Colors Infinity to focus more on local content

Viewership data shows the channel seems to be doing it right as Colors Infinity managed to reach 200 million

Television firm Viacom18’s English entertainment channel, Colors Infinity, will be sharpening focus on local content development and products.

This comes after the successful outing its home-grown format, The Stage, had last year. The channel recently completed a year of being on-air. It has already commenced production of the second season of the singing talent search show, and is expected to announce a couple more this calendar year.

Ferzad Palia, head of English and youth entertainment at Viacom18, said: “Content that is created locally in the English entertainment space is a great vehicle for advertisers. For example, Renault has continued its association with The Stage in the second season. When we started, we were asked why we would enter a ‘cluttered’ genre; we knew we had to innovate and local content has been a differentiator for us.”

Viewership data shows the channel seems to be doing it right, as Colors Infinity managed to reach to 200 million, and witnessed rapid growth with a little over 100 advertisers on board. These include brands across the automobiles, e-commerce, fast moving consumer goods and electronics categories. According to the channel, 60 per cent of Colors Infinity’s viewership comes from the non-metro market and the network’s English cluster commands 53 per cent market share in the genre.

English entertainment channels have in the past created local content but usually in the form of chat shows (Koffee with Karan on Star World, Look Who’s Talking with Niranjan on Zee Café) or branded content (Dewarists on Star World). With The Stage, Viacom18 created a new Intellectual Property, to provide English entertainment in an Indian context. “It has also helped us go deeper into the TV universe, beyond the metros. The winner of the first season of The Stage, which is a talent competition for international (English) music (singing), bears testimony to this,” says Palia.

He adds that as a result of the sharpened focus, the investment on development and production of local content is significantly higher this year, 10 to 20 per cent of the total budgets for the channel. The strategy also helps rationalise costs somewhat, as the cost of acquiring English content is on an upward trend, though the studios are aware of the revenue restrictions and, as such, agree with moderating it accordingly.

Apart from experimenting with local content, the channel will continue to innovate with programming.

In its first year, Colors Infinity introduced concepts like Live Binge, Infinity On Demand, and Instant Premieres, which helped differentiate the channel from established competitors. Live Binge includes back to back episodes of a show as they go live in the US (Mad Dogs and Orange is the New Black, Season 4, were aired in this category). Infinity On-Demand allowed viewers to choose from three new shows, which they wanted to binge on, while Instant Premieres include close to the US premieres of shows/new seasons of existing shows.

“Our research showed one of the challenges the viewers face in the genre was having to see what was provided to them, at the time it was provided (by the channel). We put the audience in the driver’s seat and have tried to mould the programming according to the insight the research showed,” Palia says.

In addition to The Stage, the channel will further amplify its international offering with launches of new shows such as Nashville and Law and Order. And, new seasons and Instant Premieres of Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, iZombie and Shades of Blue, along with reality shows So you think you can dance? and My kitchen rules, also slated to return on the channel with their new seasons.