MSM looks to build a better connect with the women audiences

The Chief Executive of Multi Screen Media talks about the new sports channel Sony Kix and Sony Pal and the successful performance of the highly popular IPL Season 8.

In a recent media interaction with NP Singh, Chief Executive Officer of Multi Screen Media spoke about the performance of the various channels under the MSM umbrella. He emphasised on the fact that they are ready to experiment with new genre of content and break away from the long standing belief that the channel has till date focused on male skewed content. In the near future they intend to rework on their content strategy and to bring in a change in the perception of the Channel. 

“A lot of our recent shows were clearly launched keeping the female audiences in mind, but it was perceived to be male centric. In the next three months, we will be launching shows, which will be focused on female audiences,” says MSM CEO NP Singh.

Sony Pal which was launched with much fanfare last year had to take a backseat since the content distribution etc did not work for the channel. However in the present avatar Pal is airing repeats from Sony, Sab and has been gaining traction from the audiences. Although this strategy has so far helped them to garner a substantial viewership does that mean they intend to continue with the same theme? He responded by saying “While launching the channel we had only one objective to appeal to the Indian Heartland and in a way Sony Pal has achieved that goal. We are happy with the performance of Sony Pal but now our objective is to get more female oriented shows on board to keep them engaged. With keeping that in mind we will be bringing in newer content and launching more original shows on Sony Pal.”

The other shows which have doing well for the channels are Maharana Pratap, Itna Karo Na Mujhse Pyaar, Hanuman, Indian Idol Junior, CID and Aahat. He also stated that post IPL, the newly launched show, ‘Sankatmochan Mahabali Hanuman’, has started to build a connect with the audiences and is working in their favour. He talked about the launch of Suryaputra Karn by the end of June bringing in a fresh perspective which will attract the female audience as well. “The story of Karan has never been shown on TV as a standalone property it has always been a part of Mahabharat. Hence i am sure that the new storyline will do well,” opined Singh.

The season 8 of the Indian Premier League has done well in all fronts. According to TAM data there was a 20% growth in viewership and revenue as compared to season 6. The league has also delivered well be it  in terms of advertising revenues as well as in terms of reach. While talking about the season 8 of IPL he stated “The last season was very unique because it was played right in the middle of the election period and therefore making comparisons between seasons 7 and 8 would not be right.  But if we compare season six and eight, the growth has been encouraging.”

While the network aired this season of IPL in six different languages, it did not sell the property separately for different language feed but going forward it is planning to sell the ad spots for the language feeds separately. He also gave data that in terms of viewership the highest came from Hindi on Max, then from English and then from Tamil, Telugu and Bengali.

The highest viewership for the league came from Sony Max, followed by Sony Six. “Within IPL, High Definition (HD) has done well as we saw growth in both revenues and viewership. There is demand for HD content in the market,” opines Singh.

MSM also launched its second sports channel, Sony Kix, this year in April with an aim to broadcast programmes on sports and entertainment in India. He stated “In the last three years we have aggregated a lot of sports content which we are currently showcasing on Sony Six and in some cases also on Sony Pix. With Sony Kix now coming in it gives us the flexibility of multiple language feeds and that is something we did with IPL. The channel will also give us a platform to showcase newer content which were sitting on other channels of the network. Plus we are acquiring a lot of new rights to sports properties which we will announce in the next couple of months.”

NP Singh also talked about Football as the other sport property that they are looking forward to invest in and sees a great market in India as it connect the youth with it. While talking about acquiring stake or starting their own league he believed that at this moment they are not ready for it but at the same time they are ready to think about it in the coming time.

MSMs new offering with YRF Piku has been a success and soon they intend to join hands with Balaji Motion Films to launch the biopic ‘Azhar’ starring Emraan Hashmi which will launch in the second half of 2016.

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