Exclusive | With DD Direct+ we expand our viewer-base: MIX's Vyas

When Multi Screen Media (MSM); launched its music offering Sony MIX back in 2011, it promised to be a destination for music and all that belongs to it. The launch of MIX, A pure Hindi Film Music channel, was a step towards an almost established market.

Over the years, however, MIX has survived in the heat of competition, but has also carved a niche for itself among Hindi music lovers. In addition to the extensive music playout, MIX has maintained its undeterred focus on content by producing packaged shows offering right from user generated content to people profiles executed in the most unmistakably musical fashion.

The channel, which is available on major DTH platforms, has recently made itself available on DD Direct+ as well, thus widening its reach and expanding their viewer-base.

Adgully caught up with Neeraj Vyas, EVP & Business Head, Sony MIX & Sony MAX to know about the same and more.

A few months back, MIX got the popular ‘Picture Pandey’ on ‘TV Ka Pehla Radio Show’. That, we believe was a very unusual programming tactic. Sharing his thoughts on the same and how have things changed from then on, Vyas said, “‘TV Ka Pehla Radio Show’ (TKPRS) shows our intent to offer original programming within the space of music. Considering the big role Bollywood plays in Hindi music, it was but natural to tie up with a radio station like Fever, which also shares our intent on being a focused music channel and put together a bouquet entertainment of Bollywood celebs and their musical stories. We have had amazing interest from the advertisers on associating with this unique show and its appeal”. Vyas states that in the plan to offer more of such unusual concepts, they are currently focusing to build TKPRS and MIX Solos the original differentiator for MIX within the Music genre.


As mentioned earlier, MIX entered a market with already established players. Speaking about what worked for the channel to garner good numbers, Vyas said, “Even with multiple players a whole of them established, it was our feeling that there was need for a committed Music Channel that offers ‘Music and all that belongs to it’ as opposed to the space being occupied by Bollywood trade channels. It was this focus on content that got us healthy viewership”. While the channel has garnered highest reach in the genre, sharing the strategies being adopted to push it further up the scale, Vyas said, “With the highest reach, it is now a matter of time for us to become a strong contender of the numero uno position”. Sharing some special activities being done on the digital front, he said, “On the digital front, we shall soon be looking at a wider Social Media Marketing initiative with new partners and ideas in place. TATA Docomo MIX Voice contest was a wonderful coming together of a youth brand, leveraging MIX’s platform and our social media presence to execute a nation-wide hunt. In addition to digital, our initiatives like Mixipedia ensure our viewers have interactivity with the brand through SMS contests”

Speaking about how the digitization process has facilitated the growth of the channel, Vyas opined, “Digitization helped all the long tail genres including music. In the analog environment, larger business plan channels like GEC and Movies enjoyed a huge reach advantage. Due to digitization, the better channel visibility and EPG environment boosted long tail genres’ reach and got us new viewers. With its availability now on DD Direct+ along with other DTH operators, speaking about the kind of advertiser mix that they now looking at, he said, “Given our earlier distribution, we had active relationships with all brands wanting to reach out to metros and tier 1 & 2 towns. Now with our availability on DD Direct+, the channel affords brands a deeper and wider reach into LC1 towns and rural India. We expect our advertiser mix to bring in brands wanting to reach out to these smaller towns and hard to reach interior India pockets”. Vyas mentions that DD Direct+ is an FTA platform; hence the question of subscription does not arise. “MIX’s presence on DD Direct+ affords us the highest reach in the genre coming in from wider and deeper geographies of India. This should make us a mandated music channel in the media plan and boost our advertising revenue”, he stated.

A recent trade campaign by the channel said 'More reasons to add Sony Mix to your media plan'. Elaborating on this statement, Vyas said, “MIX always made for an indispensable option when advertisers built their media plans given the facts that we are the only true-blue music channel in the genre with one of the largest music databases serving music to everyone in the family. The present viewership traction riding on the back of successful digitization roll out coupled with our distribution initiatives provides the additional reasons of higher reach and deeper penetration to advertisers for making MIX an irreplaceable part of the media plan.

Lastly, when queried about that changes that they foresee at the channel with the proposed 10+2 ad cap, he said, “The 10+2 ad cap coming in simultaneously with the digitisation roll out is very significant. While the ad regulation builds depth of viewership by boosting time spent by the viewer, digitization gives us the reach that we were shortchanged from in analog environment. So, overall the genre should now come into its own and help us leverage it to get better advertising revenues”.