Movies Now redefined as MN+

The Times of India front page today announced the launch of MN+, a premium English movie channel. Channel being touted as the one catering to crème de la crème of premium television audiences is HD and intends showing top drawer Hollywood movies. The channel is emphatic that it is neither a replica of MOVIES NOW SD, nor would it share their movie library.

Vivek Srivastava, Senior Vice President & Head English Entertainment Cluster, announced, “MN+ is an all new English Channel experience that will showcase must-watch movies in HD – movies that are universally celebrated and debated. It will offer an experience that will make every moment valuable for the viewer, and thereby give them the Gold Class Experience of Hollywood.“  Just to give a flavour of the channel, here are the names of a few movies to be seen soon on MN+: The Hurt Locker, Argo, The Shawshank Redemption, Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows and more.
Adgully caught up with Srivastava for an exclusive interview yesterday. A few excerpts:

1) You believe that there is space for genre specific English movie channels in India?
There sure is. Gone are the days when you could just come up with one English channel and show everything there. Audience’ tastes are evolving, and hence, is English movie space. People are not only experimenting with new content but are also accepting and getting excited about it. While five years back only masala movies worked, now people show interest in three to four genres. Therefore, the need for segmentation.

Romedy Now was the beginning of segmented content for us - it caters to the love, laugh and live philosophy. We got excellent response for it. We realised that there is a room for a slightly intellectual English channel as well, and conceptualised Movies Now+. By intellectual, I do not mean that we would play only art movies. Movies like Birdman, Imitation Game, Inception and others have made money. Movies Now+ is home for the must watch movies.

2) Would the ad world lap up such content?
We have already got a good response from advertisers. Specific advertising categories we are looking at are travel, four wheelers and jewellery. We have dedicated sales team for channel.

3) So you are not selling it together with Movies Now?
We keep away from muddling the channels when we sell them! As a policy we believe that each channel needs its own space and focus. Neither the ad sales team nor the clients are same.
The deals have been done and a number of advertisers would be on board from day one.
MOVIES NOW being Number One in BARC ratings, has helped. The channel commands a 26% market share and has the highest reach in the category (Source: BARC, Wk. 21-24, 2015 NCCS AB, 15-50 yrs.’, All India 1Mn+ towns, Individuals). Advertisers realise that as a network we are committed to delivering what we promise.”

4) Have you decided on the format?
We have the right content, packaged in an appealing manner. We have different on-air properties for different day parts. 9 pm, seven days a week is largely Hollywood Select, then we have big movies of the month under Opening Night. We have another day part Great Adaptations would show movies adapted from books. We also have the Academy Club, which would show Oscar winning and nominated movies.
5) Have you done packaging in-house?
Yes, completely in-house. In fact, besides the production part, everything has been handled internally.

6) Is there a price rise from subscription point of view?
Individually, no.  However, collectively as a genre we are going up. From the future perspective, we have large focus on HD. Significant amount of revenue will come from these brands, and in the next 4 to

5 years these would become the main set for network such as ours.

7) Can you throw some light on your marketing strategy?
The marketing campaign is in two stages. Digital is the main part of the campaign. As we move forward, we intend moving from metro to mini metro market, and that is where the focus would be.

8) Are you expecting good response from mini metros?
Audiences from one lac plus towns watch our channels and consume this content. Two to three years back almost 80 to 85% of the viewership was from metros. The number now has come down to 70 to 75%.  Though it is not a big change, it is an indication. With the right consumer pull and marketing strategy a lot of numbers would come from mini metros.
India is on a high aspirational curve, and TV audiences across markets are familiar with the best of international world-class entertainment.
9)  Moving back to digital strategy, what is the media mix like on the digital front?

60% to 70% would be social media driven and the remaining 20 to 30% would be display advertising.
Interestingly, while two years back, digital spend used to be of 5 to 10% of the total ad spend, it has now gone up to 20 to 25%. 50 to 60% of this focuses on social media and remaining on activation.
10) What about programmatic buying? Do you see that happening in the near future?

Whether you buy display or search you need to contextualize it. If you are talking about the English movie set then I would go for the Hollywood communities. If you do a digital campaign it gives you the opportunity to identify the viewers and where they are hanging in the digital space.