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MUMBAI: In 2015, new players looked to make their mark in the infotainment and lifestyle space. While Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group entered the factual entertainment space through the ‘Living’ brand, Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India inked a joint venture with BBC Worldwide to launch BBC Earth.
Moreover, Kartikeya Sharma’s iTV Network forged a partnership with the Netherlands-based Television Entertainment Reality Network (TERN) for the India launch of an ultra-high definition (UHD) factual entertainment channel called Insight.
Chandra’s lifestyle and infotainment push
The first in the series of launches from Essel Group was the food and lifestyle channel Living Foodz, housed under subsidiary company Living Entertainment. While ZEEL shut down Zee Khana Khazana, Living Entertainment is expected to launch four more channels in 2016.
The company expects the new business to rake in revenues of Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) annually in next four to five years.
“The company (Living Network) that owns this (Living Foodz) will have roughly about Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million) of revenue from international markets and in next 6–8 months Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) from India. Thus, its revenue will cross Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) in next 12 months. I think this business would be Rs 1,000 crore in next 4–5 years annually,” Chandra had stated earlier this year.
He also said that the launch of the ‘Living’ brand in India is version 2.0 of Essel’s media business, which largely comprises entertainment and news.
Living Entertainment in India will be an extension of Living Network, which owns and operates a health and lifestyle channel called Zee Living in international markets. It will have a separate P&L and will operate these channels independently.
Zee Living India APAC CEO Piyush Sharma said that the entry of Essel into infotainment and lifestyle was about growth in an organisation’s lifecycle. The TG is SEC A, A+ and maybe B+. The focus will rest on the major and mini metros and large cities though the channels will have a pan-India reach. “We have presence in news and sports and now in entertainment. This was a logical move. The pie size is still very small both terms of viewer share and contribution to the overall ad pie. It is at a 1–2 per cent level. However, this segment is expected to grow.”
He noted that changes are continuous in a dynamic market. “Certain products will reach maturity sooner or later. In the entertainment channel space, you have a slew of channels and so there is audience agnosticism. But there are certain segments that are underleveraged, which, if played and positioned rightly, can give rich dividends. In times to come, infotainment and lifestyle are expected to grow.
“Audiences today are multiplatform and you need to reach out to them wherever they are and howsoever they would wish to consume content. You can then rightfully monetise the audience engagement with content. You aggregate consumers, engage them, and then monetise. This happens through a lethal product offering, a differentiated content offering, and also through huge investments made in the brand-building process.”
The reason for housing the infotainment and lifestyle channels under Living is to create a brand vertical. Entertainment is under Zee TV. Then there is &TV. Sports is under Ten Sports. Similarly, the aim is to create a position for a factual cognitive entertainment space.
“There is a limit to which you can keep extending a brand. The factual entertainment domain we are trying to address is more in line with the Living philosophy and in the holistic Living space. That is why the name Living captures more succinctly the essence of these channels,” Sharma explained.
Talking about Living Foodz’s differentiation strategy, he said, “From in-studio programming to out-of-the-studio programming where one sees food and travel, food and fashion, food and art. Food today is one of the most trending items. With food, you have the ability to have social listening skills at a different level,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zee Khana Khazana stood for a certain kind of programming focus and a certain kind of brand objective, which he feels had probably outlived its lifecycle. The main difference between the two channels is that Living Foodz is more hip, contemporary, and focuses on outdoors.
The channel has identified two time bands, morning and evening. The afternoon band is called ‘Goldmay’ time and evening is called ‘Sundown’ special. Sundown special has lifestyle programming and bits of food programming. The shows are produced in-house.
In course of time, the channel will look to cater to regional markets like Tamil and Telugu. “At an appropriate time, we will look at catering to this segment also.” This might take the form of separate channels.
According to Sharma, there is presently too much of a focus in the lifestyle genre on food. Food enjoys a disproportionate share in the market. In other areas, not much investment has happened. “Maybe somebody needs to invest in that space. Our aim is to take the lead in that,” he reasoned.
Therefore, there is scope to explore other aspects of the lifestyle genre with new channels. One new channel that will be launched under the Living brand is Living Zen, which will be all about health and happiness. The other channels are Living Travel, Living Homes, and Living Rootz. The last one will be an infotainment channel about history and culture with a special focus on India.
Is the market big enough for such micro segmentation? “It may or may not be big enough today, but going forward, the market should only expand. One size does not fit all. We will cater to the differentiated, discerning consumer. We need to give a sharp, neat, clean differentiated offering.”
Most content will be produced in-house and a bit might be acquired.
Living Foodz is present across six countries in the Asia Pacific—Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia, and Taiwan. It is also present in some African nations. “In about a year’s time, almost all the Living channels will be available across at least 25 countries in the world. This is about global content for global audiences. Content is not just being produced with an India-centric focus.”
Different regions will have different feeds. The teams will also be separate. Scheduling will depend on regional preferences.
Living is looking at the viability and significance of the various platforms. “It is important for us to be present on all platforms. Therefore, there will be livingfoodz.com. We will also launch a food app in a few months. Each platform will follow its own standalone business model.”
Chandra believes that factual entertainment is a huge market globally that needs to be tapped. Viewership of lifestyle and factual entertainment globally is 12–13 per cent of the total television content being consumed, whereas its share of revenue is 18–20 per cent. The total market size is Rs 1 lakh crore.
Sony–BBC Worldwide JV
Within six months of the disbanding of their distribution joint venture MSM Discovery (MSMD), SPN India showed interest in distributing factual entertainment channels to fill up the gap.
In April, SPN India had revealed its intention to form a strategic partnership with BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, to bring BBC Earth, the premium factual television channel, to India. However, negotiations between the two parties took several months. It was only in September that an official announcement was forthcoming of the JV between the two companies.
SPN India will hold the majority stake in the JV. The channel will broadcast in HD and will be available in Tamil, English and Hindi across India. Saurabh Yagnik, who heads SPN India English channel business, will also look after the new channel.
The channel will feature the wonders of the universe, including the work of factual filmmakers. It will cover various subjects from the smallest creature under the microscope to the limitless expanses of space.
BBC Worldwide executive VP Asia David Weiland noted, “In India, we have one brand BBC World News. We were looking at ways to get more brands back into India. We decided that we would rather do it in partnership rather than on our own. We have the BBC Earth brand and have expertise in content making. Sony Pictures Networks India has infrastructure. It made sense to join together.”
BBC Earth stands for premium factual content. “We look at different genres—documentaries, natural history, science, adventure, and travel. Our content investment, the technology, and storytelling are different from quite a lot of the factual channels that exist around the world. They are more about being personality and reality driven. We want to open people’s eyes to the amazing things that are going on around the world. The budgets for our programmes are comparable to drama budgets. They are made for millions of dollars. They are filmed over three or four years in several locations around the world,” Weiland explained.
He points out to a documentary series called ‘The Hunt’, which is narrated by Sir David Attenborough. There are also documentary series about the human universe, about sharks and more. “We give a wide range of content that we think resonates.”
Weiland further noted that pay TV has a dual revenue stream. “You invest in content. You get subscription fees from pay TV operators and advertising revenues from clients. India is different in that you have the third cost of carriage fees.”
He concedes that it would have been better if they had gone in with a partner back in 2007. After all, distributing two channels is tough compared to being part of a large network. “Should we have done a partnership before? Maybe. Were partners open to doing things? Maybe not. It is about the environment. One thing is that the channel space is more vibrant today. More channels are coming up. Three or four years ago, there was more uncertainty about where the market was going.”
When BBC Earth was set up, the company thought about strategies to enter different markets. “We felt that we needed a partner in India, so we talked to a number of people. SPN was there right at the start,” Weiland stated.
He said that research showed that along with news, BBC Earth was the other BBC brand that most resonated with audiences. “We could have launched a comedy or a sports channel. But when we came up with brands, we checked what consumers wanted around the world. Premium factual is a universal thing.”
Insight in India via iTV Network
This year, the Netherlands-based Television Entertainment Reality Network (Tern) teamed up with Kartikeya Sharma’s iTV Network to launch a UHD factual entertainment channel called Insight in India.
iTV Network will operate the channel in India on behalf of Tern. It will hold the licence for the channel. It will also oversee transmission, distribution, and ad sales of the channel. It has roped in Trilogic to look after the channel.
Tern has co-created 200 hours of exclusive content for the channel alongside production houses like Zodiak Media, KIEM and Strix. Tern is owned by a UK-based company called General Satellite, which provides technology solutions to pay TV platforms.
Earlier this year, Tern CFO Andrew Spriggs had told TelevisionPost.com that iTV Network was the local partner for playing out and broadcasting the channel. “Content is owned by us, iTV will run the channel on our behalf. They also have the licence for the channel.”
The companies are working on a revenue-share model. The partnership is limited to linear platforms. For non-linear platforms, Tern will chart an independent strategy.
Without ruling out the JV route in future, Spriggs clarified that there was no joint venture or equity component in the partnership.
“At the moment, there is no JV or equity partnership. We are working closely with them, and downstream our conversation might move down that direction, but I can’t comment on that any further at this point,” he had stated.
In light of this, it is interesting note that a recent IHS report says that the penetration of UHD TV sets in India will be just two per cent in 2019. Meanwhile, unlike most linear channels, Insight will have interactivity so that viewers can chat about the content on social media.
In India, the two partners will pursue an ad-plus-subscription revenue model. On the distribution front, TERN prefers a revenue-share model so that everyone has investment in the success.
“The business model is effectively going to be pay TV subscription model, which we will use to engage with advertisers. With UHD, at least you are able to engage the audience closely and wrap it around social media applications,” he averred.
Apart from TV, TERN plans to monetise its content on non-linear platforms. “We will be offering our content on over-the-top (OTT) and video-on-demand (VoD) platforms,” Spriggs said.
On the content front, the channel will have reality shows, documentary formats, and sports content targeting the 18–45 male demographics. The aim is to get into sports that appeal to people in the Indian subcontinent going forward.
“The first step is programming for global audience in English. Developing localised programming is one of the important things, which is why we have aligned with a partner like iTV Network in India,” he pointed out.
Spriggs expects the channel to be in a financially strong position in 18–24 months. The channel will be subsequently rolled out in other markets globally.
www.televisionpost.com/yearender/2015-when-new-players-thronged-the-infotainment-block/
Moreover, Kartikeya Sharma’s iTV Network forged a partnership with the Netherlands-based Television Entertainment Reality Network (TERN) for the India launch of an ultra-high definition (UHD) factual entertainment channel called Insight.
Chandra’s lifestyle and infotainment push
The first in the series of launches from Essel Group was the food and lifestyle channel Living Foodz, housed under subsidiary company Living Entertainment. While ZEEL shut down Zee Khana Khazana, Living Entertainment is expected to launch four more channels in 2016.
The company expects the new business to rake in revenues of Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) annually in next four to five years.
“The company (Living Network) that owns this (Living Foodz) will have roughly about Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million) of revenue from international markets and in next 6–8 months Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) from India. Thus, its revenue will cross Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) in next 12 months. I think this business would be Rs 1,000 crore in next 4–5 years annually,” Chandra had stated earlier this year.
He also said that the launch of the ‘Living’ brand in India is version 2.0 of Essel’s media business, which largely comprises entertainment and news.
Living Entertainment in India will be an extension of Living Network, which owns and operates a health and lifestyle channel called Zee Living in international markets. It will have a separate P&L and will operate these channels independently.
Zee Living India APAC CEO Piyush Sharma said that the entry of Essel into infotainment and lifestyle was about growth in an organisation’s lifecycle. The TG is SEC A, A+ and maybe B+. The focus will rest on the major and mini metros and large cities though the channels will have a pan-India reach. “We have presence in news and sports and now in entertainment. This was a logical move. The pie size is still very small both terms of viewer share and contribution to the overall ad pie. It is at a 1–2 per cent level. However, this segment is expected to grow.”
He noted that changes are continuous in a dynamic market. “Certain products will reach maturity sooner or later. In the entertainment channel space, you have a slew of channels and so there is audience agnosticism. But there are certain segments that are underleveraged, which, if played and positioned rightly, can give rich dividends. In times to come, infotainment and lifestyle are expected to grow.
“Audiences today are multiplatform and you need to reach out to them wherever they are and howsoever they would wish to consume content. You can then rightfully monetise the audience engagement with content. You aggregate consumers, engage them, and then monetise. This happens through a lethal product offering, a differentiated content offering, and also through huge investments made in the brand-building process.”
The reason for housing the infotainment and lifestyle channels under Living is to create a brand vertical. Entertainment is under Zee TV. Then there is &TV. Sports is under Ten Sports. Similarly, the aim is to create a position for a factual cognitive entertainment space.
“There is a limit to which you can keep extending a brand. The factual entertainment domain we are trying to address is more in line with the Living philosophy and in the holistic Living space. That is why the name Living captures more succinctly the essence of these channels,” Sharma explained.
Talking about Living Foodz’s differentiation strategy, he said, “From in-studio programming to out-of-the-studio programming where one sees food and travel, food and fashion, food and art. Food today is one of the most trending items. With food, you have the ability to have social listening skills at a different level,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zee Khana Khazana stood for a certain kind of programming focus and a certain kind of brand objective, which he feels had probably outlived its lifecycle. The main difference between the two channels is that Living Foodz is more hip, contemporary, and focuses on outdoors.
The channel has identified two time bands, morning and evening. The afternoon band is called ‘Goldmay’ time and evening is called ‘Sundown’ special. Sundown special has lifestyle programming and bits of food programming. The shows are produced in-house.
In course of time, the channel will look to cater to regional markets like Tamil and Telugu. “At an appropriate time, we will look at catering to this segment also.” This might take the form of separate channels.
According to Sharma, there is presently too much of a focus in the lifestyle genre on food. Food enjoys a disproportionate share in the market. In other areas, not much investment has happened. “Maybe somebody needs to invest in that space. Our aim is to take the lead in that,” he reasoned.
Therefore, there is scope to explore other aspects of the lifestyle genre with new channels. One new channel that will be launched under the Living brand is Living Zen, which will be all about health and happiness. The other channels are Living Travel, Living Homes, and Living Rootz. The last one will be an infotainment channel about history and culture with a special focus on India.
Is the market big enough for such micro segmentation? “It may or may not be big enough today, but going forward, the market should only expand. One size does not fit all. We will cater to the differentiated, discerning consumer. We need to give a sharp, neat, clean differentiated offering.”
Most content will be produced in-house and a bit might be acquired.
Living Foodz is present across six countries in the Asia Pacific—Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Indonesia, and Taiwan. It is also present in some African nations. “In about a year’s time, almost all the Living channels will be available across at least 25 countries in the world. This is about global content for global audiences. Content is not just being produced with an India-centric focus.”
Different regions will have different feeds. The teams will also be separate. Scheduling will depend on regional preferences.
Living is looking at the viability and significance of the various platforms. “It is important for us to be present on all platforms. Therefore, there will be livingfoodz.com. We will also launch a food app in a few months. Each platform will follow its own standalone business model.”
Chandra believes that factual entertainment is a huge market globally that needs to be tapped. Viewership of lifestyle and factual entertainment globally is 12–13 per cent of the total television content being consumed, whereas its share of revenue is 18–20 per cent. The total market size is Rs 1 lakh crore.
Sony–BBC Worldwide JV
Within six months of the disbanding of their distribution joint venture MSM Discovery (MSMD), SPN India showed interest in distributing factual entertainment channels to fill up the gap.
In April, SPN India had revealed its intention to form a strategic partnership with BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, to bring BBC Earth, the premium factual television channel, to India. However, negotiations between the two parties took several months. It was only in September that an official announcement was forthcoming of the JV between the two companies.
SPN India will hold the majority stake in the JV. The channel will broadcast in HD and will be available in Tamil, English and Hindi across India. Saurabh Yagnik, who heads SPN India English channel business, will also look after the new channel.
The channel will feature the wonders of the universe, including the work of factual filmmakers. It will cover various subjects from the smallest creature under the microscope to the limitless expanses of space.
BBC Worldwide executive VP Asia David Weiland noted, “In India, we have one brand BBC World News. We were looking at ways to get more brands back into India. We decided that we would rather do it in partnership rather than on our own. We have the BBC Earth brand and have expertise in content making. Sony Pictures Networks India has infrastructure. It made sense to join together.”
BBC Earth stands for premium factual content. “We look at different genres—documentaries, natural history, science, adventure, and travel. Our content investment, the technology, and storytelling are different from quite a lot of the factual channels that exist around the world. They are more about being personality and reality driven. We want to open people’s eyes to the amazing things that are going on around the world. The budgets for our programmes are comparable to drama budgets. They are made for millions of dollars. They are filmed over three or four years in several locations around the world,” Weiland explained.
He points out to a documentary series called ‘The Hunt’, which is narrated by Sir David Attenborough. There are also documentary series about the human universe, about sharks and more. “We give a wide range of content that we think resonates.”
Weiland further noted that pay TV has a dual revenue stream. “You invest in content. You get subscription fees from pay TV operators and advertising revenues from clients. India is different in that you have the third cost of carriage fees.”
He concedes that it would have been better if they had gone in with a partner back in 2007. After all, distributing two channels is tough compared to being part of a large network. “Should we have done a partnership before? Maybe. Were partners open to doing things? Maybe not. It is about the environment. One thing is that the channel space is more vibrant today. More channels are coming up. Three or four years ago, there was more uncertainty about where the market was going.”
When BBC Earth was set up, the company thought about strategies to enter different markets. “We felt that we needed a partner in India, so we talked to a number of people. SPN was there right at the start,” Weiland stated.
He said that research showed that along with news, BBC Earth was the other BBC brand that most resonated with audiences. “We could have launched a comedy or a sports channel. But when we came up with brands, we checked what consumers wanted around the world. Premium factual is a universal thing.”
Insight in India via iTV Network
This year, the Netherlands-based Television Entertainment Reality Network (Tern) teamed up with Kartikeya Sharma’s iTV Network to launch a UHD factual entertainment channel called Insight in India.
iTV Network will operate the channel in India on behalf of Tern. It will hold the licence for the channel. It will also oversee transmission, distribution, and ad sales of the channel. It has roped in Trilogic to look after the channel.
Tern has co-created 200 hours of exclusive content for the channel alongside production houses like Zodiak Media, KIEM and Strix. Tern is owned by a UK-based company called General Satellite, which provides technology solutions to pay TV platforms.
Earlier this year, Tern CFO Andrew Spriggs had told TelevisionPost.com that iTV Network was the local partner for playing out and broadcasting the channel. “Content is owned by us, iTV will run the channel on our behalf. They also have the licence for the channel.”
The companies are working on a revenue-share model. The partnership is limited to linear platforms. For non-linear platforms, Tern will chart an independent strategy.
Without ruling out the JV route in future, Spriggs clarified that there was no joint venture or equity component in the partnership.
“At the moment, there is no JV or equity partnership. We are working closely with them, and downstream our conversation might move down that direction, but I can’t comment on that any further at this point,” he had stated.
In light of this, it is interesting note that a recent IHS report says that the penetration of UHD TV sets in India will be just two per cent in 2019. Meanwhile, unlike most linear channels, Insight will have interactivity so that viewers can chat about the content on social media.
In India, the two partners will pursue an ad-plus-subscription revenue model. On the distribution front, TERN prefers a revenue-share model so that everyone has investment in the success.
“The business model is effectively going to be pay TV subscription model, which we will use to engage with advertisers. With UHD, at least you are able to engage the audience closely and wrap it around social media applications,” he averred.
Apart from TV, TERN plans to monetise its content on non-linear platforms. “We will be offering our content on over-the-top (OTT) and video-on-demand (VoD) platforms,” Spriggs said.
On the content front, the channel will have reality shows, documentary formats, and sports content targeting the 18–45 male demographics. The aim is to get into sports that appeal to people in the Indian subcontinent going forward.
“The first step is programming for global audience in English. Developing localised programming is one of the important things, which is why we have aligned with a partner like iTV Network in India,” he pointed out.
Spriggs expects the channel to be in a financially strong position in 18–24 months. The channel will be subsequently rolled out in other markets globally.
www.televisionpost.com/yearender/2015-when-new-players-thronged-the-infotainment-block/
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