Times Network: Networking strength

With its news and movies channels winning the viewership war, Times Network is expanding its bouquet and experimenting with show formats

MK Anand, MD and CEO of The Times Network (the television arm of Bennett Coleman Company Limited) has been a busy man ever since he took over a year-and-a-half ago. Even as the television business has undergone a dramatic change in the way news and entertainment are consumed, the network has managed to put together a bouquet that is beating the rest on viewership every week and, keeping advertisers happy.

The network, earlier called The Times Television Network, runs seven channels, mainly in the English content space. It is set to expand the bouquet by one channel - Property Now, in the near future. Property Now is an extension of the news channel cluster which currently has Times Now and ET Now, a mainline news channel and a business news channel respectively. Like its predecessors, the new channel will be an English language channel, and will focus on the nuances of the real estate industry in the country.

"As a network, we have a distinct affinity with the English speaking audience, and that too in the upper part of the audience pyramid. In terms of percentage, it is a small number, around two per cent. What is important is that this target audience cuts across geographies, religions and castes within India. From an advertiser's point of view, we are reaching out to a niche they would like to cater," says Anand.

The network has developed and implemented the concept of MIC to define its core consumer base. MIC stands for the Most Influential Customer. The English viewing audience segment is always connected, brand savvy and they are influencers. Effectively, this viewership base is around 1.3 crore people in India. They form Times Network's core viewership base believes Anand. "The fact that we cater to two per cent and not 40 per cent of the population makes us more determined to be the best. The past year and a half has gone into moulding the product to achieve leadership position across all the genres we are in. ET Now (three month average ratings) and Times Now are clear leaders in the news segment while Romedy Now has had a very good run in the two odd years that it has been around and Movies Now is back to being the leader. Now we feel is the time to market the product. The network will get aggressive on that front," he reveals.

The network unveiled its new brand identity at the annual advertising event Goafest earlier this year. This was followed by a rebranding exercise with Zoom, the network's Bollywood and lifestyle channel and the launch of MN+, the high definition English movie channel. Each initiative was accompanied by a strong burst of promotions in traditional and new media. For the Zoom relaunch for example, an entire compartment of a Delhi metro train was wrapped in the new branding and packaging in order to create visibility and awareness about the exercise.

Zoom is the only non-English channel in the bouquet. Started almost a decade back, the channel recently underwent a makeover with a refurbished logo and packaging, and significant content revamp. Apart from roping in celebrities, the channel now has a variety of short format content, which seamlessly integrates into its digital platform. "We realised that Bollywood related content is consumed voraciously online and this is mainly short format content. So while we have retained some of the staple shows on the channel, we have also introduced programming which has a 20 minute run time. And we have shifted Planet Bollywood, one of our strongest properties on Zoom to the afternoon slot, which has worked out very well," explains Anand.

The afternoon slot has been a trouble spot for most entertainment channels, and general entertainment channels like Star Plus and Zee TV have filled it up with re-runs of the previous night's prime time shows. However, Anand and team have seen a good amount of traction in the 1 p.m. slot. Anand says that Hindi news channels had used this time for Bollywood related news, especially since the general elections last year, when political news took over prime time. "Incidentally, after the elections too, the government has been media savvy and the afternoon slot is a destination for Bollywood news consumption. Since Zoom has a strong recall with the content, we focussed our energies towards the slot for Planet Bollywood," explains Anand.

While he would like to maintain the marketing momentum, Anand also plans to launch digital extensions of the television products, especially in the news space. The television bouquet too will expand beyond English, but mainly in the Bollywood and lifestyle space, though that will be in the long run.