HBO: The Pacific calling

The Pacific, a miniseries based on the Second World War (1939-45), has debuted on HBO, Time Warner’s English movie television channel. Produced at a budget of $200million (Rs 940 crore) by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, it is the most expensive miniseries ever made by HBO.

The channel will complete ten years in September. It is second to Star Movies in a genre that is small and crowded. While it got advertisements worth Rs 300 crore last year, there are seven channels vying for a slice of this pie: Star Movies, HBO, Sony PIX, Zee Studio, Lumiere Movies, WB and World Movies. This makes the need for a differentiator all the more crucial. HBO hopes the miniseries will act as one. “The HBO Originals (the miniseries is one of them) will make our viewers come back to us. It has upped the English entertainment genre in the United States, and it will do the same here as well,” says HBO Asia Country Manager (India) Shruti Bajpai.

 

The miniseries premiered in the United States in March. Bajpai says it could have come to India earlier, but for the packed television calendar. What she means is that with back-to-back cricket, first the Indian Premier League and then the ICC World Cup, few would have found the time to watch the miniseries. English movies often compete with lifestyle and sports channels for the viewer’s attention.

Will a miniseries work for an English movie channel? Bajpai says the HBO series, Sex and the City, since its launch in 2004 remains the most widely-watched English series. “Last year, Entourage and True Blood on HBO were the best-performing series, according to TAM India, in terms of viewership across all English movie and entertainment channels,” she adds. The Pacific will thus be followed by three other HBO Originals: Bored to Death, Hung and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Some experts agree. “Viewers always want to get a taste of new programming. A miniseries offers entertainment in smaller bites, for which one doesn’t have to sit for two hours (movie-watching) with advertisement breaks,” says Ernst & Young Partner and National Leader (media & entertainment practice) Farokh Balsara. “For the broadcaster, innovative programming adds not just ad revenue but also gets new viewers to the channel.”

Are advertisers excited about the miniseries? “We already have five sponsors for The Pacific. Sony Ericsson is the presenting sponsor; KFC, Sunfeast Marie Light, Tata Tea and Su-Kam are the other four on board,” says Bajpai. HBO is available in 29 million cable & satellite homes and the 20 million direct-to-home households.

Arch rival Star Movies has neither shown any miniseries in the past nor will it air any in the near future. Star India Executive Vice-president (marketing & communication) Anupam Vasudev says: “We are a movie channel. We have been airing movies, and we will continue to do so. However, we keep coming up with movie festivals, including some adapted for the Indian market like Dussehra Version 2.0, Diwali Extravaganza and Opening Night.” To each its own!