Sameer Nair, COO, STAR India

"There is always place for new players. End of the day, consumer likes choices. But there has to be quality in delivery and channels shouldn’t copy each other. They should have something new to offer. Only then the category itself will evolve into the television of tomorrow."

In the past four years, STAR Network has grown from strength to strength and one name at the helm of affairs right from the word ‘Go’ is Sameer Nair. Whether it is programming and advertising or sales, marketing and distribution, the COO of STAR India controls all aspects of this giant of Indian television. Where Nair has evolved with STAR, STAR has come to its current stature under him.

Now with STAR launching a new channel, there is yet more action in the network and Nair discusses all about it, the network and gives his view on some phenomenon of the Indian television in this interview with Noor Fathima Warsia.

Q. So you are looking at audience from competing mass channels?

That is hard to say. We have to give this two-three months before things become clearer. But then, when you look at schedules of other channels and the amount of repeats they have on their mainline programming, it just might draw an interesting battle.

Q. The gap between C&S homes and STAR channel reach in HSM is very less. About 35 lakh homes, so what gaps are we talking about?

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The thing with free-to-air is that you don’t break it into Hindi speaking or non-Hindi speaking markets. The way cable and satellite is expanding, all cable networks, wherever they set up, first pick up free to air channels, including Hindi channels and non-Hindi channels, which is why you even get Sun TV in Mumbai, a non-Tamil market. It is a part of the cable operators business.

Q. Another interesting feature about Sun TV’s functioning is that the production houses largely work exclusively with them. How do you view this?

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It is a strategy and a good one. It is good barrier to entry. It allows Sun to block other channels from getting their successful producers. So if a new channel is set up, they have to look for new talent. It’s a productive way of working.

Q. Have you ever considered looking at exclusive relations with production houses?

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We haven’t gone out of our way to ask for exclusivities like this. There are producers like Neena Gupta, Contiloe and others, who have been working with us and once in a while they want to work with other channels and we don’t have a problem with that.

Q. And, of course, you are giving channels a fight on the advertisement share front as well, coming at substantially low ad rates.

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The ad rates now are invitational pricing. No deal is done for more than a month. Utsav is designed to complement Plus. Where advertisers get tremendous reach from Plus, Utsav gives it the cost effective frequency. It is said our rate card is aggressive. And people who come on board early, believing in the channel as we do, will get the best deals. Needless to say that being free-to-air, Utsav will be there even in those households, which don't have STAR Plus.

Q. What kind of new audience are you looking at?

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People who are watching other channels.

Q. What is the channel’s USP?

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Exactly these three reasons, creatively scheduled programmes, a fine collection of India’s best programming and free to air broadcast.

We have programmed the channel in a manner that it becomes an alternative viewing option for the audience. As I said, Utsav is a creatively scheduled channel. We have not just filled the channel with repeats. We have timed them in a manner, which makes for very exciting viewing.

Q. What attribute of it makes for exciting viewing?

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It is an alternative to Plus. For example, it is not like you can see either episode one of ‘Kyunki’ or episode 800 of ‘Kyunki’. The programming is designed not to be contradictory to the programming of Plus, it is designed to be complimentary to the programming of Plus.

Q. Moving to another subject, why did you choose stripped format when you shun it on Plus citing that dailies don’t work on Fridays?

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That’s not what we believe in. Monday to Thursday came in place to suit the capability of the production community. This is hard enough already and becomes harder to produce a Monday to Friday. For whatever reasons, this became the format and stayed like that.

But since these are produced shows, we don’t have that problem on Utsav. Not only do the dailies play on a different pattern, they are all not coming together. We have launched with ‘Kyunki’, ‘Kahaani’ comes later, and KBC comes much later and again you must remember that it is a new audience out there.

Q. But you have been very restrained in your advertising. It doesn’t appear that STAR is launching a channel after four years?

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We have made as much noise as was required. We identified who we wanted to talk to, what they needed to know, when and why and they know it now. As far as we are concerned, the communication is complete. There is no need to have in your face communication here. We have seen how competition has indulged in heavy marketing and it has not done very well for them.

Q. However, unlike international markets, in India, the intellectual property rights of a programme lie with the broadcaster and not the production house. What is your opinion on this?

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The case of IPR is pretty straightforward. Whoever makes the investments and bears the risks, owns the show. On channels like DD and Sun, where the broadcaster gives the slots, the producer retains the ownership.

In our case, we invest in the show, we do our own advertising sales, incur our own distribution costs and bear the risks of production. So we own the show. But in cases where the production house invests, they own the show. Like the Sagars. In Hatim, we have retained a few rights and they have some. Then there is Guleri Productions. They own ‘Tu Tu Main Main’. In other cases, since we don’t give away slots like Sun TV, we own the show.

Q. Let’s begin with the hottest topic in STAR right now, STAR Utsav. What led to the constitution of a channel that only has repeats?

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Let me first tell you that Utsav is not a repeat channel like the media is terming it. It is a very creatively scheduled channel. Over the last four years, STAR Plus has performed very well and in course produced extremely brilliant programming. But because of the nature of STAR Plus’ programming style, which is built on the principle of appointment viewing, the schedule does not allow repeats.

Internationally there are seasons where 26 weeks you show the programme and 26 weeks are reruns. Since it doesn’t exist in India, when the show is over, it goes off air. We thought that it would be a good idea to showcase these shows that people have seen only once and liked very much.

Also, the market itself has expanded in the past few years, since we first got cracking with KBC. When we launched KBC in 2000, the cable market was around 19 million paying homes, which has grown to about 27 million paying homes. The size of the general cable homes were 30 million, now at around 48 million indicating a 30 to 40 per cent growth in the market. So there is an audience out there who may not have seen episode one of ‘Kyunki’.

We wanted to make STAR Plus available to all 48 the million cable homes in India, which is why, it is free to air. It’s a combination of these reasons.

Q. But you are making substantial noise around the STAR Network. Isn’t that what the current STAR corporate campaign is about?

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Yes. The current campaign is telling people things they already know about our performance and the comprehensive growth of the network. And since the New Year is beginning for us, we thought it is a good time to talk about it. And again launching Utsav at this point is expanding our own services and adding to our bouquet.

Q. Tell us about the marketing of Utsav?

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We are not doing anything in Mumbai and Delhi. It is not a part of our plan. We are focussing on all the smaller towns and cities. We have involved in ground level activities. If you go to a Nasik or a Jhumri Talia, you’d see something there.

We are also targeting the cable operators and advertisers. So, we have sent direct mailers to around 6000 cable operators and again direct mailers with our brochures and rate cards to all advertising agencies. The idea is that now the retail segment is open, local advertising is allowed. So this becomes a good alternative for advertisers.

Q. Do you think there is space on Indian television to accommodate a new player in the general entertainment category?

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There is always place for new players. At the end of the day, consumer likes choices. But there has to be quality in delivery and the channels shouldn’t be copying each other. That is where the problem of a channel finding its place comes in. Channels should have something new to offer. Only then the category itself will evolve into the television of tomorrow.

Q. Until now, we have seen a dominance of ‘saas-bahu’ serials, what do you think is the programming of the television of tomorrow?

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In that sense, there is nothing that is the programming of tomorrow. ‘Saas-bahu’ serials is the power of STAR TV that made the title of the show generic to the category like Xerox is generic to photocopy.

I don’t think that this kind of programming will ever go out of fashion. It’s like a meal. There will be staple plus speciality and neither will take over the other or wipe out the other. There will be different hues and colours but the core remains the same. The changes will come in the story, the cast, the milieu.

Take Hindi theatre for example. In the last 30 years, there have been four great underworld movies, Deewar, Ardh Sathya, Parinda and Satya. Give and take, all are great movies with same stories. Even in a mature market like the US, this principle remains the same.

Q. Do you think it can work in the Hindi entertainment scene?

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I don’t think people are interested in doing it in Hindi markets. Though there are unspoken and un-stated loyalties and arrangements, I don’t think it could ever get implemented in that way. There are cases where some producers work only with specific channels and find comfort levels due to which they work with these channels only. In many cases, it works out for both the channel and the production house because there are production houses scaled to a particular size, aiming at just a certain number of shows.

Q. But aren’t you worried that people from STAR Plus could also move to Utsav?

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I don’t think that would happen. Let’s see. But I would be surprised if that happens.

Q. But people seldom watch a language they don’t understand?

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There are people who watch Sun TV in Mumbai. There are pockets of population that live everywhere. And often viewers watch it for the quality of programming. And in any case, the focus market is not South India as such.