Why Q Marathi is betting big on the best of the digital creator economy

QYOU Media has forayed into the Marathi GEC space with Q Marathi. The family-oriented channel, launched on March 15 in the FTA space, promises to curate an interesting mix of content from leading Marathi digital creators. The channel will bring local influencers on TV, thus deepening synergies with the creator economy, say Channel Head NeetaThakare and Programming Head of Q Marathi Ashutosh Barve, in an interview with Adgully. Edited excerpts:

There are already around nine Marathi channels? What is your disruptive content strategy to stand out?

Neeta Thakare : We are aware of the fact that there are already so many channels and each of them place their own USP and have their own kind of content, but when we decided to do this, we wanted to just have something completely different. We decided that we should do something which is mostly towards the digital creator economy. Our approach is to get them onto our channel and that is the USP. We never thought of a regular saas-bahu channel. Right from the conceptualisation stage, we were very clear that we wanted to get the best of the digital creator economy. Hence, obviously, we went ahead and thoughtfully created this with the digital creator economy as the USP.

Ashutosh Barve: There are already Marathi channels which provide a mix of dramas, movies, mythological, etc. We realised that there is a young Marathi-speaking audience, who is moving out of the TV and moving towards digital content. Why not bring the content that they like onto television?

Have you tied up with any creators already?

Ashutosh Barve: In the last two years, the entire content conception patterns of people have changed. We were all undergoing a lockdown, watching different kinds of content that we could. Different creators emerged in this period, who were creating content out of their homes, offices, etc. A whole new set of creators emerged, who have now become digital stars. Now, we have tied up with several high-profile creators. Right now, we don’t want to actually mention names, rather focus on the fact that we get the best of creators and that we are stitching genre-wise content together. So, if there are four different creators who make really good dramatic series, we would like to bring them together. The idea is to stitch the best of the creators together. We have 17 of the top 20 most popular digital creators.

What has been the response from the advertisers? Have the market sentiments returned to the pre-pandemic levels?

Ashutosh Barve: We have got four of the biggest advertisers as our partner founder advertisers. We got four of the biggest advertisers in FMCG, the beverage industry, and health and fitness.

What are the plans for audience engagement?

Ashutosh Barve: Currently, we have exceptionally different content that you have not seen on TV before. We will be creating contests, inviting creators to share their content with us. We have seen the growth of the short-format economy. TikTok, Moj, Josh, etc., have grown exponentially. There are creators all over the state. We would love our channel to be the go-to destination for the creators. We want to engage with them through contests, call-for-action activities, where they can share their content with us. Also, in the future, we would like to run some contests. We would love to do more in the direction of shorter-format content. So, there are a lot of interactions and engagements that we have thought of. To begin with, I want the consumer to consume, appreciate, understand the content, give us feedback, and then we start our engagement journey with them.

Neeta Thakare: Being a digital creator economy kind of a channel, there will be lots more audience engagement that we will be looking forward to.

Do you have any plans for the overseas markets? How do you plan to reach out to the diaspora community?

Neeta Thakare: That we will take up in phase two or three. At this point in time, we will concentrate on the Indian market, keeping the fact that our channel is for the Maharashtra state.

How do you foresee the ratings game for the Marathi entertainment industry as against the Hindi entertainment segment?

Neeta Thakare: The Marathi industry certainly has done well keeping in perspective the way the No. 1 channel is in terms of ratings. And the regional channels seem to be viewed more by the viewers than probably the GECs at this point in time. Broadcasters are looking at more of these kinds of regional channels to launch. Obviously, I am sure from a ratings perspective, too, there is more and enough for a new player also to come in.

OTT platforms have burst into the scene with unorthodox content that appeals especially to the millennials? Did it have an impact on the broadcasters’ overall content strategy in general?

Neeta Thakare: Not really. The content viewed on OTT obviously is still very much like a metro phenomenon at this point in time. There is going to be no impact of OTT on broadcasters. There still are channels that are launching. There still are 952 channels, with more launching. Obviously, there is no immediate effect on whether it is regional – everything will move. Did print ever go off when TV came in? No. So, I don’t see that impacting TV very much at this point in time.

Ashutosh Barve: About 12 or 13 years ago, we all said the same about OTTs. There has been a change in audience demographic, where the upper ends of the spectrum of TV viewers are moving towards OTT. On the lower end of the spectrum, they are moving towards short-format content. The audience profile is changing. More people are watching OTT. But, the TV viewership is only growing; it is healthy. We are trying to ride that wave, where we have a television platform, but we also have a very strong presence of the premium Marathi OTT content, which is going to play on our channel as well as short-format, fun, grass-root level rooted massive content that is going to be our channel. We are hoping to capture both ends of the eyeballs of the spectrum.

How do you foresee the future of the Marathi OTT space? Do you have any plans for the OTT segment in the near future?

Neeta Thakare: That’s an interesting question. Yes, maybe we could, but not immediately. It is a thought. We are looking at the future. We are anyways a digital creator economy kind of a network, because we already have a Q Marathi coming up. This could be something that we may want to look at, but not immediately. Not in another one year, at least.

Ashutosh Barve: I would like to say that I want OTTs to become us! I would like to have this conversation with OTT players who want to come to our platform.