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“We
are the No. 1 in content, hence we deserve to
 be
the No. 1 in revenues as well and this year we are
aiming for the same“ – says a confident Rajesh Kaul,
President, MSM Discovery which is the joint venture
between Multi Screen Media (formerly Sony Entertainment
Television) and Discovery. The Bouquet operating under
the brand name ‘TheOneAlliance’ has been making waves in
the past year with the huge success of the DLF IPL and
their strategic alliances with media giants like
Viacom18, NDTV and the TV Today groups. The TAM ratings
have shown that TheOneAlliance has emerged as the
Bouquet with the highest GRPs among all the distribution
companies.
CQ: Why do you call
‘TheOneAlliance’ - ‘The Shehenshah’ of the industry?
RK: If you go through last year’s data/
reports, most of the channels in our Bouquet are the No.
1 in their respective genres, be it Discovery, the No. 1
factual infotainment channel in the world, Colors – the
No. 1 channel in the Hindi GEC genre, be it Sony which
has once again risen to be among the top channels in
India, Max, the No. 1 Hindi movie channel, SAB which has
seen an exponential growth, doubling its GRPs in a
record time, the sought-after NDTV group, TV Today group
with its No. 1 Hindi News channel Aaj Tak, and the
popular Viacom18 channels – MTV, Nick and Vh1, in our
Bouquet make us the No. 1 Bouquet in content. And to top
it all, we have the biggest cricket extravaganza – the
DLF IPL exclusively on Max.
The TAM reports are there for all to see - they
corroborate the fact that we are the No. 1 in terms of
individual/cumulative GRPs of all the channels in our
Bouquet – hence, The Shehenshah of the distribution
industry.
CQ: How do you see IPL Season 3
?
RK: IPL is the biggest cricketing property in
India, a country which practically lives and breathes
cricket. Just like the previous two seasons, this year
too, the IPL 3 will be a huge success, in fact, bigger,
as it is back in India. We are proud of the fact that
the biggest sporting property for any distribution
company is LIVE & EXCLUSIVE on MAX.
CQ: What are the plans for
TheOneAlliance on the ground / trade?
RK: We are looking at an explosive growth
this year. We, being the undisputed No. 1 in content,
surely deserve to be the No. 1 in revenues as well. We
have already started working towards that. The leaders
have changed and so the rationalisation of revenues
needs to happen on the ground.
CQ: What has been the response
of the affiliates so far?
RK: We enjoy an excellent relationship with
our affiliates and luckily they too recognise that
rationalisation of revenues is the need of the hour. So
rather than going by legacies and past records, they
realise that they need to go by the current GRPs and
trends. And I am happy to state that the entire
fraternity is moving towards that.
CQ: What are your plans for the
revenues from the Digital cable?
RK: So far we have not collected revenue from
MSOs for the digital boxes in Non-CAS markets because we
wanted to support them for their digitalization process.
Now that they have achieved a sizeable
volume/penetration of boxes, obviously we would be
looking at additional revenues from them for the digital
boxes.
CQ: Any plans to enter the
regional space?
RK: We already have Sony Aath in Bangla and
Discovery in Tamil. Our parent companies Multi Screen
Media (formerly Sony Entertainment Television) and
Discovery have ambitious plans for the regional space.
Watch out for the announcements soon.
CQ: Any plans to add more channels?
RK; We are a compact and solid Bouquet – a family of
channels, which are leaders in their respective genres.
We don’t believe in quantity, we believe in quality. The
results are self-evident and the TAM reports are further
testimony to that. Though we have a lot of channels
approaching us, we will always be very choosy when it
comes to selecting our partners.
However, we are open to partnering with any channel,
which we think will add value to our Bouquet.
CQ; On a lighter note, who do
you think will win IPL this year?
RK: Its very difficult to pick a single team
as all the teams are well balanced & equally
competitive. At the end of the day, it is good cricket
that will win. |
