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You could think the phrase “been there, done that” was written for him. Consider: he launched Tang in India; headed the marketing at Cadbury’s; toyed with a magazine in partnership with Zee’s Subhash Chandra; spearheaded Music Today; launched the vernacular editions of India Today; created a market for premium diaries; and conceptualised Outlook.
That wasn’t enough for him; the arc lights beckoned. Not quite arc lights, the idiot box beckoned.
And then again, not quite the idiot box. Television beckoned in the form of Discovery Channel. He inherited a channel, which was branded “good”. But who wants to watch a “good” channel in India?
Deepak Shourie, Managing Director, Discovery Communications India, had his task cut out — first, he had to get the channel’s positioning right.
Next, Shourie had to get the viewers on board, and finally, get the advertisers to write money on the channel.v
Shourie’s done that with finesse and aplomb. He’s also played a pivotal role in the launch of Discovery Travel and Living. His next task is to get Animal Planet to connect to India.
"The biggest challenge is to get Discovery out of the niche arena. We plan to position Discovery in the mainstream market because Discovery is a mainstream channel." This is what you said a few years ago.
And this is what we've achieved. In 2004 — the whole of 2004 — and I'm talking week 1 to week 52, we said that we need to compete in the arena of English movies and news. We cannot compete with soaps, but the bigger arena was English movies and news. So, in terms of advertisers interest, as we competed with English movies and news, we were very close to HBO and Star Movies. And we were three times the leading English news channel for all audiences; 52 weeks, from 6 a.m. in the morning to 12 midnight.
So basically, you’ve re-defined mainstream…
HBO is a mainstream channel, STAR Movies is a mainstream channel, NDTV 24/7 is a mainstream channel. People don't realise that Discovery is in that space. We wanted to ensure that that was the space we were recognised in.
So you're happy with the numbers that all your three channels are delivering?
I think that the market is going to evolve. When television came into India 10 years ago, it brought entertainment into the home. And what was the evolutionary process in the market? It's always entertainment; and then, other things like knowledge and information. And as India is developing into a very mature television market, we have a young, aspiring, educated audience. They will look for alternatives; I don't use the word niche; I use the work alternate television. There is pure entertainment play; there is pure news play; we are alternative.
Again, back to something you said; you said that you would not market programmes that were given to you, but market programmes that the market wants. Are you any closer to knowing what the market wants? I mean, you watch all kinds of channels and you still see slap-dash kinds of programming (not just in your bouquet), but in general when most of the content comes from abroad…
We consciously try and say 'how do we go about the process? This is our audience, what would be their interest areas?' Like adults 25-35 plus — women, or families; and given the character of Discovery, which is defined by the genres that it deals with; it's bringing the real world to the whole world. So given that stage, we pick programmes from around the world that will suit them. If I was to show you the shows that we're going to run for '10 years of Discovery, look at the programmes: ‘Tokyo Sky City’, ‘Raising the Mammoth’. But they have to be within the character of Discovery and from all that we have learnt from our consumers about what they want. We asked our viewers and 35,000 people responded. They're extremely satisfied with what they're seeing.
So you've got a successful programme guide going; do you see that in some form translating into new viewers, or making old ones sticky…?
Two things have happened. One is, the issue has become what to watch and when. Because Discovery is completely episodal, and by the sheer variety of content we have, you cannot expect people to remember beyond their immediate areas of interest.
So, the objective is to create enough material for the people to remember, and the programme guide is a great idea. We marketed it on the channel itself. We said that people who are watching Discovery should become loyalists, and in 3-4 days time, we had 70,000 responses. And we're doing 70,000 around the country.
Now, can we see this programme guide success being spun off into something bigger; I'm sure there is a temptation, especially for someone like you who's done a lot in print. There must be a temptation, for example, to turn this programme guide into a magazine; sell ad space; it will subsidise your costs, it's an expensive product. So is there a temptation?
I don't think it can be a temptation; it must fulfil a purpose. And our first primary purpose is television; the deeper purpose is getting closer to your consumer. Well, if you look at the size, it's the biggest periodical going out from a TV channel. In four days time, we had a circulation of 70,000. I feel that this is commendable.
Do you have a magazine in mind? You must have a budget that you have to work within?
I'm evaluating what the concept is.
Other than the booklet, have you been able to create appointment viewing on the channel?
We run these ads called 'Tonight on Discovery'. Each time we run that ad, our slot average goes up, depending on the programme, between 30 and 70-80 per cent. It depends on what people's interests are.
The programme guide is one of your unusual innovations; is there anything else that we can expect to see?
You've already seen 'time-band', on Discovery; we did it with things like Late Night Discovery; the branding of a time-band. The reason for this was the moment you say 'time', people don't remember time as much as a name. So if you brand it, and say 'Late Night Discovery', it also cues a person's mind in terms of what to expect from the channel.
So we've done that, we've done the programme guide, we've done appointment viewing advertising; I guess we'll continue. Next year, the emphasis will be on local production.
We also see 'Travel and Living' open up a huge world of possibilities for local programming…
Travel and Living, as you might know, has been launched first in India. Discovery took the initiative of going into the lifestyle genre last year and in the lifestyle genre, we discovered that of all the lifestyle channels, some were re-branded, some were relaunched.
And India was the first country we launched Travel and Living in; and why was that? Because we saw the potential in India. The company decided that India was the right place to launch in. I took them to the malls,
I showed them all the new cars that were launched, I showed them how India was changing, and how people's lifestyles were changing. And it's been a great launch, and very successful with the audience we wanted to reach which is a very upscale audience. We deliver un-cluttered advertising to them.
So coming back to Travel and Living; where were your expectations and where you are today vis-a-vis your expectations; and I'm not talking about numbers here...
To read the entire story, buy a copy of Impact Advertising and Marketing magazine dated October 10-16