New Channels will only fragment the market Giving the viewers more choices But A bulk of output is still coming from the top notch
HBO is very popular among the youth. But how has the channel performed over the past one year in terms of financials?
I think we have done extremely well in the past one year, as the year before that was not quite difficult for us alone but for the entire industry as well. In terms of revenues, we have grown by 25% in the 1st quarter. In terms of advertisers, we have got a lot of support as the number has increased substantially.
How is your marketing strategy different from your counterparts?
Our marketing strategy is to really focus on our core properties. A lot of our marketing efforts are focused towards ‘Hollywood Premier League’. We also spend a significant amount of our marketing budget on the campaign called ‘Summers with HBO’. Whenever we market our core properties, we use multimedia as a marketing tool. It is primarily because the market has changed. More and more people are using the internet today. Look at Facebook as a success story. Where was it two years back? The answer is nowhere. But today Facebook has become a huge rage.
Are you feeling any heat from a host of new channels that have come into the market lately?
The new channels will only fragment the market giving the viewers more choices. But what you have to see is that the bulk of the output from Hollywood is coming either to HBO or to Star Movies, the rest of new channels are just showing what has already been shown on HBO or Star Movies before. Therefore, there is a fragmentation in the market. However, the quality programming still belongs to the top notch in the domestic circuit. The entry of new channels is not at all a threat because once the viewer knows that what all other channels are offering as compared to HBO, they’ll surely come back to us automatically.
DTH players are now offering this pay-per-title concept in India these days. Does that in any way affect the viewership of HBO?
Our experience says that this phenomenon coexist with the movie channel space across the globe. But it is not significant enough that it starts competing with the movie channels.
India is perhaps the only country in the world where watching English movies with subtitles is very popular. How has been your experience with it as some critics even support the fact that it destroys the movie watching experience?
We were the first ones in India to introduce subtitles and I think it has worked out pretty well. We have got a lot of positive feedback for this initiative. For every one person who says it destroys the movie watching experience, there are ten others who say that thank God you’ve got subtitles, I was not able to understand some parts of the movie.
HBO has recently completed 10 years in Indian market. According to you, how has the industry evolved over the past one decade?
A decade ago, there were just 100 channels, today there are 400. There is so much fragmentation already, but there is still a price war. However I think the next five years are going to be critical for the entire industry. Currently, DTH players are competing to grab a share of the market but soon they will move towards making money. Tata Sky says to the consumer pay me Rs. 300 and watch everything, then Dish TV in return says pay me Rs. 250 and watch everything. Once that stops, the market will start moving in the direction of growth.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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