Dileep Kumar
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It is quite possible that Vikram Mehra, the chief commercial officer (CCO) at Tata Sky, one of the leading direct-to-home (DTH) television service providers in India, had his daily routine in mind when working on the concept of Everywhere TV. As he says, he “loves to read, travel and catch up on TV” when he gets the time.
Most of Mehra’s education happened in Lucknow’s top institutions—the Mahanagar Boys’ Inter College (now Montfort Inter College), the Colvin Taluqdars’ College and the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow—and the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
Among the many products that have been launched during the 10 years Mehra has been with Tata Sky, Everywhere TV is perhaps the most revolutionary—Live TV is no longer restricted to your home, it’s available on your smartphone, tablet, and now, also on the desktop or laptop. Mehra spoke to us about the product, and some rather interesting viewing trends. Edited excerpts:How have subscribers reacted to Everywhere TV?
The Everywhere TV service was launched last October. While the subscriptions in the initial phase came from tech lovers, it is now growing basis customers’ interest in watching content on the go...high-profile events like the general election, IPL (Indian Premier League) and football World Cup have acted as the catalyst in this growth. The biggest achievement of our service has been the high repeat usage, indicating high subscriber satisfaction.
The service was envisioned as one that would offer Live TV to people on the move. Have consumers caught up with that idea?
The initial results are encouraging, wherein more and more working people are using the service to watch matches/news/serials during their commute in the evening or listen to music/audio channels during their morning walk.
The most surprising element for us has been the high usage of the service within the home, using the home Wi-Fi, and also by teenagers and children....basically turning the smartphone into a second TV at home during prime time, when parents are controlling the TV.
The other unexpected customer segment has been the student community living in hostels and young professionals (software/media etc) living as paying guests...many of them have been using our service as a substitute to having a TV in their room. Typically it is an extension of their parents’ Tata Sky connection...and getting 70-plus TV channels forRs.2 per day is a good deal for all.
Is there any particular genre or channel that is more popular?
Outside home usage is primarily done by working people, and hence reflects their typical content preference...sports, soaps and news dominate. One of the highest watched genres of content is “soccer”.
Are there any particular cities or towns that seem to be more excited about Everywhere TV?
We noticed certain towns performed noticeably well after metros such as Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore. Cities with a large student population living in hostels, and cities with software engineers or people working in media and living as paying guests, were the early adopters of the Everywhere TV service. Surprisingly, towns like Kota, which houses students that come to prepare for professional exams, showed a growing number of Everywhere TV subscribers. On speaking to a few subscribers, we found out that parents were comfortable with activating the Everywhere TV service for their children living in Kota on their provided mobile phones, which were linked to their home connections out of Jaipur or Lucknow or Raipur.
Everywhere TV is now also available on the desktop. How will that service work?
Today laptops are found more among youth as a part of their educational curriculum or as an essential aid at home. Subscribers simply need to download the app to their desktops or laptops from the Tata Sky website, and activate it by giving a call to the call centre.
Your DTH rivals have launched similar apps, in partnership with the likes of DittoTV. Your effort has been completely in-house. Was this a conscious decision?
It took us around 24 months to understand what our customers want from a mobile service and design our Everywhere TV accordingly. Whether it’s the navigation or the functionality or the payment methodology, everything in this service has been designed from scratch by the Tata Sky team for the use of customers only. Our objective mandatorily with every innovation is to “Keep it simple to use” for subscribers and build the user interface similar to the TV experience. Hence all the features developed, such as remote recording, Wi-Fi remote control, account info and Live TV, are available under a single app.http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/tDjOVCK9dgfQNp7Sqx0YvM/Vikram-Mehra--Going-places.html
Most of Mehra’s education happened in Lucknow’s top institutions—the Mahanagar Boys’ Inter College (now Montfort Inter College), the Colvin Taluqdars’ College and the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow—and the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
Among the many products that have been launched during the 10 years Mehra has been with Tata Sky, Everywhere TV is perhaps the most revolutionary—Live TV is no longer restricted to your home, it’s available on your smartphone, tablet, and now, also on the desktop or laptop. Mehra spoke to us about the product, and some rather interesting viewing trends. Edited excerpts:How have subscribers reacted to Everywhere TV?
The Everywhere TV service was launched last October. While the subscriptions in the initial phase came from tech lovers, it is now growing basis customers’ interest in watching content on the go...high-profile events like the general election, IPL (Indian Premier League) and football World Cup have acted as the catalyst in this growth. The biggest achievement of our service has been the high repeat usage, indicating high subscriber satisfaction.
The service was envisioned as one that would offer Live TV to people on the move. Have consumers caught up with that idea?
The initial results are encouraging, wherein more and more working people are using the service to watch matches/news/serials during their commute in the evening or listen to music/audio channels during their morning walk.
The most surprising element for us has been the high usage of the service within the home, using the home Wi-Fi, and also by teenagers and children....basically turning the smartphone into a second TV at home during prime time, when parents are controlling the TV.
The other unexpected customer segment has been the student community living in hostels and young professionals (software/media etc) living as paying guests...many of them have been using our service as a substitute to having a TV in their room. Typically it is an extension of their parents’ Tata Sky connection...and getting 70-plus TV channels forRs.2 per day is a good deal for all.
Is there any particular genre or channel that is more popular?
Outside home usage is primarily done by working people, and hence reflects their typical content preference...sports, soaps and news dominate. One of the highest watched genres of content is “soccer”.
Are there any particular cities or towns that seem to be more excited about Everywhere TV?
We noticed certain towns performed noticeably well after metros such as Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore. Cities with a large student population living in hostels, and cities with software engineers or people working in media and living as paying guests, were the early adopters of the Everywhere TV service. Surprisingly, towns like Kota, which houses students that come to prepare for professional exams, showed a growing number of Everywhere TV subscribers. On speaking to a few subscribers, we found out that parents were comfortable with activating the Everywhere TV service for their children living in Kota on their provided mobile phones, which were linked to their home connections out of Jaipur or Lucknow or Raipur.
Everywhere TV is now also available on the desktop. How will that service work?
Today laptops are found more among youth as a part of their educational curriculum or as an essential aid at home. Subscribers simply need to download the app to their desktops or laptops from the Tata Sky website, and activate it by giving a call to the call centre.
Your DTH rivals have launched similar apps, in partnership with the likes of DittoTV. Your effort has been completely in-house. Was this a conscious decision?
It took us around 24 months to understand what our customers want from a mobile service and design our Everywhere TV accordingly. Whether it’s the navigation or the functionality or the payment methodology, everything in this service has been designed from scratch by the Tata Sky team for the use of customers only. Our objective mandatorily with every innovation is to “Keep it simple to use” for subscribers and build the user interface similar to the TV experience. Hence all the features developed, such as remote recording, Wi-Fi remote control, account info and Live TV, are available under a single app.http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/tDjOVCK9dgfQNp7Sqx0YvM/Vikram-Mehra--Going-places.html
