Eros shelves TV channel plan, to focus on digital content

Leading film entertainment company Eros International Media has shelved its plan of launching a movie channel and will instead focus on the digital offering ErosNow.

"We had said we would look at considering launching a movie channel but we are not going to do it, in the short-run. The accelerated growth of the digital platform is what changing our mind because we think TV is slowly but surely going to shrink unless TV reinvents itself," Eros International group chief executive and managing director Jyoti Deshpande told PTI.

Recent media reports had said an investor had opposed the company's television plans and when asked if it was the reason behind shelving its plans, she said, "I don't think we are a company that listens to individual investors and changes our strategy. We are not doing TV."

According to a recent Ficci-KPMG report, the number of Internet users are expected to grow faster than TV viewers in the next five years.

"The CAGR of TV viewership is estimated to be around 3 per cent from 2014 to 2019, whereas it is envisioned that the number of Internet users would grow by a CAGR of 18 per cent during the same period," the report said.

In 2014, the number of television viewers stood at 825 million compared to the Internet users of 281 million. In 2019, TV viewership is projected to be 960 million and 640 million Internet users.

ErosNow will premiere five movies before their telecast on TV and will also roll out its original content with three shows. It will also have TV shows and has tied up with channels for their content.

"We aggregate content from UTV, Viacom, Zee, Sony and others. We pay them a flat fee for licensing their content. We have a window there, so some number of hours after it goes on their channel, we will show it on ErosNow," she said.

Viacom18, which recently announced its foray into the digital content space, might look to reserve its content for its new platform and Deshpande said they are not looking for specific content from a media house to drive the business.