Exclusive | Expanding footprint with home-grown shows: MTV's Aditya Swamy

MTV the original 'youth channel' has been known for offering an exciting mix of music and non-music programming (Bollywood, adventure, humor, fashion & style and fiction), presented in its inimitable style by Indian VJs. Since its launch in 1996, the channel has been well acclaimed for its unique humor and unmatched creativity. With over 545,624 hyperactive users, www.mtvindia.com continues to be the most popular youth hangout online.

With an idea of creating out-of-the-box entertainment , MTV is all set to launch it’s comic show, Time-Out with Imam. It is funny, outrageous, mocking and over-the-top, giving entertainment a whole new dimension and who better than Imam Siddique the most colourful personality on Indian television today to portray the role of the protagonist. The show aptly titled ‘Time Out with Imam – Ek Insaan, Kai Pehchaan’ in association with Swipe’s Fablet will premiere on July 14, 2013, every Sunday at 7pm on the channel. The series will also see real time radio integration in an episode for the first time in a show.

Adgully caught up with Aditya Swamy, EVP & Business Head, MTV India to understand the road map and their strategies with new seasons and shows in their kitty scheduled for the next quarter.  

MTV has always been known for their innovative programming .  Giving us an update on their upcoming new reality show with Imam Siddique, Aditya Swamy said, “For us this is the time of the year when we come out with new formats. This time also we have a new show format launching on 14th July 2013 called Time Out with Imam. We have created a new genre and that is ‘Comic Reality’ wherein we take the most in-famous reality star of the country and then chronicle a show around him and his life. We thought who else could fit in best other than the most colorful person around, Imam Siddique who has been grabbing eyeballs since his last stint in Big Boss season 6. ”

Hence where Siddique’s journey ended in Bigg Boss it continues now in a new format in Time Out with Imam. The show will focus on Imam in 13 different situations including his interaction with the building society where he resides , reconnecting with his Bigg Boss frenemies, making a music video on his favourite city Mumbai and styling an IPL team , Imam will be seen doing it all. It will portray his daily life situations and how he tackles them with unique solutions. Imam’s ultimate goal in life is to become a Bollywood star and the concept of the show is based on how he confronts these 13 situations to accomplish this feat . The 13-part series will also showcase Imam’s take on various high profile events that will be topical such as cricket, films, TV, music, fashion, etc.

As part of their promotional strategy the channel will also connect with its audience through the launch of a new app, Imamogram. This app helps fans to make bold statements to whomsoever they wish with a personalized message delivered by Imam himself. Speaking about this unique promotional strategy for the new show, Swamy said, “As a part of our promotions we have launched Imamogram, an app full of fun which plays around with Imam’s voice. If there is a need to contact a friend Imam will oblige making your message more entertaining and interesting and it will be delivered in his language.” It is interesting to note that within 48 hours of the app launch there were around 30,000 downloads which clearly indicates Imam’s popularity with his audiences. 

According to Swamy MTV has been constantly looking to launch new and innovative formats and this time round they have created a brand new genre i.e. Comedy Reality. With the youth of today constantly looking for  out of the ordinary entertainment MTV felt that  there was no one who could match up to Imam Siddique the total entertainer who has caught the fancy of the entire country . Everything about the show will be surreal including the situations, the promos and the marketing. Says Swamy enthusiastically, “Spending just a day with Imam is full of surprises, 13 weeks is going to be a riot!!!”
Speaking about the research that was carried out before taking up the new format, Swamy said, “We have a huge outreach on social media hence we figured out the kind of fan following Imam had during Bigg Boss, wherein we saw that 70 percent of his fan following came from the youth, thus convincing us about his strong connect with them.  Imam stands for fashion, glamour, style, entertainment, politics, celebrity which are high on youth data, so he was the best fit for our concept .”

The show will be supported by an extensive 360 degree marketing campaign. Apart from this there will be a lot of buzz in the market for the show too, but in Imam style! MTV is tying up with the rickshawalas of Mumbai to promote the show. There will be a team consisting of around 500 rickshawalas and promoters moving around the city, sporting the Imam mask. A huge promotion on television space too is expected among other outfits of Viacom18. Says Swamy, “The 360 degree promotional strategy will not only promote the show but will also help us to see if Imam grabs eyeballs.”

Swamy believes that since the show is new, fresh and innovative and such a format has never been attempted thus far, it will certainly woo the audience.  He is a strong believer of the fact that more powerful the idea the more business it will drive. Speaking about the strengths of his team he avers, “This idea too was created by our internal team. We always believe in home-grown ideas be it Roadies, Splitsvilla or Rush all our properties have garnered good business and numbers and that is what MTV is all about. We are known for generating ideas and believe more than just being in the business of television and that thought has made our brand stronger.” At a time when differentiated content was making news on various channels MTV had the gumption to air Roadies and bring a change in the mindset of today’s youth. The show is all about becoming achievers and stands for what the youth can prove to the world.

MTV is all set to launch Coke Studio@MTV season 3 which is one of the channel’s most awaited shows. Taking us through the insights of Coke Studio@MTV 3, Swamy said, “The idea and the concept remains the same and that is to bring together musicians from different genres under one roof to showcase traditional music in the contemporary form. What changes this time is the different line-up of music producers.” There is no doubt about the kind of buzz MTV Coke Studio has created and we have witnessed stalwarts like AR Rehman becoming a producer on the show. Adding further Swamy said, “The line-up would have few new producers as well as few producers who have done the earlier seasons of Coke Studio. This season would see three producers from last year who will participate in Coke Studio in a different manner.” A R Rahman, Salim-Sulaiman and Ram Sampath have been signed as producers of content for Coke Studio@MTV this year. Joining them would be Clinton Cerejo, Hitesh Sonik, Angaraag Mahanta (popularly known as Papon) and Amit Trivedi, who would be presenting diverse musical genres including both vocal and instrumental from traditional to contemporary, regional and folk. Other differentiating factors this year would include the look of the sets and also the cutting edge technologies used for sound and visual recording which have never been used in India before.

Speaking about one more successful show from the channel viz, Sound Trippin Swamy said, “Sound Trippin would be launching on the same day with Time out with Imam. So our audiences will see the two most entertaining people on the channel on the same day.  Sound Tripping, was a complete experiment from our side but I think it worked quite well. The response that we got from not only the audience but from music companies too was very encouraging. So this year with this show we have some new sponsors on board, including Woodland.”

With regard to their shows he shared his thoughts on the evolution of MTV’s audience. Swamy said, “Yes, of-course the audience has evolved with our concepts. Our core TG is the youth and today’s youth want happiness and quirky stuff which can entertain them. When we started with Roadies, there was  demand for  such content but now with the youth being more enthusiastic and passionate about whatever they do we have come up with different concepts and formats on our channel to keep up with them and cater to their needs.”

With a clear idea to move from computer screens to mobile phones MTV has been quite literally engaging their audiences on mobile screens as well. Elaborating further on this Swamy said, “We started off with three apps recently and these are Android Apps. Our Mother MTV India App gives updates on all kinds of news from the world of music. We believe that people look for fun in life so we launched an app called MTV Funny - it has everything from funny to current affairs and whatever happens in the world is part of our funny app. The third app tied up with MTV Splitsvilla is called MTV Hottie of the Day - it profiles the hottest person in MTV's ecosystem, be it VJ's or contestants on reality shows or people participating in our contests. Being the early days I cannot comment  much on  the figures but the downloads have just begun and it is a  journey we are committed to given the fact that the world is clearly moving from the computer to the mobile phone and we want to engage  on the mobile screen as well .”

Speaking about some more initiatives on the digital front at MTV, Swamy said, “First we had mobile radio service called MTV DJ Dial, which was a popular service, so we are keen to do something in that space. We are actually building our website and have doubled the figures of our business since January and it has certainly been a big jump. We are building ourselves on the social platform, our Twitter following is 10,000 and Facebook outreach is 15 million. But this year we are also focusing on the mobile space and recently won awards for our web content." He adds, “For web content we have to find good sponsors, good attractions with viewers and create another ecosystem for non-television content as well. Efforts are on to live up with our multi-plans mentioned earlier.”

The channel currently has 12 hours (7am-7pm) of music content alternating with three to six hours of original programming. With MTV currently airing  Splitsvilla and with the addition of 'Time Out with Imam', 'Sound Trippin' and 'Coke Studio', the channel will be airing  four home grown format shows this quarter in their  move to initiate innovative and differentiated content  to entertain their loyal viewers.

In the end note Swamy dispelled the notion prevalent among viewers that today MTV has less of music and more of reality and fiction shows. Negating this notioin he said “I would want to disspell the notion that we have moved away from music and stress on the fact that  we air music for more than 12 hours in a day and fictioin/non fictioin is only a small portioin of our daily programming.”