Discovery India eyes 3-fold turnover jump, more local content

Broadcaster Discovery India is seeking to triple its turnover in India on the back of its new general entertainment channel, Jeet, and revamp of Discovery Kids, besides increasing local programming by 100-fold in the next one year, a top company official said today.
The company is also planning to launch new and targeted programming across its premium channels, Discovery and TLC, with an eye on extending its leadership in infotainment space.
"We are targeting to triple our turnover in India over the next three years riding on multiple initiatives that are underway, especially the launch of GEC channel, Discovery Jeet and the revamp of Discovery Kids," Discovery Communications India Senior Vice-President and General Manager South Asia Karan Bajaj told PTI.

The Rs 400-crore Discovery India is betting big on Discovery Jeet with which the company will enter GEC segment in the country.
In India, Discovery till date has targeted premium top 20 million consumers. Discovery Jeet will help the company reach out to the next 100 million consumers, he said.
Stressing on the need to enhance local content, he said, "Discovery produced less than 10 hours of programming in India last year while the target for the next year is almost 1,000 hours."

Discovery Jeet will make for majority of the new content being developed, with almost 5 hours of programming every day, including the launch of a show based on the life of Baba Ramdev, he added.

Commenting on building a ground-up India intellectual property (IP) for Discovery Kids, Bajaj said, "We have been working for over six months to build this new IP, which we are confident will give us huge dividends as we target to gain a top three position in the kids genre in India."
The top players in the kids segment currently are Nick, Disney Channel and Hungama.