Exclusive | Actively engaging with the viewers: MOVIES NOW's Ajay Trigunayat

MOVIES NOW, India’s most preferred English Movie Channel celebrates its 2nd successful year this December. Showcasing the Best of Hollywood in phenomenal High Definition, MOVIES NOW leads the category with Stunning Pictures in 1080i and Awesome 5.1 Surround Sound, truly re-defining the audio-visual experience of watching movies in India. Since its launch on 19th Dec 2010, MOVIES NOW has challenged the status quo of the category, grown from strength to strength every week, resulting in a robust 30% channel share across 8 metros for 2 years now.

Adgully caught up with Ajay Trigunayat, CEO, English Entertainment Channels to congratulate him and also learn about the immense growth in terms of reach, TSV, audience engagement and their new initiatives in this category. Sharing the three key milestones/high points of the two year journey, Trigunayat said, “We have led the category since our launch and  2011-2012 have seen immense growth in terms of Reach, TSV, Audience Engagement and  consequently Revenue. In the past twelve months, we have effectively consolidated our leadership position, dominating the category with a phenomenal 30% in comparison to other competitors.”

“In 2012, we built on the library-led movie concept by offering the viewers a plethora of blockbusters packaged as captivating properties celebrating the Best of Hollywood Icons – Best of Cameron, Best of Leo, Best of Spielberg, All the Bonds in HD etc,” he adds.       

Looking back Trigunayat  consider the channels  greatest achievement to be the fact that MOVIES NOW has catapulted the entire category viewership by a whopping 50% with an increase in GRPs from 50 to 74 points. It has also seen a phenomenal increase in the viewership which has risen from 46 million to 56 million viewers per week!

In terms of initiatives adopted by MOVIES NOW in order to celebrate its 2nd anniversary, he said, “We have always believed in actively engaging with the viewers. With that thought, we designed an interactive contest as a part of our 2 year celebration, where exclusive MOVIES NOW merchandise was up for grabs every hour and  one lucky winner won a trip to Hollywood.”

The English Movie Channel Category has been under-monetized. It has been a challenge to leverage the urban affluent English movie viewing into the advertising revenue it deserves.  Sharing the challenges they faced during the last two years he said, “Our biggest challenge is the perception of our category being niche. With a Reach of 56 million viewers and TSV (Time Spent per Viewer) of 55 minutes per week which is almost the size of any possible European country, I don’t really think the category can be called niche.”

On completion of  2 successful years with its viewers, the channel promises them a phenomenal and entertaining year ahead.

MOVIES NOW constantly keeps innovating itself to engage with the fans and followers in the social media sphere. In the past two years, the channel has jumped to the top spot with 2.3 million fans on Facebook. The channel is in the top 5 leading brands on Facebook  and in the top 3 fastest growing pages on Facebook in India in the media category. The channel maintains a strong fan-following on Twitter with a lead of 13000+ followers. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal@adgully.com]