Adgully Exclusive | It was all because of a strong strategy of recognizing the opportunity: RBNL's Anand Chakravarthy
According to latest ratings, the channel delivers 1.4 crore unduplicated audiences over 4 weeks in UP, MP, Bihar thus, making it the No. 1 media platform in the region with 31-34-TAM ratings.
Adgully's curiosity to know the channel's strategies, new shows, the factors of success etc, lead us to an exclusive chat with Anand Chakravarthy, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Head, BIG MAGIC, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]
Answering to the most inquisitive question of how you reached such a platform in such a small span of time, he said, " It is because of a very strong strategy that is recognizing the fact that there is an opportunity in the Hindi heartland. Tapping the opportunity by actually launching the Hindi regional entertainment channel was a smart move. Big Magic had a solid start. It has got a good platform but there is a lot that is to be done. From here I think we have an opportunity to grow as a large significant player not just as a radio brand but also as a biggest television channel in the country."
Evident enough, the numbers are really huge and unduplicated; reason being the BIG team spotted the opportunity; hence speaking about the other factors that constituted the success, he said, "Understand well about this market because we have been running radio stations from a long time. There was an opportunity for local entertainment. After observing we came to know that there are typical national GECs catering women and music channels catering youth and are being consumed by the consumers in these markets."
Elaborating ahead he said, "there is a large audience of mixed individuals which could be children, women, youth or may be adult men. So there was no such channel or platform that used to cater their individual demands. So it was very essential to launch a variety entertainment channel send out of the fact that we have the opportunity to create a platform which has a universal appeal so therefore we chose shows like fiction, reality or music and also we chose content which is especially from the region itself."
The shows and the content played an important role in the success story. There is a daily game show called Khiladi no.1, a reality game show which is shot across Hindi heartland, Seher, a devotional show reflecting the beliefs and culture of the region, a daily sitcom called Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, "Umar Sharif presents Koi hain jo hame hassaye, where the king of comedy across the border looks for stand up comedians. "The strategy was to bring in action movies dubbed in Hindi, especially targeting the male audience. We also have BIG Fighting Champion, an international format on mixed martial arts action sports," adds Anand. This clearly indicated an overall variety of shows between music, movies, light hearted comedy, reality as well as Bollywood magazine show that happens every day. This variety and mix has been able to give a lot of audience base to the channel.
Talking about launching new shows he said, "this was just a start for MAGIC, we are on an average a 24 -25 GRP channel, so the short term plan is to double that and the long term ambition is to grow to become a very significant channel. As early as till the middle of this month you will see exciting launches to be happening."
Anand adds, "We are also starting very soon with new U.S. based show which has been got here which is a wrestling show called, Zabardast Wresting, basically fun wrestling show. The fun part of the show is that all the contestants will be wearing masks and one wrestler has to remove the mask of the other one. It is a very different show format and is been doing amazing well in U.S. Also it is a great show to target children as well as men". "We are still in process of acquiring more shows for our channel. Then by the end of September we will have a sitcom targeting children, show targeting women and also a show targeting family," said Anand.
Some interesting content coming their way, the end of September and start of October the audience shall see at least 6 new shows on the channel. Anand says, "We basically want to engage more and more audience during the festive season as a lot of time is spent at home, so before and after diwali or may be Diwali vacations are the best time to attract consumers. And knowing the fact that we have reached 1.4 crore viewers over 4 weeks with 31-34-TAM ratings, so now is the time to push ourselves to the next level of growth and these new shows are expected add more growth."
With good advertising response being added to its kitty, the channel has geared up to a valuable platform. Anand says, "big advertisers are advertisers like Nestle, Nokia, Idea, The Hero Group, ITC, Johnson and Johnson, Godrej are regulars; while regional brands and clients like Himami, Hamdard, and Goldi Masala, along with television brands like, Sony, Star, Colours, UTV stars have approached us. We are still in discussion with many more advertisers to bring them aboard. So in next couple of weeks our brand count will increase very rapidly."
When asked about the on ground initiatives done in these markets, he said, "We had a large campaign that involved a lot of traditional media like outdoor, print, mobile that was used very effectively as it is a very strong medium in this type of market. Radio was a key corner stone of our strategy as having BIG FM in the group and in the company and it is one of the leading radio brands with 11 stations. So BIG FM was a big part of our plan and we did a lot of innovations in the shows on BIG FM.
The channel received a good response towards its two new shows, namely, Seher, devotional show which takes a early morning slot of 7-7.30 and Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, a patriotic comedy show.
Its 'time' that the audiences and the competition need to give in , only to know how and where this success story of BIG MAGIC takes its twists and turns.
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