in India.

Adgully exclusively spoke to Nikhil Mirchandani, General Manager, STAR One and tried to find out more about the channel's motto to be '"young, vibrant, joyous and truly aspirational".

When asked if the channel is trying to reinforce its motto all over again, Mirchandani disagrees and says, "No. It might seem like we are planning to do that but we are not. Since its inception STAR One has always been a younger channel. Our shows look different, they are younger and they might seem disruptive from the available content across GECs. So it might look like we are doing something new."

He further adds that since the last two years there have been around two new shows launched on the channel and hence there was a large period of inactivity. But the channel has always retained its feel and target audience.

However the channel plans to launch around four shows in the weeks to come and all of them will be in the fiction space. The channel is looking forward to offer a wider range of fiction serials for its TG. "A lot of our shows have been running for almost two years and it is important to retire that content and offer fresher and newer content," Mirchandani adds.

Furthermore, he says that the channel has constantly come up with newer show formats like Maano Ya Na Maano, India's Magic Star etc. "Maano Ya Na Maano is a docu-drama, who does a docu-drama in a GEC. Nach Baliye was the first ever dance show on television, nobody did comedy shows before Indian Laughter Challenge. So it has been in our DNA, we have always done innovative and unconventional programming," he contends.

The channel doesn't wish to offer some of the typical reality shows that are running across youth channels based on dating and dare-devilry. The channel believes that it is in the GEC space and that it should remain rooted. "Our roots are as important as our wings and that is the young adult of today. Our TG represents the audience who is young at heart and believes in innovative content," Mirchandani adds.

Talking about the USP of STAR One, he says, "We will always try and deliver content that appeals to the young adult. Keeping with his/her behaviour, their needs and their viewing patterns we keep making our content more and more relevant. We are younger, more innovative and aspirational"

He further adds that the channel believes in undertaking research to understand the TG better. The channel researches their existing shows, researching the consumer behaviour and also research to find out the content needs of the audience.

"In fact when we go about with our marketing and promotional plans, we ask ourselves-if this has been done by some GEC than we are not going to go ahead and try the same. We believe in creating a unique look for most of our promos," Mirchandani says.

Elaborating further on the marketing initiatives, he says that the channel actually believes in show related promotions. The channel's marketing strategy is divided into two elements- reach and engagement. Hence the strategy is to reach the maximum number of target audiences and at the same time engage them better.

"So when I look at reach am looking at hoardings, radio, cinema and television. Then engagement activities include BTL activities through youth hangout zones, colleges, BPOs etc. However we also acknowledge the fact that the youth is available on digital too, so I as STAR One I over-invest on digital. I will spend approximately 15% of my budget on digital," he explains.

STAR One though might not seem like a market leader at this point of time, but it surely seems to be exploring a new content strategy for the young audience. The content of the channel not only caters to the young and vibrant but will cater to the smaller towns across the country, thus defying the belief that ambitious youth is synonymous to metro cities.| By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]