'We see DT&L exploding over the next few years as an advertising category and a wish category' : Aditya Tripathi- Discovery lifestyle networks VP
Discovery Travel and Living VP -lifestyle networks Aditya Tripathi was in Bangalore to showcase the channel's new local show 'A Matter of Taste' hosted by television anchor Vir Sanghvi. The show follows Sanghvi as he embarks on on a culinary journey to explore Indian tastes, debunk myths and discover the finest in Indian food and drink.
Indiantelevision.com's Tarachand Wanvari caught up with Tripathi to get a lowdown on the localisation plans, the challenges of shooting in India and client customisation.
Excerpts:
How would you describe the progress that Discovery has made this year? |
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Would this apply to Discovery alone or other channels - Animal Planet and Discovery Travel & Living (DTL)? |
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What's new in the programming line-up on DTL, especially from India? Then there's one based on a hotel (Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai) which will go on air by July or so, this year. We have actually gone into a hotel and spent three months there. It covers the hotel, about how a hotel functions. When you go to the reception of a hotel, some pretty girl smiles at you, they give you a room key, you go up, actually there are lots of people working behind the scenes that you don't see. So how does the hotel function? The channel is an international channel and the intention has always been that it will be an international channel with some 15-20 per cent Indian content. The majority of the programming will always come from outside. You are looking at the Indian who wants to see the world, not an insular person who wants to see only content about India. |
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And what about the fashion and style show that you mentioned? In this series we are traveling around India and outside the country also. We look at rural fashion, we look at pop art, we look at cheap fashion, it's not only the high haute couture and the expensive fashion. We are at looking at the Indian style sensibilities across the board. And not only in clothes, in interiors, in hotels, in all kinds of things. It's a very interesting show, but we have shot only two episodes right now, so we are still working on it. Some of the episodes will be location specific, so we'll look at a part of the country. Other episodes will be following a story in preparing for a fashion show. |
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How many episodes have you planned for? What about the sponsors for the series? |
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So is it mainly the garment industry that is interested? |
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Your first local show was 'The Great Indian Wedding' where one episode was aired. What is the status on that? We have created a brand, but we want to find very special weddings. For a lot of weddings that are special, either the people are not very comfortable to be in the public domain or there are a number of weddings where the people are scared of the tax authorities. And then there are some people who are very conscious of publicity and keen to get it, but it may not be a very classy wedding. We are going to keep this as an irregular one-off show. Every time there's a wedding, we approach the family and if we can shoot, we'll take it forward from there. But the original plan was to do a series of many weddings, we've decided not to do that. |
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What are the challenges that you face while making something out of India? We are in the process of convincing them that an Indian production unit can make a show just as well, plus, we make them at a lower cost. The point is that the storytelling will be as good, the production quality will be as good. That's one of the main challenges that we face. |
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Could you shed light on the logistical challenges? |
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What about your programmes that are focused on communities such as the drinking community - The Thirsty Traveller? That is one guy, an anchor called Kevin Brauch who travels around the world, like you have food programs and travel programs, his program is to explore the drinking culture and the different local beverages. That's a show that has been very popular. |
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Is anything coming out of India on those lines? |
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Won't there be conflict with the authorities on that? After all alcoholic drinks are products that you can't even advertise about in India? |
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What is the situation as far as advertising is concerned? |
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But those are a different genres altogether? Certainly among the advertising community, we are recognised as the only lifestyle channel. But being a single channel in a genre that is not defined by anyone, it's very difficult to define, so we compare ourselves with English entertainment. Because generally the values of the programming are the same, it's kind of an unwinding programme that you watch to entertain. |
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So have your advertiser numbers improved from the 236 brands that you had said sometime ago? Today, traditionally a lot of advertisers for upscale products are on print. They are not on TV, because most channels are not focused. So we said that we will come in and reach those kinds of advertisers. So Pepsi will not advertise on my channel, but Diet Pepsi will advertise or Crush will advertise. Now Airtel no longer advertises on our channel for their standard connections because they are much more of a mass product, but Blackberry Pearl will come on our channel, Samsung LCD screens will come on our channel. The battle for us is not to get as many advertisers as we can, the battle is to keep that focus. |
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To return to the localisation issue how many of the Indian programmes are being broadcast abroad? Where do you get the best response from? In Discovery the way this works is that all the shows that we make here are offered to our colleagues and then it's up to them to buy them. So our last production Indian Rendezvous is there outside the country, in UK, this was a six-episode series and all the six episodes will be there. In the case of A Matter of Taste which is now complete, we'll be sending it to them. I am confident that this will also air around the world. Singapore, which is the whole of Asia region and the UK, these are the places where there is maximum affinity. But I am hoping that going forward the US will also start buying into the programming. Right now it is UK more than the rest of Europe. But now that India is on the top of mind for everyone around the world, I am expecting that our spread will be greater than it is now. |
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As far as your international content is concerned and programme blocks, is there anything special happening? One show that we are looking forward to is Queer Eye For The Straight Guy which we will introduce later this year. This is a makeover show for men. Each episode features a new candidate usually a straight/heterosexual man ready to be culturally transformed. Each candidate prepares for a special event and receives generous guidance from each Fab Five member in their respective categories of expertise. Candidates are prepared for such events as a marriage proposal, a first dinner with a girlfriend's parents, and a backyard barbecue. We have a women's hour. However our viewership is homogeneous. So we have not focussed on building programme blocks. |
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Have you done any further client customisation like you did for HSBC some time ago and what has been the response to such efforts? How effective has customization been for your clients? We do a lot of client customisation where we package programs. We had a Monday to Friday programme Off to the Caribbean with Pepsi Gold around the World Cup time. What we do is to pick up a selection of programmes. A few weeks ago we did something for HT Mint, a very upscale targeting was required, so we did a series that we already had for Europe. We packaged that as Mint Money Mantras. With the travel site yatra.scom we did Amazing Yatras. That kind of customisation happens all the time. In terms of product integration, we haven't done that yet, but are looking at doing that as well. In terms of effectiveness the client keeps on coming back for more so obviously it is quite effective for them. |
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Who are your repeat clients? Pepsi is a repeat client. They have come back on various occasions and we keep getting new clients also. So it's obviously effective. |
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What marketing activities does the channel do to create awareness? |
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Discovery Lifestyle launched a couple of channels in Malaysia recently. Any plans to bring them into India? |
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Who are the big advertisers from Bangalore ? |
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Could you offer your views on the television scene in India? |
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So how long do you think these can be sustained? |
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Finally where do you see DT&L over the next three years? As the economy booms, as more tourists start travelling, we are very well paced and we really see this channel as an advertising category and a wish category exploding over the next few years. I am very proud of what we have done so far. We are ahead of our advertising and revenue targets, but we expect that the next two or three years will really be boom time for us. The operations here are profitable, but we never disclose country specific breakup details. |