NICHE TV

Moving from a few general channels to many specialised ones happens in any country with an ever-changing and growing television viewership. In North America,for instance,Teletoon Retro plays classic toons like The Jetsons and The Flintstones. Similarly,fishing enthusiasts can subscribe to the World Fishing Network and thrill-seekers can watch Dusk,a channel dedicated to horror and suspense. There’s even the

Accessibility Channel for the vision and hearing-impaired.

India,it seems is not far from this stage of TV entertainment. Rahul Johri,senior vice president and general manager – India,Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific,believes that India,with its growing market,holds great promise for specialty channels. “TV viewing habits are changing rapidly in India,” he says,“Viewers are incredibly aspirational and with greater exposure to the world,there’s a greater demand for niche channels.” Discovery Turbo,a male lifestyle channel,and Discovery Science,which focuses on the how-to of mechanical marvels,are steps in that direction. “Specialty channels need a huge amount of revenue and that is picking up in India,” he says,“The Discovery Network has 13 special channels in the US—from The Military Channel to Fit TV to Planet Green. There’s no reason to suppose that the same won’t happen in India.”

This is also possible now in India because of digitisation. “Digitisation has made it possible for more channels to come on board. Earlier,bandwidth was limited. But with the expansion of the digital platform,it is possible to have unique channels with content that is tailor made for specific viewers,” says Johri.

A good reason to specialise is instant brand recognition. SAB,which used to be a general entertainment channel,found its feet by reinventing as a family comedy channel over a year ago. “From an average rating of 28,the channel shot up to 82,within a year,” says Anooj Kapoor,business head,SAB,“We decided to focus on being a channel for family comedies and that gave us an identity,to the extent that GECs like Star One and

Sahara One might shut shop because of us.” There’s no denying its recall value. “People who like comedy know that they can rely on us.”

Sameer Ganapathy,business head,UTV Action,concurs with this strategy. “We want our channel to be the one-stop shop for action,” he says and adds,“Viewership is getting

fragmented and people are willing to pay for a channel which will cater to their interests. So it makes business sense to invest in a specialty channel.”

But that doesn’t spell the end of general entertainment channels. Ganapathy says,“Whether you want to watch only action movies or cartoons,at the end of the day,there will remain a large chunk of people who want diverse entertainment. So it would be foolish to say that we won’t need GECs in the future.”

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