English Entertainment
Sony Pix goes big on social media and promotions
MUMBAI: In the genre of English movies in India, nine players have been vying aggressively for a larger market share and online presence. One amongst these nine is Sony Pix. Read on about its efforts which include innovative micro properties on Facebook and giving out ‘money can’t buy merchandise.’
The channel has been following a three point strategy since 2012. Sony Pix and AXN EVP and business head Saurabh Yagnik explains, “We began by investing in quality content. We then wanted to build a stronger perception and thirdly we wanted to innovate to break the clutter.”
Firstly, the channel invested in content by tying up with MGM. It bought the Bond franchise for three years including Sky Fall. Along the way, Pix had a makeover in late 2013 changing its previous tagline ‘Hollywood is Here’ to its current one ‘Stay Amazed’. The identity was unveiled with the world premiere of Skyfall in October 2013.
It also premiered Men in Black 3 and The Amazing Spider Man. During the MIB3 premiere, Pix had launched an anti-alien day, where the channel said that eliminating various kinds of aliens from society was the need of the hour. Hash tags were displayed on the TV screen during the premiere, encouraging people to tweet. At that time, Yagnik had said that the initiative had trended through the day at number one and two in India and worldwide at number four. Similarly, with The Amazing Spiderman, Pix pitched the campaign around the amazing people in every person’s life, creating a web of amazing characters and stars.
Earlier, the channel had also created ‘Premiere PIXathon’ where four back to back movies were premiered on a single day. “We chose movies that had four big stars, or spoke about Hollywood’s four big stars and what makes them click with the audience, four big cricketers and their achievements, and with this, we used the message of the ‘power of four’ for our big Premiere Pixathon,” Yagnik had said at that time.
For 2014, the lineup includes Captain Phillips, The Hobbit: Desolation of the Smaug, The Amazing Spider Man 2 and Hercules.
Next, to build a stronger perception, the channel started ‘Pix Premiere Nights’ on Facebook to give viewers an opportunity to watch a movie a day before it is actually released in India. Winners are chosen on the basis of a contest. In all, 2,200 winners across 10 cities will be provided passes to watch a mega movie on 11 screens. To facilitate the winner’s attendance, a special helpdesk has been set up. So far the contest has been held for Robocop, Spiderman 2 and The Hobbit. Next in line is The Expendables 3. As reported earlier by indiantelevision.com, one such initiative could cost the channel anywhere between Rs 2-3 crore.
Pix, which has more than two million followers on Facebook, according to Yagnik, decided to break from the clutter by creating micro properties on Facebook like: ‘Legendary Monday’ which has inspiring stories about celebrities; ‘Thoughtful Tuesday’ that is all about celebrity quotes; ‘Pixonomic Wednesday’ has box office collection facts while ‘Desi Thursday’ is a clash between Bollywood and Hollywood. ‘Superhero Friday’ includes all about action heroes while ‘Saturday Talks’ is about famous movie dialogues. The week culminates with ‘Gizmo Sunday’ which is all about gadgets.
The channel plans to announce breaking news about Hollywood through the re-launch of its animated character ‘Notty Pixy’ on Facebook. “She is a gossip reporter who provides Hollywood news first in India,” Yagnik says. He flips a well bound book to showcase a list of Hollywood stars, reporters, movies, events and websites that are the “sources” for ‘Notty Pixy’s’ news.
How has the three point strategy helped Pix?
Revealing TAM data, the channel says that during the first quarter (April 14 to June 14) Star Movies stood first with 19.80 per cent market share while Pix followed closely at the number two position with 19.30 per cent share. The difference was just 0.50 per cent. However, in the same quarter during the primetime slot, Sony Pix led the charts with a market share of 23.6 per cent with Star Movies a distant second having a market share of 17.90 per cent (TAM Market: All India 1 Mn+ TG CS 15+AB).
On Facebook, Pix has been leading the number one spot with 11.68 per cent engagement rate. Engagement includes likes, comments, shares and number of fans. In the second place is Movies Now with a 4.55 per cent engagement rate. Star Movies India and HBO India follow next with engagement rates of 3.35 per cent and 1.07 per cent respectively. Tonic Media is the digital agency that looks after these activities for Pix.
Sharing details about future plans of the channel, Yagnik says that the channel will provide its audience with ‘money can’t buy merchandise’. For example, viewers can win the blue t-shirt worn by Tom Hanks for the film Captain Phillips, which will be premiered on 27 July. Yagnik adds that the t-shirt comes with a certificate of authenticity. Soon thereafter, the blood stained shirt and tie worn by Jamie Foxx in the movie White House Down is up for grabs.
Yagnik revealed that Pix has been seeing revenue growth upwards of 25 per cent and is now available in HD on platforms like Dish TV, Hathway, Fastway and in Cable.
According to Maxus managing partner north and east region Navin Khemka “the channel is trying to use innovative ways to capture audiences. By giving out exclusive merchandises it will attract audiences who will participate in a genre that is fragmented. They key objective is to build loyalty for the channel and therefore is a good strategy.”
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
