Tag: Facebook

Mr. Netflix, are you ready for India?

After tasting global success, Mr. Netflix is revving up to thrust into India by 2016. But let’s take a breather here. We are talking about a country which debates about Bharat and India and where a part of the demography still views its favourite content in black and white CRT TV.

While youngsters these days are widely speaking about Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black, dear Mr. Netflix wait before you get buoyed by all these series that generates millions for you, as Indians still believe in ‘torrent’ing .

In India, while some of the best movies, made by the greatest filmmakers have been uploaded on YouTube, what has worked is the bathroom comedy by All India Backchod. Why do I talk about this, because if one has to believe the sources, Netflix is meeting a lot of producers across India to rope in quality content for the subscription based video on demand (SVOD) platform.

I know that the unprecedented number of downloads of Hotstar has tested your temperament and you can’t wait to enter the lucrative Indian market, but this video on demand (VoD) platform from Star India, got most of its downloads, thanks to Cricket, a religion in India. The app has so far been downloaded by more than 10 million Android users.

Hotstar was placed in the top spot in the Google free app category even taking over Facebook and Whatsapp while the ICC Cricket World Cup was on. Now that the World Cup and IPL are over, the platform is not even in the top 10. This substantiates the fact that Hotstar’s unprecedented success was because of the two cricketing events.

So what are you thinking now, Mr Netflix? Hotstar does not have adequate content? Hold on, the platform has 20,000 hours of content spread across seven languages. This includes 120+ full length TV shows and 500+ movies. This apart, the app also live streams popular sports like Cricket, Football, Tennis and Kabbadi. In short, Hotstar caters to a very large and diverse audience.

Hotstar is not the only VOD platform India has. Right from Zee’s DittoTV, Spuul, Zenga, YupTV to the speculated Viacom 18’s soon to be launched VOD platform, competition will be tough. So, Mr Netflix it’s not just another regular expansion of business, you are going to enter a war: A war of over the top (OTT) services.

Not only domestic players, but international ones like HOOQ and Vuclip among others have already entered the Indian market. HOOQ launched in India in May 2015 with a subscription plan of Rs 199.

The subscription based platform has managed to secure 10,000 downloads in the two months since its launch. So Mr. Netflix, you may just have to change your strategy and become an ad based VoD platform, to woo Indian consumers. If industry sources are to be believed, Netflix is looking for a possible tie up with HOOQ for its India launch.

Mr Netflix if you are thinking you will change your strategy and take the ad route let me throw a few numbers. Of the Rs 414 billion Indian advertising budget, only 10.5 per cent is expected to be spent on digital. Eating into this 10.5 per cent will be giants like Google, Yahoo and Bing among others, leaving you with a meager percentage share of the ad pie. If this satisfies you, join the fight and prepare yourself with some melodrama content that can please the advertiser.

By now you must be thinking: what do 1,280 million people in India do and what about the 300 million smartphone exaggeration? Let’s take the number route again. Yes it’s true that India is about to dethrone the US and become the second largest mobile internet market by having more than 300 million wireless internet users and the year-on-year growth rate stands at 31 per cent. The main reason behind it is availability of smartphones at a low price which is enabling the penetration in rural India. But Mr Netflix what content will you provide in rural India? Malgudi Days? And you think rural India will accept it? On a Rs 5,000 smartphone Malgudi Days will look like Guilever Travels and produce sound like a radio. So not convincing!

I know what is lucrative — 210 million wireless internet connections which is estimated to reach 402 million by 2017 and 528 million by 2019. While urban India widely speaks about 3G, majority of them disable their 3G service and stay satisfied with Edge or 2G service. 3G is largely alien to rural India. To add to your vivid imagination, while you are widely reading about smartphone penetration, 66 per cent of the urban internet traffic comes from desktop. 11 per cent of active urban consumers use tablets to access internet of which only 16 per cent consider tablets as their primary device for internet access.

So Mr Netflix, if you still have zest let me present to you the fiercest competition: Television, which you think will diminish with the emergence of digital. Yes, there are close to 300 million internet users whereas only 168 million television households in India. But if one takes a closer look, the168 million households amount to 825 million television viewers.

The growth rate of internet users is also expected to be much higher compared to that of television. From 2014-19 television is expected grow at a CAGR of 3 per cent, when pitched against the huge CAGR 18 per cent for internet users. The television growth can go much higher if more areas are empowered with electricity.

So, only if there is a complete paradigm shift, with five national MSOs and six DTH players committing a bundle of mistakes and a Tsunami of technology comes in to change the entire infrastructure, a concept like SVOD may work, otherwise it may just perish.

Mr Netflix let me introduce a term to you which you might have never come across throughout your journey – ‘buffering’. To watch a video at 144p one has to go through numerous buffering so guess what will happen to someone who wants to watch an Argo or Apocalypse Now.

The only ray of hope for you Mr. Netflix is 4G. Airtel has already launched 4G in some parts of the country and Reliance Jio is expected to launch by 2015 end. 4G is supposed to be a lot faster compared to 3G but the price is yet to be determined. Why did I mention price? As the current scenario goes, to watch 1GB of content one has to pay around Rs 300. So for 10 GB worth of content, one has to pay approximately Rs 3,000 — an amount that can give 500 channels on television for 10 months.

The other ray of hope is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ vision.

Mr Netflix don’t worry India believes in Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest Is God) and hence will welcome you with grace and gratitude, like the nation did with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts.

But at the end of the day as Charles Darwin said ‘Survival of the fittest.’

June 25, 2015
NBA finals 2015 shatters television, digital and retail records

MUMBAI: The NBA Finals 2015 – which concluded on 16 June and saw the Golden State Warriors defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers four games to two – broke records across television, digital, and retail, becoming the most-watched and highest-rated Finals in ABC history with nearly 20 million viewers per game and an average 11.6 U.S. household rating.

Highlights from The Finals include:

·         ABC: The six-game series set new Finals records for ABC with 19,939,000 viewers and an 11.6 U.S. rating, up 30 percent and 26 percent, respectively, from 17,667,000 viewers and a 10.5 U.S. rating for The Finals 2014.  Additional details on highest-rated NBA Finals on ABC.

·         NBA Digital:  NBA.com and NBA Mobile garnered a combined 336 million video views, eclipsing the record set during last year’s Finals.

·         Facebook: On Facebook, fans created 173 million interactions related to The Finals, including posts, comments, and likes. Additionally, NBA, Warriors, and Cavs content amassed a record 98 million video views – up 180 percent from The Finals 2014, viaSports on Facebook.

·         Twitter: On game days throughout The Finals, the NBA accounted for 71 percent of all television-related conversation. #NBAFinals tweets were viewed 7.6 billion times on Twitter and across the web, via @TwitterData.  During the #NBAFinals, 7 million tweets contained the hashflags #CLE, #GSW, #ALLinCLE, #DubNation.

·         Google: On the day of Game 6, “Golden State Warriors” was the most-searched item on Google, with “Cavs vs Warriors” ranking No. 3.

·         Instagram: The league’s Instagram account added a record 628,000 new followers throughout The Finals, pushing the total following to 7.8 million.

·         Snapchat: With 417,000 views, the NBA posted its most-viewed snap of all time during Game 6. Overall, NBA Snapchat content received a record 93.5 million views during The Finals.

·         Merchandise: June 17 was the highest-selling day in NBAStore.com history, up triple digits from the previous one-day record.

o Record-setting sales for NBA Finals 2015 merchandise across all Fanatics platforms, including NBAStore.com and Fanatics.com, up triple digits from the previous record achieved at The Finals 2010 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

June 22, 2015
“Special ads will soon start storming in for mobile phones:” Rajdeepak Das

At a young age he decided to convert his passion into profession. At 21 he made his first ad and by the time he was 23, he joined Contract Advertising. At 25 he was off to BBDO Bangkok where he waited outside the office for 17 days as the security did not allow him to go inside due to a language problem.

At 28 he started BBDO Mumbai with five creative officers and five interns and took the company to new heights. He has many accolades against his name and one of them is being the youngest executive creative director. He is Leo Burnett India chief creative officer Rajdeepak Das.

A Bob Dylan and Steve Jobs fan, a firm believer in Hope, Faith, Love and Charity, Das speaks to Indiantelevision.com’s Anirban Roy Choudhury about the changing advertising industry and the role that mobile is going to play in near future.

Excerpts:

Do you think the ad fraternity will have to start adapting to the growth of smartphones in India?

Special ads will soon start storming in for the mobile phone where the format is not landscape anymore. It will be more candid, more catchy, sometimes longer and interactive. Mobile opens a number of avenues like geo-targetting. For example, there is no point in showing a Bandra person, an ad about Delhi. Moreover, mobile also enables us to know the behavior and attitude of users. The adaptation has already started and the ad fraternity is creating special creatives and strategies for smart phones.

Do you think the device mobile phone is used a little too often in ads now?

We have 300 million TV and 500 million mobile phones and therein lay the answers. In next 10 years, the country will have 1.2 billion mobile phones, which will be three or four times more than a TV. People are on Facebook, Whatsaap, Twitter and the amount of time they spend on the mobile is way more than TV. The time spent on mobile phones is only likely to increase more with time.

Let’s take prime time for example. What has happened to prime time? It used to be from 7 pm – 10 pm but that has changed. Now the prime time is the time you are in the toilet or traveling. The phone has enabled us to decide our prime time where we can consume content at our own convenience. The mobile phone is a major target of brands and hence in every second ad there is a phone on the screen.

Do you think different treatment should be given to campaigns curated for a high magnitude and prolonged event like IPL to avoid repetitiveness?

Vodafone came up with 52 days 52 ads with their Zoo Zoo campaign during IPL. So variety is possible. We launched around five ads during this IPL. Sometimes repetition is necessary to make something noticeable hence you can’t totally get away with it.

What role is social media playing in advertising? Are shares and likes becoming one of the prime demands of clients?

I think this is one of the best times to be in the creative field. While we are solving clients’ problems, it’s not about shares and likes. It’s more about creating something that addresses the problem.

Gone are the days when advertising was just creating an ad. Now it is about understanding issues like clients problem, business problem etc. At times you might not even need an ad. A simple change in packaging, understanding the ground territory or understanding what people want can do the trick

At Burnett, we follow the philosophy of Human Kind, so we try to understand the problem from people’s point of view. Social media has emerged as a weapon for us. The interaction has become faster, we get to know the reaction immediately and if we see that we need to correct it somewhere, we go ahead and do it.

Crash the IPL was a great example of crowd sourcing. Do you think following its success, it can become a trend and disrupt the ad agency?

If I want something to be written, I can go to the crowd. There are many amateur writers. All of them will send something but will it carry a solution for the brand? Maybe… maybe not.

It is not necessary that quality content can become a quality solution. So with crowd sourcing, the chances of hit are less and miss are more while an agency will surely provide you with a solution.

Interaction with crowd will always be there. There will be more interactive creative campaigns, which will make people talk about it. But for the time being, I don’t see crowd sourcing becoming a trend and hurting ad agencies.

Due to YouTube and other technical innovations, foreign ads have become easily accessible and with that emerged a competitive debate. Where do you see us compared to them?

What works in India will work anywhere in the world. We cry, we smile, we fall in love, we have desires and greed and that’s the same everywhere. I love Japanese ads and ads of Thailand. So if it is good work, it will garner global recognition.

The difference is in quality of production. Their crafting is better than us and they exhibit some quality work. Having said that, we are not far behind. Our directors are getting better as is our story telling. At the creative thinking level, we are at par if not better than them.

Do you think out of the box ideas, which once created can be recreated? And if it is recreated, will it work?

It depends on the story telling and how well the execution is. Dil Chahta Hai,Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Rock On had the same story. Did it work? Of course it did. It worked and it became bigger and better. So out of the box concepts will always stand out and there will be many more recreations. It will be a mix of new and old, depending on the need of the brand. Everything will work if it is done eloquently.

What should young minds who aspire to become an ad man do? Is classroom education enough?

Classroom education is not enough. They should start working as soon as possible. Work for small clients, less money but work. They should start practicing the art as early as possible. The greatest of minds in this world are college dropouts. I am not insisting anyone to dropout from college but them becoming big have a reason.

They learn by themselves. For them, learning 5+5 = 10 is not as easy as it is for someone in college and schools. In the process of learning 5+5 = 10, they learnt 10 different things, which made them what they are. I want all of them who aspire to become an ad man to start working as early as possible and that will take them a long way.

What do you like about the advertising industry and is there anything that the industry should change?

The beauty of our industry is that whether it is an intern or a chief creative officer, we all start by looking at an empty white page. Whoever cracks the idea and comes with a better concept is victorious. So there’s a subtle unanimity in all hierarchal positions. In other words, there is no boss or everyone is the boss.

The thing that the advertising industry needs to change is to stop making an ad, if it is not necessary. An ad is not the solution of each and every problem. We should understand the problem and address it. After duly understanding the problem, if there is a need of an ad, only then should we go for it. Ads shouldn’t be a subject of hatred for consumers. We can’t keep interrupting someone with a pop-up ad. By doing that, we will only manage to get skipped and nothing beyond that.

What’s the way forward for Rajdeepak Das?

I love what I do and there is one thing that I will do till my last breath and that is ads. I want to keep making quality ads provide creative solutions to brands, which helps them rejuvenate their statistics. I believe in the four magical words that I saw written on Steve Jobs’ grave: Hope, Faith, Love and Charity and that says it all.

June 13, 2015
WWE surpasses half a billion social media followers

MUMBAI: WWE has eclipsed half a billion fans through its global social media platforms, further cementing its position as one of the most-followed brands in the world.

WWE’s Facebook page has more fans than the NFL, ESPN, Marvel, Google and UFC, and WWE superstar John Cena is the No.1 most followed active American athlete on Facebook with more than 36 million likes.

On Twitter, @WWE has more followers than MLB, Disney, Sony and Pepsi and according to Klout, is the No. 1 most influential brand on Twitter.

On Instagram, WWE’s fastest-growing platform, @WWE has more followers than ESPN, HBO, NHL and Gatorade. With nearly five billion video views on YouTube in the past year alone, WWE is the No. 1 Sports channel ahead of the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, ESPN and NASCAR.

WWE’s Social Media Snapshot:

• Facebook: 354 million total likes, including 98 million new likes, an increase of 38 per cent year-over year.

• Twitter: 108 million total followers, including 18 million new followers, an increase of 20 per cent year-over-year.

• Instagram: 26 million total followers, including 25 million new followers, an increase of 2,955 per cent year-over-year.

• YouTube: 6.2 million total subscribers, including 2.8 million new subscribers, an increase of 82 per cent year-over-year.

Earlier this year, WWE won awards for Overall Social Media Excellence and Social Media Dream Team at the 2015 Cynopsis Sports Media Awards and 2015 Cablefax Digital Awards, respectively. WWE’s 12 social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Periscope, Google+, Vine, Foursquare, Tumblr, Pheed and Pinterest.

June 8, 2015
7UP to launch reality show on Udaya TV

MUMBAI: Taking a step towards advertiser funded programming (AFP), PepsiCo India’s brand 7UP is all set to launch a six-week reality show titled 7UP UPstarters, which will feature original talent from South India.

Featuring budding dancers, singers and actors, the first episode of 7UP UPstarters will premiere on 7 June on Udaya TV at 5.30 pm.

The contest saw huge participation from aspiring singers, dancers and actors during the on-ground auditions across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and through a unique wild-card system on Facebook.

With talent including brake-dancers, classical singers, beat-boxers and acting enthusiasts among others, seven teams will fight to finish through a series of week-on-week performances. The winning 7-member team will win a cash prize of Rs 7 lakh.

The grand-finale of the six-part series will be judged by actors and 7UP brand ambassadors Dhanush and Puneeth Rajkumar.

PepsiCo India senior director marketing, social beverages Ruchira Jaitly said, “7UP UPstarters is not just another reality show but a search for the next generation of original, authentic talent from Karnataka. The entire journey from audition to the finale has been packaged into six action-packed episodes to bring viewers closer to the actual experience of each contestant.”

June 4, 2015
#fame eyes 10 mn downloads in 6 months for first live video entertainment app

MUMBAI: #fame is all set to bridge the gap between entertainment and audiences by launching India’s first live video entertainment app in beta on iOS and Google Play.

Through the app, performers can live beam to fans from their smart phones. What’s more, the company is targeting 10 million downloads for the app in the first six month and is expected to bring on-board more than 50,000 skilled and amateur performers with this new video-on-demand (VoD) platform.

#fame CEO Saket Saurabh said, “The #fame app is pioneering not only because it is India’s first live video entertainment app, but also because it will be home to original content from the country’s hottest young digital stars. The app is a manifestation of #fame’s vision of empowering millions of emerging talent in their journey as content creators and help them reach and engage with their audiences wherever they are and whenever they want.”

Since launch, the network has seen strong traction for its suite of digital shows and properties. Apart from its mobile app, #fame’s digital video network spans several digital and social platforms including YouTube, Facebook, WeChat, Daily Motion and other content publishers. #fame strategically focuses on emerging and established talent to build digital video channels and communities around them.

In a bid to expand its boundaries, #fame has also identified five additional markets in South-East Asia to build local digital video businesses. These include Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines apart from India.

To The New (TTN) Ventures, the parent company of #fame, has a strong strategic presence in these markets where it has built businesses in the SMACK space (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Content & Knowledge). Astro Overseas, a cross-media operator in South-East Asia, is a key strategic investor in TTN Ventures.

“#fame is creating an exciting new live category in the mobile video and entertainment space. Along with its proven record of breakthrough original digital content, we are confident of #fame achieving market leadership in mobile video in India and South-East Asia in the near future,” added To The New Ventures managing director Puneet Johar.

May 20, 2015
MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings dominate Facebook fandom map

MUMBAI: Facebook has been mapping fans of the eight teams playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), which shows the most-liked teams on Facebook across all of India’s states and districts. Led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are the kings of IPL when it comes to their Facebook likes.

The map shows that every team is the most supported team in their home states. In states that do not have a team, CSK dominates.

Interestingly, more people in Delhi like the CSK team than their home team. In fact, the Delhi Daredevils do not have a plurality of fans in an Indian district. And in Gurgaon, Mumbai Indians are the most popular among Facebook fans.

The Facebook fandom map is created by the Facebook Data Science team, shows fans of all eight IPL teams across India. Each district is color-coded based on which official team Facebook page has the most likes from the people that live in that district.

What’s more, from 1 April to 10 May, approximately 26 million people had nearly 250 million Facebook interactions around the IPL wherein people engaged in the conversation their favorite teams, players, and with their friends around IPL content. In India, 19 million people had nearly 200 million interactions.

May 18, 2015
Dance With Madhuri 2.0 connects remote dancers with job opportunities

MUMBAI: There was a time when if you weren’t in any of the five major cities in the country, you could only fantasize about pursuing your passion for dance and only dream about learning from the big Bollywood choreographers. Then came the Internet and YouTube. Self-learning apps soon followed suit. Artists are no longer restricted by their regional boundaries giving rise to a fresh pool of talent. Now that artists in remote areas are armed with knowledge and skill, what next since the opportunities to put their skill to use are still only available in the major cities?

Dance With Madhuri, the gamified self-learning app, recognises this issue, and aims to address it with a new version.

“We have introduced a new section called ‘jobs’ in the app’s ‘Unite’ category, which allows talents to showcase their dance portfolios and upload videos etc. Those looking for dancers (perhaps for events, movie shoots, or even shaadi functions) can also post opportunities for the artists to explore, somewhat how classifieds are posted on LinkedIn,” says Dr. Sriram Nene at the launch of Dance With Madhuri 2.0(DWM), where he joined Madhuri Dixit, along with dance masters like Saroj Khan, Terence Lewis and Leena Mogre, to explain the ‘Learn Move Unite’ philosophy adopted by the upgraded version of DWM.

DWM is an answer to Madhuri’s lifelong dream of allowing everyone easy access to dance and the e-learning platform was developed two years back by her better half, Dr. Nene,along with an in-house team and the Indian software company Robosoft.

“With growing number of the users, we were encouraged to scale up the content and have now introduced more dance forms, and introduced new gurus to offer a more robust learning experience. At the same time, we have introduced new ways to use dance to stay fit with dancercise, body conditioning, dance pilates, dance yoga, tabata and more. People can learn dance and stay fit by accessing the DWM any time anywhere on any platform,” adds Madhuri.

Now, with over two lakh followers from more than 200 countries, the portal continues to be free for its users, and Dr Nene plans to keep it so perpetually.

Speaking about the revenue model for the app, Dr Nene says, “If you are looking at it from a long term perspective, it is a sponsorship advertising driven model, a classic example of which would be Facebook. With 100 million people (users) on board, its very promising solution for sponsors and advertisers. I also believe that we are entering an era where we value companies rather than look at its revenue.”

Dr Nene also hinted upon expanding this e-learning platform beyond dance to other spheres in near future.

May 14, 2015
Facebook introduces Instant Articles for interactivity among publishers

NEW DELHI: Facebook has introduced a new product for publishers called Instant Articles to create fast, interactive articles on the social networking website.

Facebook product manager Michael Reckhow said, “As more people get their news on mobile devices, we want to make the experience faster and richer on Facebook. People share a lot of articles on Facebook, particularly on our mobile app. To date, however, these stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type on Facebook. Instant Articles makes the reading experience as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles.”

Along with a faster experience, Instant Articles introduced a suite of interactive features that allow publishers to bring their stories to life in new ways including zoom in and exploring high-resolution photos by tilting the smartphone. Auto-play videos will come alive as one scrolls through stories. One can explore interactive maps, listen to audio captions, and even like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line.

Reckhow added, “We designed Instant Articles to give publishers control over their stories, brand experience and monetization opportunities. Publishers can sell ads in their articles and keep the revenue, or they can choose to use Facebook’s Audience Network to monetize unsold inventory. Publishers will also have the ability to track data and traffic through comScore and other analytics tools.”

“Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Facebook. Instant Articles lets them deliver fast, interactive articles while maintaining control of their content and business models,” said Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox.

Facebook is working with nine launch partners for Instant Articles: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC, Spiegel and Bild.

The New York Times Company president and CEO Mark Thompson said, “The New York Times already has a significant and growing audience on Facebook. We’re participating in Instant Articles to explore ways of growing the number of Times users on Facebook, improving their experience of our journalism and deepening their engagement. We have a long tradition of meeting readers where they are and that means being available not just on our own sites, but on the social platforms frequented by many current and potential Times users.”

“It is great to see Facebook trailing new ways for quality journalism to flourish on mobile. The Guardian is keen to test how the new platform can provide an even more engaging experience for our readers. It is then vital that, over time, Instant Articles delivers recurring benefit for publishers, whose continued investment in original content underpins its success,” added Guardian News & Media international directorTony Danker.

Instant Articles launched with a special set of stories published by The New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic, NBC and The Atlantic. Facebook will continue developing Instant Articles with its partners over the coming months and listening to feedback from readers to help improve the experience.

May 13, 2015
‘Doctor Who’ to air on FX from 15 May

MUMBAI: Come 15 May, and FX is all set to invade Indian television screens with one of the greatest science fiction series Doctor Who.

It may be recalled that Indiantelevision.com has reported last month that the channel was all set to launch the cult show in India.

Doctor Who will be aired every Monday to Friday at 9 pm on FX.

Produced by the BBC Wales, Doctor Whois the longest running sci-fi TV show in the world. A significant part of British popular culture, the iconic series follows the adventures of the Doctor, a Time Lord – a time-travelling humanoid alien. He explores the universe in his Tardis, a sentient time-travelling space ship. Along with a succession of companions, the Doctor combats a variety of foes while working to save civilizations and help people in need.

Doctor Who executive producer Brian Minchin says, “We are delighted that Doctor Who is going to hit the screens of FX. We’re hugely proud of the show and the Doctor’s adventures in time and space. Hold on tight – there are thrills and wonders ahead! 51 years ago, the very first episode of Doctor Who was directed by Waris Hussein, born in Lucknow. I like to think we’ve finally come full circle with the new modern series launching in India on FX.”

Doctor Who has a phenomenal following millions fans across the globe winning 98 television awards. Until 2015, the series even holds the Guinness World Record for the largest simulcast of a TV drama – 98 countries across six continents. Over the recent years, Doctor Who has won over five million fans on Facebook, 1.2 million followers on Twitter, and in November 2014, the YouTube channel bagged a new subscriber every 41 seconds.

To give the show an apt promotional platform, FX has created an integrated marketing campaign reiterating the channel’s tagline- The Edge of Entertainment. Reaching out to all the ‘edge seekers’, FX India has also made a music video complete with original composition, zany graphics and footage that has been specially created to announce the show’s launch and the impending arrival of the Doctor.

Commenting on the cult fan-following and Doctor Who’s travel to India, an official spokesperson from Star India said, “We are very excited to be associating with BBC and bringing a cult show such as Doctor Who to Indian audiences. The show has garnered tremendous popularity internationally, and we believe that the unique concept along with a strong integrated marketing campaign at FX will make it big in India too. We are already receiving a great response from fans post the announcement, and anticipate much more.”

May 12, 2015