Creating unique content has helped MTV retain its audience: Ferzad Palia

“ We’ve brought back our creative mojo” announced Ferzad Palia, Head, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, as he revealed MTV’s new content line up which includes ‘MTV Hustle’ (a rap based show), and follow-up seasons of their hugely popular ‘Splitsvilla’ and ‘Ace of Space’. The channel is riding high on the success of their numbers for the first half of 2019 – 700 mn views and 3.67 bn minutes of viewership across TV and VOOT. Incorporating findings from their Youth Insights reports, which they like to call the secret sauce for their content, the channel has created shows which they feel will touch a nerve with their target audience.

Despite the New Tariff Order or strain on advertising budgets post big ticket events like elections etc., Palia is bullish about the future of MTV. In fact, he says that the market share for both MTV and VH1 remains intact post the NTO regime, he explains, “MTV is the only one making original content in the youth space. Honestly, there is no comparative channel to MTV. Some of the channels that were making youth content, however little, have now become music channels so they now fall into a competing category with MTV beats. We compete with ourselves.”

He goes on to say how investing in creating unique content has helped the channel retain its audience, “But I think what has worked very well for all of our brands is that we’ve invested in creating that differentiation, in creating unique content, creating unique experiences etc. So we’ve had the advantage of retaining a big base of loyal audiences. Time spent continues to be extremely healthy. All of those metrics are very heartening for us and if you look at it comparatively we are at a good place.”

For MTV beats too the growth has been positive. “MTV beats may not be technically free to air but we are available on DD free dish,” says Ferzad, “It is one of the fastest growing channels in the country and we are right up there with all channels that have been around for 10-15 years now, that story has thankfully been very very good for us. We hit a profit in 12-15 months of operation.”

However, given the uncertainty that the industry was facing post the New Tariff regime and that coupled with the General Elections, IPL, the World Cup has had an impact on advertising spends. The ad market according to Ferzad has been soft not only for them but across the board, he believes that the market will pick up by August –September, “This is one of those unusual years where three to four different kinds of events came back to back with advertisers waiting to see how NTO will play out. It’s broadly settled but still settling down say in another 2-3 months.”

Even though MTV is not in the audio streaming business, Ferzad sees significant growth opportunity for MTV beats on TV itself as the consumption of music channels has been on the rise for last two to three years but what needs to be corrected he says is, “for the amount of audiences that we are delivering to, the ad money is fairly under indexed to what we deliver so that itself is one part of correction that needs to happen.”

But he doesn’t discount growth from the digital medium either due to the influx of smartphones and cheapest possible data through Jio. Whether TV or digital, the overall consumption of music in the country has gone up significantly because of which, he explains, one medium is not eating into another.

Without revealing budgets, Ferzad explains how marketing for the new shows on MTV will be a mix of both digital and traditional but for MTV on ground activation would be an equally important part of their marketing strategy as people prefer the touch and feel experience.

‘MTV Hustle’, which will be India’s first-ever rap reality show boasts of big brand collaborations like JBL, Philips One Blade and Breezer Vivid Life in Colour and Hike Messenger as their associate sponser. While their previous hit ‘Splitsvilla’ is returning with season 12 and is co-powered by All Fruit Juice, Manforce, Denver deodorants and Vega Hair styling appliances.

Admitting that it is easier to monetise previous successful shows, Ferzad says, “Advertisers generally, and especially when everyone’s money is so tight, want to see results and proof of concept before they can invest more. Compared to first seasons we’ve seen growth of 200-300 per cent because if a show does well, and say it hasn’t been sponsored,  that could go anywhere, it all depends on what your basis of your first season is, so there is no real answer to it but yes if a show does well in the first season it’s much easier to monetise it, you see much more demand of the same show in the subsequent season.”