“Cinema is a big stance that we have taken this year”

Players in the English general entertainment space have time and again undertaken different programming and marketing strategies to connect with their target viewers. AXN is one such channel that has come up with a differentiated programming strategy to build its time slots, besides identifying cinema as one of the significant platforms for marketing.

According to Sunil Punjabi, Business Head, AXN India Networks, if one needs the whole grandeur to come in, a good system is needed and that affinity to content grows as and when one sees the quality of content improving.

In conversation with exchange4media, Punjabi talks about the differentiated content strategy of AXN, cinema as a major marketing platform, and the channel’s association with various upcoming movies to facilitate movie marketing.

What, according to you, were the important milestones in the broadcast space that will define the way forward for AXN per se now?
I think the biggest milestone per say would be digitisation and how it has further expanded the universe of viewership. Digitisation will lead to a lot of connecting as one goes to the Tier I and Tier II towns. We as a channel are definitely getting better position, placement, etc., in the network. Though we have the maximum connectivity, what is really important is the quality of transmission, since AXN is a touch and feel channel and consists of life size content. If you need the whole grandeur to come in, you need a good system which has to be better and which is being put in place especially with the rollout in Tier II and Tier III cities happening. We also believe that affinity to content grows as and when you see the quality of content improving. That is how we are observing the change in the form of our channel shares, which have gone up. For AXN, it is a big difference since we are already present in the markets, but now with digitisation, we will hopefully get bigger. People will now be able to experience us in a completely different perspective.

Could you elaborate on the channel’s content and the programming strategy for the year 2013?
We have already made some changes in January 2013 and had taken some conscious calls in October last year to do two things. The first thing is to get the shows as close to the US as possible. Today, there is a lot of piracy happening on the digital platform and we want to kill it. Also, people are aware of the quality of content such as ‘Supernatural’, which is high demand youth content that AXN brings to the table, which in turn makes a big difference. Also, from the experience point of view it gets killed when people watch it in a small screen instead of the big screen. The difference between Indian and US programming is that in India it is a daily, whereas in the US it is weekly. Hence, we branded a slot, ‘Big Thrills Friday’.

The second thing that we have undertaken is the introduction of three slots from a viewers’ perspective, which would see all the reality shows such as ‘Top Chef’, ‘Amazing Race’ and so on coming at the 8 PM slot, which will be followed by much more engaging drama series such as ‘Supernatural’ in the 9 PM prime time slot. The 8 PM slot would basically be a buildup to the 9 PM time slot.

The rationale behind the entire strategy is that according to our viewership patterns, people start tuning at around 8 PM to 8.15 PM. Also, for us it a one-hour programming as opposed to the half an hour traditional Indian programming. Then we move to heavy series such as ‘CSI’, which is telecast in the 10 PM slot. The idea is to build these three time bands from a viewer’s perspective. That is why we are moving the audiences from light reality shows to lighter dramas and then to the heavier ones.

What is the ratio of reality content to fiction content that the channel has as part of the programming strategy?
Reality is one-third of the total programming content, while drama series contribute to two-third of the programming content.

Could you share the global outlook on the status/growth of the English entertainment genre in other key markets and comparatively how this genre has evolved in India?
In terms of evolution, there is big difference since internationally they follow the season format. International content is slightly more organised, wherein each episode is a story by itself. Another difference is that the mix is very different. Indians are used to continuous viewing if they like something. So, the capability for you to sample English content is far higher as opposed to Hindi content, which is much threaded.

What are the different marketing initiatives that AXN has undertaken to promote its shows? What is the percentage share of the marketing spends that the channel has earmarked for the different marketing platforms to promote the shows? Apart from traditional media, what are the innovations being undertaken on the digital platform?
We have always looked at marketing from the viewer’s point of view. We have tried to customise our experiences with different sets of people and according to the different kinds of programming.  We had undertaken the ‘Saltgunner’ campaign sometime ago and had a tweet up happening. We are doing events in multiple cities to reach out to our target viewers.

We basically undertake the campaigns depending upon the show that we intend to promote. For example, ‘Top Chef’ is a purely experiential programme and hence, we will be doing a consumer activity across six cities for the latest season of the show, wherein we will give people an opportunity to experience a live cook-in with the chef in the exact format that they see on TV being delivered on ground. Every show has a differential experience and that is how we design the marketing campaigns.  Similarly, for traditional prime time programming we use a lot of traditional media, outdoors, more of print, and cinema.

Cinema is a big stance that we have taken this year. The idea is to basically get people the largeness of the content. Typically, cinema is seen for larger screen content and AXN actually delivers the large screen content. AXN is actually large scale content and the promos that we are running in cinemas, give a feeling of largeness. That is another area where we have differentiated.

AXN had recently associated with the marketing of the film ‘Inkaar’. Can we expect more such associations in the near future? What is the primary focus of the channel when it facilitates movie marketing?
We have taken that route since the last couple of months. We started off with ‘Student of the Year’ and we used that to launch both ‘Teen Wolf’ and ‘Supernatural’ series. We basically associate a movie with a show from the genre perspective, which works. We give away movie tickets for the same. Through this, the idea was to promote our two large programming content – ‘True Justice’ and ‘Amazing Race’. The next movie that we are associating is ‘Special 26’ with ‘Leverage’. We are looking at genres matching movie associations, which helps in greater audience connect. It also has its own level of gratification. We started this off as an experiment by working our strong programming with strong partners. This gives a new level of engagement with viewers and builds new associations, which gives a completely different flavour and platform to engage with them.

Please share about some targets earmarked for AXN in 2013.
We have not earmarked targets, but will be doing a couple of things. We will be bringing a lot of original productions to India. We are launching ‘Hannibal’ and ‘The Apprentice Asia’. This is the first time in India wherein we will have large productions. Those two franchises will rule the roost in the coming year and will make a fairly reasonable difference in the way we have positioned our properties in India.