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| Q&A: Uday Shankar, Chief Executive Officer, STAR India | | 'It would be unfair to blame Balaji' |
| Suveen K Sinha & Sharmistha Mukherjee / Mumbai Jun 25, 2010, 00:20 IST |
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 Television viewership has shifted in the 10 years since Rupert Murdoch’s STAR started its climb to the top with the quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) and the so-called saas-bahu serials. Now that more television watchers live outside the big cities, STAR is ready to respond to their interests and aspirations. In Uday Shankar, who has had considerable exposure to small town India in his life, STAR has just the man for the job. A recent corporate restructuring gives him more elbow room as he adopts a new philosophy and just as Ekta Kapoor returns to the STAR fold. Soon after launching a new identity for STAR Plus, Shankar spoke to Suveen K Sinha and Sharmistha Mukherjee on guiding STAR. Edited excerpts:
It seems a new STAR is rising, with corporate restructuring and new programming. What is all this for?
STAR India used to report to the regional office in Hong Kong. Now I report to James Mudroch (Rupert’s son) in the London office who is the chairman for Europe and Asia. We were uplinking our channels from Hong Kong. Now we will do it from India. Earlier we were operating under a downlink licence. Now we will operate under an uplink licence, for which we needed an ownership alignment according to the Indian laws.
How does it help operationally?
Reporting directly to News Corp by itself brings in a lot of efficiency because the decision-making hierarchy becomes simpler. Secondly, STAR India had no role earlier in distributing content to the Indian diaspora overseas. Now we will do it ourselves.
STAR plus is the leader again, getting ahead of Colors after many months.
Hindi is central to television broadcasting here. STAR Plus is our crown jewel. That we have been able to come back is an important milestone.
Doesn’t the success of your rivals indicate a shift away from programmes that made you successful?
That is true. There has been a shift. Ten years ago when STAR Plus came out with shows like KBC and the Balaji series, they clicked with a certain kind of viewership universe. Television at that time was a big-city, a metro phenomenon. The economic liberalisation was taking roots. It went to big cities and had an impact on the aspirations of people. STAR Plus could capture that very successfully. But as the cable and satellite universe grew, it went to Tier II cities, small towns and very small towns. It was easier for newer players to scan the environment and not be bogged down in legacy. That is what worked for our competitors and became a hurdle for us.
When did you wake up to this?
It is not that we were not conscious of this. We watched as Colors’ collective share became larger and larger. We were doing sporadic experiments. We did Aap Ki Kachehri and put it at the peak of the soap slot at 10.30 pm. It was not pure entertainment and the characters it captured were not urban middle class. They were uneducated, poor people. Yet the show was a success and this was the first clear hint that a shift may have happened. Then we came out with Sach ka Saamna, which was a very different show. Internally, we thought a lot about it, we procrastinated for a long time. The real concern was whether our viewers will be turned off by the show, be outraged by it. We have a certain relationship of comfort with our viewers, especially with families and women who watch us. Were we going to risk that relationship? But the results of the show told us a very different story. It was not that families were not watching it. The show had a lot of viewers and its unique reach was bigger than KBC’s, which is saying something.
What does it say?
We told ourselves that we needed to understand the new Indian television class. We invested in research. We hired three-four agencies because we did not want to go wrong. Then we realised that our understanding of Indian society, which we capture in our shows, had to change. So while the housewife is still committed to the family, she is a lot more assertive. She has material as well as emotional aspirations and she is not afraid to express them. The whole power equation in the family has changed. If we have to reclaim leadership, we would have to redefine ourselves.
What we are doing now is formally announcing the change, but the process started sometime back. We came out with the first story five months back: Pratigya. The woman protagonist in it is from Allahabad, the daughter of a college professor. The son of a local landlord falls for her and instead of becoming a victim she decides to marry into the family and fix it. The show has been a big success, a rapid success. As a part of the usual promotion we took the lead actress to Jesus & Mary College (one of Delhi’s hippest) and she was mobbed. There is this other show we came out with two and a half months back: Sasural Genda Phool. The bahu in it wears western clothes, speaks English, and categorically states that she does not like desi food.
How did you manage to get Ekta Kapoor back in the fold?
Do you want the truth? There had been a fair amount of corporate standout, primarily because the world had moved and we were caught in a stagnant position. In 1999-2000, when the relationship with Balaji Telefilms first flamed, there were not many quality producers who were capable of delivering volumes. There were not many broadcasters who could finance the creative vision of Ekta. The cost of production was low, people wanted to do cheap shows. So it made sense for Star and Balaji to come together. They needed a buyer who could pay the premium to create content and Star needed a supplier who could deliver quality content and volumes. There was a contract which was entered into — Balaji could not do primetime programming for any other channel and Star could not offer primetime slots to any other producer. There was an opportunity cost which was paid as a premium. As new broadcasters came in, the market opened and there were more opportunities. Balaji felt, and rightly so, that it was being denied an opportunity to participate in the creative stream. Star felt that a whole new generation of producers and creative people had come into the market and because of the contract with Balaji they were being denied access. That was the real issue. This spilled over into issues over ratings, viewership, etc. It was a mutual decision to free ourselves. Still, there has never been a quarter where we have gone without a Balaji show.
Balaji’s stock has been on fire on reports that you would sell your 26 per cent holding in it.
We have no intention of selling our stake in Balaji Telefims. We never had any intention to snap creative ties.
Isn’t Balaji synonymous with the identity you are trying to shed?
First of all, I think it would be unfair to blame Balaji. When a show is developed, both the producer and the broadcaster work on it. When it goes on air, both sign on it. Now we have an outlook, a philosophy of content and anybody who produces for Star has to buy into it.
What is that philosophy?
Rishta wohi, soch nayi.
That’s just your tagline. What is the philosophy?
It is to mirror the aspirations of the emerging Indian woman and it is not what we traditionally thought it to be.
What about men?
By all current research, as much as 50 per cent of the viewers of soap operas are men.
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