MAM

MTV India adopts a new ‘Raw’ look

Published

15 years ago

November 26, 2010

MUMBAI: MTV, the youth brand channel, will go “raw” as it repositions for its Indian viewers from 27 November.

The new philosophy – ‘Stay Raw’ – will be supported by a new logo and packaging that will start promoting across Viacom18 network channels, print, outdoor and Internet.

Changing its earlier gameplan, MTV is also upping its music quotient as the M in MTV gets a boost to play a key role in India‘s rapidly changing marketplace..

Says MTV India channel head Aditya Swamy, “What we have started is not an ad campaign or new tagline. It’s a philosophy. It’s an idea that is based on what young people today believe, expressed in an edgy yet tongue in cheek manner which is trademark MTV. A powerful idea has a limitless canvas and way this has come together is proof of just that.”

In a strategic content shift, MTV is creating four music blocks – MTV BBM (Big Bang Mornings); MTV Music Xprs; MTV Mash Ups; and MTV International.

MTV BBM will play latest Bollywood music in the morning, while the afternoon music block (MTV Music Xprs) will have film music from across the years.

In the evenings, the global MTV phenomenon will hit India. MTV Mash Ups, the unique concept of East meets West, will see VJ Nikhil mashing up the Indian and International tracks from the same genre.

And the channel has decided to get back the global music charts with MTV International, the midnight block.

“The success of pure music channels 9XM and the newly launched Mastiii is, perhaps, forcing the older music channels to relook on their music content. MTV and Channel [V] had taken steps to reduce their music content as they repositioned themselves as youth brand channels. MTV could now be trying to play a fine balance between their reality and music content,” says a media tracker.

Swamy, however, feels that there is a need for youth channel brands to reinvent themselves from time to time to stay ahead of the curve. “Our core TG evolves very fast, and so we have to reinvent ourselves. We are just resonating,” he says.

On the reality content front, MTV is feeling the heat from UTV Bindass that has succeeded with bold homegrown reality shows like Emotional Attyachaar and Dadagiri.

Swamy denies that the move has anything to do with competition in the youth genre. “Today MTV is much bigger than a TV channel. Only 50 per cent of our revenues come from airtime sales,” he says.

For years, music channels in India have struggled to develop subscription and licensing and merchandising as strong revenue streams.

MTV has taken progressive steps to reduce its overarching dependence on advertising revenue. In an interview in mid-2009, the then MTV India head Ashish Patil had told Indiantelevision.com that ad sales accounted for 65 per cent of the overall revenues, of which 5 per cent comes from international clients. “Around 15 per cent comes from affiliates, which is also increasing. 15 per cent comes from Viacom Brand Solutions (client lead stuff, events and advertiser funded programming) like The Fast and The Gorgeorus, Stunt Mania etc. The remaining 5 per cent comes from L&M and movie previews (Ghajini).”

For promoting its new ‘raw‘ look, the channel is going ad free over the weekend for the first time, doing a “roadblock for itself.”

The new look of MTV is designed by UK-based Petrol, while the creatives are done by Bates 141.

The channel is going to promote the change heavily with graphics. It has created a series of 3D channel IDs and over 100 creatives that will communicate its ‘Stay Raw’ philosophy through mass media and digital.

MTV said Friday it is launching the second season of ‘Kurkure Desi Beats Rock On with MTV’ on 27 November at 7 pm and ‘Vodafone MTV Splitsvilla Season 4’ on 3 December at 7 pm.

“The channel has got rock band Indian Ocean and music director and composer Pritam to judge the singing reality show this season,” says Swamy.

MTV recently launched its first ever magazine globally, MTV Noise Factory. It also launched a website mtvplay.in, which captures and shares what’s going on in the minds of young people with marketers and advertisers.

“MTV plans to enter a new growth phase. All its new moves are a step in this direction. The challenge is for it to succeed on the content front as well as on the new brand position it has taken,” says a senior executive from a rival network.

Related Topics:Aditya Swamy Bates 141 MTV India

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MAM

Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement

Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted

Published

4 days ago

February 4, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.

The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.

The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.

Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.

Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.

For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.

More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.

The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.

In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.

Brands

Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board

Published

1 week ago

January 31, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.

Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.

“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.

The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.

Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.

The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.

MAM

Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships

Published

1 week ago

January 31, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

SINGAPORE: Anuvrat Rao has taken charge as APAC head of commerce and signals partnerships at Meta, steering monetisation deals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from Singapore. The former Google executive, known for launching Google Assistant, PWAs, AMP and Firebase across Asia-Pacific, steps into the role after a high-growth stint as chief business officer at Locofy.ai.

At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.

Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.

Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.