"We are not staring down the barrel of a gun"

What is the leit motif of Channel [V]?

The main idea was that it should be a local channel rather than universal and non-specific. Each country wants to see its own performers and the interest in what others are doing is peripheral. It is nonsense to believe like MTV did that there can be one music channel straddling the globe.But hasn’t Channel [V] run out of steam?

We had an extremely visible rocket rise. We continue to grow butthere are so many others that the days of big acceleration and fatal attraction are over. Others like MTV never saw that acceleration.

Why not?

We did research on how we compare with MTV. The result showed overwhelmingly that audiences are not keen on the Indianisation of MTV but they like our mix of international and local.

But can a local channel be as aspirational as an international one?

The aspirational stuff comes from seeing what role models here are doing, what music is being played. The crucial point is the music you play and how you package it — how you chop the sausage into different bits, how you take blocks of music and put them on a show.

If the logos were removed, would the audience be able to tell which music channel they were watching?

It is true that a lot of competitors, and not just music channels, are doing what we are. MTV has jumped on the bandwagon and replicated many of our shows. It is cloning itself after us. On the surface, they are similar but if you area keen music follower you would notice a hell of a difference. nBut you must be feeling the heat of the competition?

We are not staring down the barrel of a gun. What we do is better than others. We are launching new shows in April which you might see on other channels two months later. MTV isn’t working entirely from the Indian perspective. There is always the Singapore side. Channel [V] India is totally independent and Hong Kong only comes into the picture if the phone bill is too high!

Do you keep tabs on what other channels are upto?

We didn’t earlier because we were the only game in town. Not any more. But we don’t think particularly about MTV, which sounds a bit arrogant we are really fighting against much bigger game like STAR Plus, Sony and Zee. If you put a wrong show against them, you get killed.

Do you think music channels can have dedicated audiences?

Funnily enough, in this country people actually hang on till the end of a show. Elsewhere in the world, they get theirmusic fix and switch off. Here, people tune into music programmes per se and see as much value in it as a Baywatch or Tu Tu Main Main.

When do you hope to break even?

That’s a question I dodge as much as I can. Is it profitable now? The answer is if I were to move numbers around a bit we can make it profitable tomorrow, at least on paper! But as a brand we are expanding. We have five channels covering 72 countries and have a long way to go yet.

What’s the future for Channel [V]?

Four years ago I could not have said, in all honesty, that Channel [V] would have survived. The best thing I can hope for is that we will be there in the future, too. What we will look like is anybody’s guess. Maybe we will be speaking completely in English or even in Telegu. Maybe we will have Channel [V] Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta. The future is in fragmenting again and again until every street has its own Channel [V]!

Last, but not the least, what is the significance of the bracket?

(Laughs).It’s a design thing. The philosophy was that the `V’ should be movable and be anything even two features stuck together. But if your whole logo changes that radically, it becomes a non-logo. The brackets keep it distinctive. Inside you can do funny things that makes you laugh or turns you on.