Cell 18 bets big on long content biz

Cell 18, the creative production house of media conglomerate Network18 Group, is bullish on the long-form content business in India, said its chief executive officer Zubin Driver.

The seven-year-old division, earlier an in-house creative shop of Network 18 which was hived off into a standalone business unit to work for clients outside of its network in January 2008, is currently in talks with a couple of television channels for providing long content and expects at least 10 shows to go into production by the end of this financial year, he told Business Standard.

“Having done a number of broadcast design packages for channels across genres including Zee Cinema, What’s on India, Zee Bangla Cinema, Local TV and TV9, and short content for television and animation, we have developed a skill set for long content and tested it out. We have already ventured into long content and finished our first comedy show -- Aflatoon Little Masters -- for ETV Marathi. The one-hour each 26-episode show will hit the small screen shortly and we are hoping to crack two such long content deals during this Q2,” he said.

Stating that the company’s philosophy is to do high-quality content creation that has some connect, Driver said ideas floating around urban themes were saturated. “Rural people and themes should be involved in the infotainment business. Our big thrust for long content will be on doing pan-India urban-rural shows,” he added.

Driver said the company was looking at entering into the Telugu television industry and was currently in talks with some Telugu channels and content producers for tie-ups. “We are also planning to set up an office in Andhra Pradesh as we would like to establish ourselves as a long-term player in this state,” he said.

On the Indian television landscape being crowded with national, MNC and local channels, Driver said it’s not about how deep one’s pockets are but about having a clutter-breaking content. “The key word today is ‘glocal’ but not global or local content,” he said, adding that there should be a balance between craving for more eyeballs and the impact of news on the audience.

Last year, Cell 18 garnered revenues of Rs 6.5 crore and its outlook for the current financial year is Rs 10 crore, of which about Rs 5 crore is expected to flow in from its long content business, Driver said.