Exclusive | Our key focus of 2014 is HD feed in India: AXN's Punjabi

As the English entertainment space in India heats up, each channel hailing from every network has pulled up their socks to be the best player in the game. While one may have just movies to offer, the other may put forward a mix of televised series and films together. Having repositioned itself a couple of years back, AXN coming from the MSM stable promises a concoction of action, thriller, drama and reality to its audiences.

The channel has beefed up its programming over the last couple of quarters with special focus on building prime time bands, new properties and weekends. The other important aspect that needs to be taken note of is the fact that the channel has moved it operations from Singapore to India, which, experts, believe has eased things for the network.

Adgully caught up with Sunil Punjabi, Business Head, AXN Network India to know the programming plans in place for the year, new shows to look forward to and more.

Entering the second quarter of the year, Punjabi said that the business so far has been reasonable. Though the overall sentiment was low, but jumping in April has been a delight for the channel. Speaking about how they are looking at strengthening the existing properties at the channel, Punjabi said, “Today some shows at AXN have a wider appeal going beyond the core English Entertainment viewer with shows like 24, Top Gear, So You Think You Can Dance and Sherlock wooing English-viewing audiences. AXN has always had the advantage of a higher base of viewers; our target is to make it even larger”.

The key focus areas for the channel this year, said Punjabi is on key tentpole properties like 24: Live Another Day, Top Gear, So You Think You Can Dance, and Sherlock; strengthen Big Thrill Friday: Close to US shows and feed the bing viewer with stripped shows on weekday primetime.

AXN has been on an acquisition spree by bringing in various popular properties and if sources are to be believed, the next big buy for the channel is Sex and The City! Will this new property fit it in AXN's current imagery of action and thrill? Replying to this Punjabi said, “AXN’s content strategy was always - ‘edge of the seat’ entertainment. We had added multiple genres under it. Outside, Action, Crime, and Investigation, we have strengthened our Drama pillar, keeping the overall consumer stimulus of ‘edge of the seat’”!

To promote their move of new buys and property inductions on the channel, Punjabi believes that social media will be leading the way as it has been a strong driver for AXN. “We will continue the base communication with our viewers on these touch points and continue to recruit new English viewers on the channel through multiple touch-points”, he said.

While the channel has a young and niche TG, how are they looking at optimizing the digital and mobile platforms? Shedding some light on this Punjabi said, “Our social media interactions have been far engaging. We also take up a lot of viewer feedback from our social interaction. We also do catch-up on some of our shows on Sonyliv.com. The Hannibal second screen app was a first initiative in the mobile space. We have lot of learning from this experience and are now working on a larger plan”.

The channel is all set to bring on the new season of 24. Speaking about the marketing and promotion plans for the season of 24 Punjabi said, “AXN has been the home to 24 for years. 24: Live Another Day which is a 12 episode special event will further cement our relationship with the show. With the Indian version of 24, the base of viewers is far larger now. We should be able to capitalize on this uptake with a larger base this year. Hence we have a multi-impact campaign tailored to markets and platforms accordingly”.

Though the channel repositioned itself to one that offers action, thrill, drama and reality, a large inclination is still towards thrill. Speaking about the new properties that one can look forward to this year Punjabi said that this year is full of strong properties. The channel just launched ‘Elementary s2 and Orphan Black: s2’. Soon there shall be a launch of Haweii-5-O s1 and s4; also the other season of 24. “On reality front, we will have 2 new seasons of Top Gear, the next season of ‘Hero’, So You Think You Can Dance s11, American Ninja Warrior s5 among others”. All returning season of our strong properties like ‘Elementary s3, Supernatural s10, Voice s6, Teen Wolf s4, Haweii-5-0 s5, among others would strengthen ‘Big Thrills Friday’ further”, he said.

Closing the conversation, when queried that since almost all of AXN’s competition channels are present on HD platform, will we be seeing AXN HD feed anytime soon in India Punjabi stated, “HD is a key focus for AXN this year and we will be launching HD soon”!