MUMBAI: After an association of three years, Anil Ambani’s Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd (RBNL) and European firm RTL have ended their joint venture that operated action-oriented entertainment channel Big RTL Thrill in India.
Similar to CBS, the split marks the exit of RTL from the Indian television broadcasting space. The JV operated Big RTL Thrill, which aired English action-oriented shows dubbed in Hindi. RBNL bought out RTL’s stake in the equally owned joint venture in May this year.
Following the break-up, the channel will be rebranded as Big Thrill and will air local male-oriented action content. Even as the regulatory approvals are underway, RBNL is presently looking out for concepts and is set to invest in regional content for the channel by the end of the year. The company had forged the joint venture with RTL in May 2011.
RBNL CEO Tarun Katial says, “We will now invest in regional content by the end of the year, and hope to add local male action content and are looking for concepts. We bought RTL out in April end and are rebranding it as Big Thrill.”
It is currently airing the licensed content it already has and will replace this with local, original content as licences expire by the end of this fiscal.
“As Big Magic is in the comedy space, this will be in the male action space. Its distribution is national and is present on Dish TV, Reliance Digital TV, Videocon d2h and other large MSOs,” adds Katial.
This was RBNL’s second international joint venture, following its equally owned joint venture with CBS Studios International.
Earlier this year, RBNL also split with CBS, ending their joint venture that had lasted over three years and rolled out three entertainment channels in India. It marked the exit of CBS from the Indian TV broadcasting market where it was operating three channels Big CBS Prime, Big CBS Love and Big CBS Spark through the JV. Unlike Big Thrill, which will continue to run, RBNL had pulled the plug on the CBS channels.
Way forward
Even as its international joint ventures have ended, RBNL is now laying its focus on its two regional channels, Big Magic and Big Magic Bihar and Jharkhand.
The next move ahead for the company is to rebrand Big Magic Bihar and Jharkhand as Big Magic Ganga, which reflects the ethos of the location as Ganga is a part of Purvanchal. RBNL has applied for a name change, and the approval is pending with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
“The channel is now available nationally on all MSOs across the country,” says Katial.
Although the channel is not available on Tata Sky, RBNL has entered into a contract with the DTH player for this channel as well as Big Magic.
Similarly, the network is focused on the regional base, and has been building a network on local insights and content through Big Magic. The channel too was rebranded as a comedy channel in April this year from a light entertainment channel.
The makeover coincided with the launch of new shows like ‘Akbar Birbal’. Going ahead, the channel will bring second seasons of its shows ‘Nadaniyaan’ and ‘Raavi’ by the end of this month. The new season of ‘Nadaniyaan’ will see the popular comedian Upasana Singh in the lead role.
The content has leading producers creating shows which include ‘Mahisagar’ by Hats Off Productions and ‘Akbar Birbal’ by Sagar Pictures. ‘Nadaaniyan’ has now moved from Creative Eye to Sagar Pictures and ‘Raavi’ has moved to Swastik Productions.
“By the end of the month, we will have around 3–3.5 hours of original content on both the channels, without overlapping,” Katial says. “We do far better than most of the bottom-end channels and news channels today. Our GVTs are higher than news channels and the likes of Sahara. We have been doing well in our core markets, and in UP LC1 we are over 50 GRPs.”
On the advertising front, Big Magic claims to have sold its inventory. Katial says that the core market for Big Magic remains Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan, and that is where it spends its marketing dollars rather than in Mumbai and Delhi.
Meanwhile, for Big Magic Bihar and Jharkhand, Katial agrees that it is a tough market as there is a lot of overlap with Hindi GECs. “We have had to create content which is very different; people consume and do not overlap with the Hindi GECs. So it requires a marketing and content strategy with a lot of research,” he says.
For the same, the channel has a production team based in Patna, Bihar which is creating content locally and building the product.
Reliance-RTL JV splits, Big RTL Thrill to rebrand | TelevisionPost.com
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