Spirit W | Competition is very important: Bindass's Shalini Sethi

From ad-films to travel shows and from production houses to a lot more, Shalini Sethi has witnessed quite a few upswings in the television industry. She started her career in 1995-96 with the company 'Picture This Co.' in Delhi as an Asst Producer, from where she moved to AIM Television, the production house known for TV series like Namaste India, Khubsurat . Apart from that she was also a part of Sony television’s famous travel show ‘Indian Holiday’.

Moving from Delhi to Mumbai, she started working on many projects Like Breakfast with Zee with Roshan Abbasand Deepa Mehta’s iconic movie Earth 1947.Post which she joined the ‘Moving Picture Company’ and also had a small stint with Nickelodeon before launching bindass with Zarina Mehta.

Adgully caught up with Shalini Sethi, Director Content, Media networks (bindass), Disney to talk about her life and experience in the television industry.
She says, “I started my journey as a production assistant and from there on the journey has been full of learnings and mesmerizing moments. I have done whatever I wanted to do in life and live the way I wanted to".

She has worked on shows like Shararat that won best comedy show in Indian Telly Awards. From being an Executive Producer, she moved on to be the Creative Director and spearheaded shows like Shararat, Shanno ki Shaadi (for Star Plus) and Inki Blinky  for Hungama.

As known to all, Bindass is one of the first homegrown youth entertainment channel in India that has gone from strength to strength in the past few years. Sharing her stint with Bindass, she said, “I have enjoyed each and every day at Bindass. I have been there since the inception of the brand and if I look back at the journey, it has been actually very challenging. The IndianTelevision industry at that point was at a nascent stage and to launch a brand like this, a lot of research and development was required. The space where Bindass is right now; is ever changing hence one needs to be really vigilant to the changing needs and demands of youth.”

The channel hasdelivered genre defining shows and campaigns that have mirrored the realities, dreams and aspirations of the Indian youth to garner a cult following. The channel’s most recent initiative, ‘b for change’ and new shows such as Yeh Hai Aashiqui, Halla Bol, Change Aayega, Hum Laayenge as well as old favorites in their new avatars such as Emotional Atyachaar have successfully reiterated Bindass’ brand philosophy of ‘Enabler of Purposive Action’ to its viewers.

Bindass they have always looked at connecting to the youth and the emotions that they are going through with real content. Elaborating on the challenges and how Bindass has evolved from a brand in 2007 to a popular youth brand today, Sethi says,, “Yes, it was and is challenging as the space that the channel caters to has always seen evolving at a rapid pace. We were adamant on the fact that we will come up with our own content and not imitate others. The most challenging shows so far has been Emotional Atyachaar which was very tricky since it was one of those real-life-content shows. With that show webuilt a strong connect with our dynamic TG.

A confident Sethi insists that Bindass stands tall among her strengths,her work there makes her feel really proud. Apart from the success she’s had at Bindass, she is really optimistic about her failures too. She feels that those failures have made her come such a long way as it gives one an opportunity to complete the task all over again.

Today when every channel is in some way or the other trying to build their reach and connect among the youth of our country, it is very important to make your brand stand ahead of the curve. She opined that competition is very important. "It makes you work all the more hard and at Bindass the objective has always been to work with the core strength. We have always worked hard to produce content that is different and has a message to deliver to our TG and this fact has made the channel more confident and strong over the years.”

Being a part of an illustrious journey and witnessing the evolution of the television industry, some of the trends that she has seen among the youths today when it comes to delivering /offering content, she believes that the content has to be apt as the Youth today is very well exposed to the happenings and surroundings of the world. “The content has to be true and authentic otherwise it will lose out among youth as they want something that is real and factual. Today they believe in understanding the solution so the content has to be such that gives a solution with the problem. Like in Halla Bol we do convey how to fight back and get out of a situation”. ”

A strong believer of the fact that women do have an edge over men in every space today; while concluding she said, “Yes, I am biased towards woman being a woman as I believe we are much more distinctive, organized and are perpetually multi-taskers.”