MUMBAI: “It takes many years to become an overnight success.” (Frank Sonnenberg, Soul Food: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life)
Bhojpuri GEC “Bhojpuri Dhamaka DISHUM” was launched amongst much fanfare on 15th August, 2017 witha single point agenda to transform the Bhojpuri television and content landscape. Its vision was to disrupt the Bhojpuri market by targeting the aspirational Bhojpuri speaking pay TV viewers based in Bihar, Jharkhand, UP and across India. The channel launched with a first of its kind international award show, held at the prestigious O2 arena in London and surprised and awed viewers as well as advertisers with production value and a canvas not seen before in the Bhojpuri television. The channel adopted innovative packaging combined with an emotive narrative around its brand identity DISHUM and what it signified in the fabric of Bhojpuri society. This unique approach to packaging, promos along with a mood mapped FPC comprising of the best of Fiction shows, Events and World Television Premiers of the biggest of Bhojpuri blockbusters.
The journey has not been so easy. Availability of content on free digital platforms, tumbling data cost and fatigued Bhojpuri TV programming caused a tectonic shift ofBhojpuri viewership to mobile phones and hand held devices. Getting them back to linear televisionhas been an uphill and fruitful journey, which has resulted in the over all growth of the entire universe – both in terms of ratings and revenues.
Over a period of 24 months, DISHUMhas studied the changing consumption pattern and arrived at anFPC which has a mix of the best of both worlds; TV and Digital. Festival spikes and themed topical native programming became the new drivers of the channel and the results paid off.
Today DISHUM is the number One Bhojpuri General Entertainment Channel with 4 Week Average Impression(‘000) of 15,762 and number One across all Bhojpuri channels in All 22 + with an Average Impression(‘000) of 9,784. (Source BARC: Bihar & Jharkhand (Pay Platform), Average Impression of Week 27 to 30, 2019)
Keeping up with the learning, festival programming has already arrived at DISHUM.With the advent of Shravan, a month-longprogramming spike is alreadyplaying outand this will continue with other topical spikes, culminating with Chhath Mahaparv in November, a programming of almost five months.
“And it took us two years to be where we are today”, Partha Dey, COO, Dishum, quotes this. He has launched or led almost all Bhojpuri channels including, the regional trend setter Mahuaand thinks loyalty and traction can only be generated if you have the right mix of content and DISHUM, he says, will always strive to create this mix for a wholesome family entertainment.
Dishum is distributed across all major Pay Platforms- DTH & MSO including Tata Sky, Airtel, Sun Direct, Den Networks, Siti Digital, GTPL, Darsh Digital and many more independent MSO’s.
Aparna Shah, Director, Dishum said “The ratings indicate our growth and acceptance specially with the aspirational Urban audiences as a feather to our cap in comparison within the genre. Our programming has thrived on distribution minus Freedish to address the NCCS AB audiences in Bihar Jharkhand market.
NTO made us stand out as a leading brand in Pay platform with increasing number of advertisers and brands wanting to partner with us. Brands patronizing to Bihar Jharkhand in particular, are there with us (some on exclusive basis), due to TG supremacy we enjoy in NCCS_A, B or AB cuts. We have seen a growth of over 30% in brand count post NTO.”
