Charath Narsimhan, Vice President, Marketing, History Channel

Charath Narsimhan joined the History Channel from Madura Garments, Bangalore, where, as Brand Head, he led a cross-functional team and was responsible for sales and profitability of the Peter England and Elements brands. He has been in the sales and marketing business for eight years. He is a Chemical Engineer from IIT, Chennai, and an IIM-Lucknow graduate. Narsimhan talks to Malini Menon of exchange4media on how the unique and innovative content of History is driving the channel by giving a fresh perspective to treatment of historical events, people, etc. Excerpts:

Q. History Channel has completed one year. Looking back, what are the factors that clicked for the channel?

We have had a brilliant first year. We started the channel in November 2003 and so far it has been very positive. It has given us the strength to do a lot more in the coming years. In fact, for starters we have a whole new series of shows coming on. They will be kicked off in a phased manner over the next two to three months. We have about eight to nine new shows coming up on the back of all that we launched last year.

Q. Are the new shows going to be of the same genre?

History Channel is not about dated history as most people think. Our attempt has been to make history more accessible to people as there are many aspects of modern and contemporary history. So our focus has been to showcase all that and more. This will be the direction for the next twelve months as well. The genre is still the same -- providing information padded with visual entertainment. It’s not black-and-white history that people tend to associate with. The history, as we showcase it, is a lot more vibrant and colourful. We are not just restricting ourselves to covering personalities but to a whole list of topics pertaining to the world. That is what we will be doing in terms of new shows.

Q. Can you tell us briefly about History’s new series in February?

We have two special series for this season. ‘History Lost and Found’ is a series that will talk about the firsts, for instance, the first pair of Levi’s jeans or the first video games, and take you through a journey as we trace back these firsts. This is the show’s concept and will be telecast Monday to Friday.

The other show that we are doing, which would be a Valentine Special, is ‘Love History’. This would talk about couple likes Adam and Eve, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, etc. The show ‘Secret Agents’, which is on the world’s spy operation, which started in January, will carry on to February.

Q. What about your lifestyle programming?

Lifestyle.tv is a weekend programme targeted at a niche audience. Niche does identify with lifestyle today and lifestyle does not necessarily mean fashion and glamour. It is about a way of life and how people associate themselves with it. We had a whole set of programmes that talked about life, fashion and modern technologies. We are lucky to have started this sort of programme as it creates aspiration among viewers.

Q. Nat Geo has used documentaries from Indian production houses. Is History also looking to do the same?

Nat Geo has used the documentaries made by Miditech. Our headquarters in Washington approved these documentaries. History at this point of time hasn’t looked at Indian production houses and we don’t have any tie-ups, but we will constantly be looking at programmes that would pertain to our genre from Indian production houses too. If they meet the requirements of broadcast quality, we would certainly consider them. By broadcast quality, I mean that it should be approved by our headquarters and should fit into the programming strategy. Yes, we will clearly look at how we can involve ourselves with Indian production houses in the near future as well as try and get topics touching upon India.

Q. Considering that Discovery Travel and Living is also here, do you see it as strong competition?

Discovery Travel & Living is a 24-hour channel focused on this category and just like us they also see this as a space that can be catered to. Discovery Travel and Living has been accepted by a small section of society till now but they will be making efforts to widen the base of people who will be watching it. However, pretty much they are covering the same areas that we are trying to cover. The only difference is that they have a lot more in terms of travel, which we don’t have.

Q. However, lifestyle.tv is not so popular. When Discovery came up with this channel, they were very active through campaigns.

Let me say that that is their channel. When we had our channel launch we also came up with a whole series and a campaign. For any new launch, it has to be big to be able to communicate across the audience. This is expected of any of the categories. It’s their 24-hour channel whereas for us it is our first initiative. Moreover, there is enough space for everybody in this category.

Q. Are you looking at pushing your brand further?

Yes, certainly. Every effort that we take is to build the brand. We have always followed a two-pronged approach. One is using our programming, which is our strength. I believe that there is nothing better than exposing your product in any category for that matter. Our strength is in the programming that we have. ‘Biography’ has not only built the time slot, it has also created a certain name and perception for the channel. Our subsequent marketing campaigns will be more or less on similar lines where we showcase our strong progamme and promote that and through that we promote the channel. History could be about people or another kind of category that we are looking at.

Q. What is the other kind of category that you are talking about?

History is about people and events but it could be events that are very recent and within events there a whole lot of areas such as spies, war, technology that have developed over the last few years. This is the new set of programming that we have and we will be communicating each of these as it happens.

Q. What has been your challenge so far?

The channel is new and there is constant effort to grab more viewership. What we have learnt in the last 12 months is that once people get hooked to History channel, they really start taking out time for the channel. So our clear effort in marketing will be to increase the number of viewers. Our efforts would be to expose various facets so that a lot many people get hooked on to TV.

Q. How is History positioning itself in India?

Clearly, what we are saying is that this is where the past comes alive. ‘Alive’ is the single most important word for me and we are really trying to make the past alive and try and give it an aura. We are not talking about dead and past. We are bringing them alive and talking about them and what made their life memorable. There is an old saying, which says what we are yesterday is what we are today and what we will be tomorrow is because of what we are today. This is our way of saying that if you know a little about what happened in the past, you would know why we are so today. And probably this way we will be able to judge how we will be tomorrow and that’s our idea to bring history ‘alive’ completely.

Q. How has your viewership been?

It has been very good. In fact, our distribution has been amazing for a genre that we are operating in and I think we are among the highest distributed channels within the Star network, which is a pretty big one. So the viewership has constantly been increasing right from the day of launch. Even on the day of launch we hit about 8.5 million viewers and it has been growing ever since then.