Azaad will offer all the digital virtues that TV does not: Bharat Kumar Ranga

Beginnen Media recently launched its new channel, Azaad, touted as India’s first rural entertainment channel. With its premise of ‘People First. Rural First’, Azaad seeks to service a latent demand of an underserved audience segment with a huge untapped opportunity.

Beginnen Media is spearheaded by Bharat Kumar Ranga, a stalwart whose influence in the broadcast business continues to inspire innovation in the Media & Entertainment industry. Ranga is known to inspire and give a new dimension to the world of media business by developing High Performance, Customer-focused teams that deliver exceptional service and profits.

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He is recognised as a ‘Performance Accelerator’ because of his uncanny ability to identify market opportunities and to deliver extraordinary results. His global experience and cultural fluency have led to the creation of eleven new platforms that were successes across the world.

In an exclusive video interview with Adgully, Bharat Kumar Ranga, Managing Director, Beginnen Media, speaks about advertisers’ response to the new channel, sponsors onboard for Azaad, thought behind putting the leadership team and a lot more.

What made advertisers invest in Azaad?

Our advertisers have shown decent response so far, although we have not been able to put the original content as of yet, which is planned for the near future with brand new shows and content which will reflect the rural areas. Advertisers still joined hands with us pretty soon and quickly. Hindustan Unilever is one of them, including Loreal and Himalaya, which are some of the clients that have already come onboard and some more are expected any moment now.

The important thing to note is that the advertisers are showing interest to have long term deals with us and the reason behind it is that they find value in the digital virtual that we are offering in television. With the clear cut targeting of the audience that is happening, the wastage of communication campaign is very less. The brand experience is fantastic and safe, given that the targeting audience is consuming certain kind of content only, unlike digital where one is not sure about the content and what your target consumer is consuming at the point when your promotion is running.

From a brand safety standpoint, programmatic advertising standpoint, and specific targeting standpoint, TV does not offer all kind of virtues that digital offers, but I think Azaad does offer that and this has excited some of the large advertisers to enter into a long term relationship with us. I hope that we will be able to serve them well and be able to maintain mutually beneficial partnerships with them.

Edited excerpts. Watch the complete interview below: