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Tag: Nikhil Madhok

  • Star Plus believes digital is the way forward

    Star Plus believes digital is the way forward

    (Hindi GEC Star Plus features in this the second of our series on what TV channels are doing in the digital and social media space)

    It’s the leader in the Hindi general entertainment space in India and has been so for the most part of the previous decade, and even this one. The Star India network, has been gung-ho on the online space, ever since one can remember like its owner Rupert Murdoch, who has had a fascination for it but confesses he does not know how to deal with it.

    Star India took a big punt when it acquired the much-touted indya.com way back in 2001, coughing up a hefty $50 million in buying it. It has since not known what to do with it. Just like Murdoch failed to fathom what the group could do with myspace.com, finally selling it out cheap.

    Star India‘s Indya.com fiasco looks unlikely to be repeated today. CEO Uday Shankar is quite clear on that and a crack team at the media giant has been working overtime to engage with its viewers.

    “We have leveraged the platform of digital, our various digital assets and the power of broadcast integration to drive deeper multi-screen engagement and conversations,” says Star India marketing & communications executive vice president Gayatri Yadav.

    “Having an engaged audience that can interact with the brand is a very meaningful goal. This helps us build loyalty for the characters and the brand, develop interest in new launches and of course acts as a great influencer for new audiences to sample the on air content. The engaged audience base also acts as a great feedback mechanism for our content.”

    Star India marketing & communications executive vice president Gayatri Yadav

    Star has been innovative in actively energising, featuring and interacting with audiences with powerful integration of online with on-screen content. All the key show launches and events now have at least one element of live engagement with the viewers. Auditions, which were earlier only limited to on-ground activities, have further been extended to the digital platform, reveals Yadav.

    In terms of video content that it uploads, Star Plus broadly classifies it into long form and short form, catch-up content, web exclusives, promos and legacy. For platforms like YouTube the channel‘s approach has been to upload short form catch-up content, which it says has been very well received. Its own video platforms have long form catch up content, along with some marquee legacy shows.

    Starplus.in and Star Player (www.startv.in) are among the two-owned platforms that it uses to encourage users to engage with the channel and download content. Data on how many downloads the Star Player app has achieved was not available at the time of writing but its Facebook page had received 93,000 likes or so.

    Star Plus constantly keeps on updating pictures and videos of its shows on their website

    Star Plus constantly keeps on updating pictures and videos of its shows on these websites. Star, however, does not upload an episode within a couple of hours of its telecast. Besides, it uses textual and image content like daily recaps, show highlights, trivia and polls to interact with and engage the visitor.

    Apart from internet based platforms, Star Plus also leverages the reach of the voice platform through SPOM (Star Plus on Mobile – 5057827). Through its voice portal Star Plus on Mobile, the channel runs audio recaps of the daily shows, daily diaries, and voice blogs of popular characters and also title tracks of the shows.

    Star Plus uses the mobile platform to leverage it‘s content

    With live engagement being one of the significant elements, Star has Plus has created applications for Apple, Blackberry, Android and Nokia through which people could interact, chat with the judges and read blogs while watching shows such as ‘MasterChef India‘.

    For some of its marquee shows like ‘Nach Baliye‘ and ‘MasterChef India‘, Star Plus has leveraged the transmedia storytelling route – where the main show has a strong storytelling leg running exclusively on digital platforms which link back meaningfully to the main show.

    Apart from this, the channel has showcased its content on the digital platform through initiatives like the web premiere of ‘Saraswatichandra‘ exclusively for digital audiences.

    Star Plus has an official Facebook page with around 2.80 million likes and hundreds of thousands of visitors talking about the channel and its programmes at any point in time. On Twitter, another vital ingredient of the social media mix, the channel has around 88,250 active followers. @StarPlus is buzzing with tweets and re-tweets every couple of hours. The numerous fan-driven handles of their popular shows are busy re-tweeting and sharing every Star update, making for a huge cacophony of views across the digital world.

    YouTube also plays an integral part in Star’s digital strategy with close to 2.50 million subscribers

    YouTube also plays an integral part in Star’s digital strategy with close to 2.50 million subscribers. Drama series and reality shows are attracting a good number of page views, say channel executives. Star uploads day-to-day activities, episodes that viewers may missed, comparatively, among on-air shows, fiction has an upper-hand over non -fiction shows.

    The channel’s official Facebook pages for some of its TV shows have received commendable responses from nitizens/viewers. The Facebook page of its leading fiction series ‘Diya Aur Baati Hum’ has 2.34 million likes with 2,485 active followers on Twitter. ‘Diya Aur Baati Hum’ also leads the drama genre with more than 32,304 video views on YouTube in just two days. Another fiction show ‘Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai’ bagged 20,529 video views for one of its episodes. Reality shows such as ‘India’s Dancing SuperStar’ lead with 1,18,222 video views.

    Star Plus marketing vice-president Nikhil Madhok

    Star Plus marketing vice-president Nikhil Madhok states, “We are producing a lot of content exclusively for our digital assets, be it in the form of behind-the-scenes clips, rehearsal footage, bloopers, interviews and much more. We have even made special edits of the episode acts just for digital. For example, Chaavat Boys, which is a group of engineering students from a Mumbai college, have already become a rage online, and all their dance acts have gone viral. In fact, people have been uploading videos of their own version of Chaavatgiri.”

    Star Plus claims that ‘Nach Baliye’ generated one billion impressions online during the course of its telecast. Of these, a 100 million happened on the final episode itself, which not only trended at no 1 in India but also worldwide, it says.

    ‘Satyamev Jayate’, (SMJ) the first talk show produced by Aamir Khan Productions created a lot of buzz on social media platforms. It became the most searched query on Google immediately after its first episode. SMJ has 93,929 followers on Twitter and its official Facebook page has 1.69 million likes.

    SMJ has 93,929 followers on Twitter and its official Facebook page has 1.69 million likes

    Official pages of SMJ were launched on the big three of social media – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to provide a platform for fans to share their views and interact. Updates were posted at regular intervals. Video snippets and full episodes were uploaded on YouTube for fans to watch the show or a favourite segment at their convenience.

    Reports suggest that though initial conversations around SMJ were triggered by Aamir Khan’s popularity, conversations around the causes he espoused on the show took centre stage later. The reason for this trend can be assumed to be the content fed into social media platforms. The fever of the show became strong on digital as the show only aired once in a week for 1 hour on Sunday. For the rest days, they storm the viewers by different social messages by constantly updating videos and statuses and also by tweeting.

    “We at Star deeply cherish our relationship with consumers. Giving consumers a chance to engage and interact deeply with our brands and characters is no longer an option, but a necessity. It is something we value deeply and have set up a team, infrastructure and partners to enable us to interact meaningfully with consumers across the network,” concludes Yadav.

  • Clash of the Titans

    Clash of the Titans

    what more?! DID Supermoms is going to have an impact on the digital space with a roadblock of two major portals in India – youtube.com and yahoo.com (YouTube mast head and Yahoo super take over). Its micro site has various engagement platforms for ‘netizens’ where all the super moms can upload their dancing video on the DID title track. A video wall with all these entries would be published during the sustenance of the show.

    Sony has had a successful integration with its network channel’s popular IPL show called Extraaa Innings T20 on Max. Besides, there is a countdown bug on the channel and a very high ratio of promo slots devoted to IIJ launch.

    The smartest move by Colors is that of the show’s Grand Premiere which is aimed at garnering maximum eye balls. The launch episode will be as big as the show itself.

    Kick starting the show will be dancing queen Madhuri who will team up with Ranbir for a stunning performance on their new item number- Ghaghra. Next to enthrall viewers will be an entertaining performance by Sushant Singh Rajput and actress Jacqueline Fernandez who will be introducing the 12 celebrity contestants.

    The launch episode week will also see the three Deols – Sunny, Bobby and Dharmendra shake a leg with the Jhalak contestants adding on to the commencement of the power packed journey of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa.

    To further heat up the competition, Star Plus is upping the ante on its dance reality show India’s Dancing Superstar (IDS) which has been on air since 27 April at 9.00 pm. It has planned a special maha episode. Explains Star India vice-president marketing Nikhil Madhok: “For 1 June, IDS will have a two and a half hour dance ka maha episode which will start at 8 pm. The episode has one of the legends of dance, Govinda, doing something he has never done before on Indian television. Viewers will see him play a double role in an extremely entertaining dance act. The episode will also see the beginning of the face-off round, which is a very unique concept for a dance show in India.”

    Star marketing head! Nikhil Madhok

    Sounds great, but what is the media view of all these intense content creation and marketing initiatives that the GECs have drawn up?

    Madison’s Banerjee proffers a perspective. Says he: “Such overcrowding of reality shows on weekends will lead to cannibalisation both in terms of viewership and also revenues. Channels need to understand that with such high investment they should look for a clean window or time-bands that assures them of the best return.”

    He further points outs: “These shows can coexist with smarter planning. Next season, even advertisers will get wary of investing if average ratings of these shows come down.”

    Now that’s a piece of advice, none of the GEC players should ignore!

  • Life OK, Sony are the biggest gainers of TAM wk19

    Life OK, Sony are the biggest gainers of TAM wk19

     MUMBAI: All’s Ok with Life OK and Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in week 19 of the TAM ratings report. The two channels are the biggest gainers in the ramped up digital universe that TAM is now reporting on from 5 May. TAM data (for Hindi speaking market including five new LC1 markets, C&S, 4+) sourced from a channel, shows Life OK added 21 GRPs this week to close the week with 123 GRPs (102 GRPs last week) and the No 6 slot. Life OK’s mythological drama Devon Ke Dev..Mahadev added some points to register 1.8 TVR (1.5 last week). Its crime-based show Hum Ne Li Hai…Shapath showed rapid improvement with 1.4 TVR (0.8 last week).

    SET, the other major gainer, continued its upward journey this week too by adding 12 GRPs to its last week tally taking it to 166 GRPs and the third spot among GECs. SET scored on the back of its crime-based properties like CID (2.2 TVR), Crime Patrol (2.0 TVR) and comedy reality show Comedy Circus that registered a 1.5 TVR. Its fiction shows such as Bade Achhe Lagte Hain added eyeballs as they rated 1.6 TVR (1.3 last week). Other fiction shows either stagnated or dipped marginally during the week.

    The good news for GECs, however, is that the genre has overall grown by 37 GRPs, taking it to 1,004.

    Back to the leader, Star Plus continues to lead the flock with an increase of eight GRPs to 232. The channel’s new talent hunt-cum-reality show India’s Dancing Superstar notched a 2.6 TVR on its Saturday and Sunday telecast even as fiction shows like Saathiya Saath Nibhana continue to be stable in week 19 with 2.2 TVR. Its chart topper, Diya Aur Baati Hum’s ratings, however, declined from 4.0 to 3.8 TVR in the week ended 11 May. Pyaar Ka Dard occupies No 3 position amongst all Hindi fiction shows with 2.9 TVR (2.8 last week).

    “We are doing very well in the expanded digital TV universe. But what is more important is that we have seen that our relative share has improved continuously over the last quarter. Though our relative numbers have been low (average of past 13 weeks) but the share of the channel has improved,” says Star India vice-president – marketing Nikhil Madhok.

    Following Star Plus is Zee TV, that held on to its second spot on the Hindi GEC chart with 174 GRPs (175 last week). Zee TV’s top performer was the fiction series Qubool Hai with 2.8 TVR (2.6 last week) followed by Sapne Suhane Ladakpan Ke that rated 2.7 TVR (3.0 last week). Its reality talent hunt India’s Best Dramebaaz’s viewership declined by a huge margin on Saturday to 1.8 TVR (2.4 last week) and on Sunday to 1.6 TVR (1.9 last week).

    At fourth spot, is Colors which dropped a point to record GRPs of 165. Its leading fiction series Balika Vadhu notched a 2.8 TVR (2.7 last week) and Madhubala rated a 2.5 TVR (2.4 last week). Sasural Simar Ka ended the week with 2.3 TVR (2.5 TVR last week).

    Multi Screen Media’s other Hindi GEC Sab maintained status quo with 131 GRPs and was at the No 5 spot. Ditto was the case with Max which is telecasting IPL6 which stayed put at 224 GRPs, while Sahara continued to shed GRPs and dropped to 13 GRPs.

  • Star Plus to focus on digital, on-ground to promote MasterChef

    MUMBAI: As it gears up to launch the latest season of Masterchef India, the leading Hindi GEC Star Plus has rolled out an innovative marketing campaign to promote the show.

    The core audience of ‘MasterChef Kitchen Ke Superstar‘ being the younger females across the Hindi-speaking markets, Star Plus is looking to reach out to these consumers through the critical touchpoints of retail outlets.

    With a focus on on-ground activations and digital, the channel has associated with 60 Big Bazaar stores across the critical markets of Mumbai, Delhi, UP and Gujarat wherein along with the cash counter branding, some of the staff will be seen wearing branded Chef Hats and Aprons saluting the spirit of all the women consumers who are the Superstars of their own kitchens and reinforcing the tune-in messaging of launch- 11th March, Monday to Friday at 8 PM.

    Star Plus has also tied up with the Mumbai Dabbawala association. On the day of the on-air launch of ‘MasterChef Kitchen Ke Superstar‘, every individual dabba will carry a tag announcing that this delicious meal has been prepared for you by your own MasterChef. The channel has also branded all the dabba-delivery crates to reinforce the connect and gain greater visibility.

    The channel is promoting the show across the network and also on around 30 channels outside Star‘s own network. Star Plus VP-marketing Nikhil Madhok told Indiantelevision.com that this will be the deepest and longest ever plan on television. “We are also doing lots of things on the digital medium. There are applications that have been launched plus there is an opportunity where the fans can interact with the contestants and chat with them while the show is on,” he said.

    Madhok said that spend on digital is around 20 per cent of the overall marketing spend on the show.

    On ground, the channel is visiting around 10 cities where it will be organising few cooking contests and will be crowning one winner from each city as a Masterchef. For example the winner from Lucknow will be titled as ‘Lucknow ka Masterchef‘. These winners will also get an opportunity to showcase their talent on a special episode of the show where their dishes will be tasted by the chefs and judges on the show.

    However, the channel will be using radio just as a reminder medium.
    On the occasion of International Women‘s Day on 8 March, Star Plus through MasterChef has associated with Best buses in Mumbai by acknowledging the contribution of the woman to her home with a customised messaging on the reserved seats for women.

  • Star Plus to hold web premiere of Saraswatichandra

    Star Plus to hold web premiere of Saraswatichandra

    MUMBAI: On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, Star India’s Hindi GEC Star Plus will be premiering its upcoming romantic serial Saraswatichandra on the internet.

    The show, which also marks ace director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s entry into the television space, goes on air on 25 February. It will be aired from Monday to Friday at 7.30 pm.

    With the web premier, Star Plus is hoping to reach out to a large number of digital audiences and create even more anticipation for the eventual launch of the show on television. The premiere will happen today at 3 pm.

    Star Plus vice president marketing Nikhil Madhok said, “Saraswatichandra is a really unique love story and we feel that it will find great traction amongst the youth. The promos for the show have created a lot of buzz and we were flooded with requests from people asking to bring forward the launch of the show or give them access to more content. So we decided to do a web premiere of the show, where the digital audiences will get to see the show much in advance of its TV debut. Valentine’s Day provided the perfect timing to do so for a love story.”

    Saraswatichandra is a modern day adaptation of the book by the same name. It is a love story between Saraswatichandra and Kumud.

  • Eight sponsors on board for Star’s Nach Baliye

    MUMBAI: Star Plus has roped in eight sponsors for its celebrity dance reality show ‘Nach Baliye‘ which is all set to launch on 29 December at 9 pm.

    The fifth season of the show will be presented by Vaseline while the powered by sponsor on board is LR Active Oil.

    The channel has signed six associate sponsors so far which are – Nivea, Vasan Eyecare, Flying Machine, Bingo, Ferrero and Fair & Lovely for Men.

    Star India president ad sales Kevin Vaz told Indiantelevision.com that the channel will sign on a total of nine associate sponsors for

    the show.

    “20-30 per cent of our inventories will be consumed by spot buys while all other will be utilised by the sponsors,” Vaz added.

    Star Plus has launched a nationwide campaign to promote the show which is returning after three years. However, Delhi, UP, Gujarat and Maharashtra (including Mumbai) will get special focus in marketing activities. There will be disruptions across all mediums including radio, outdoor, TV and digital, claims Star Plus VP marketing Nikhil Madhok.

    The channel is promoting the show aggressively across the Star Network and about 25 other channels outside its network. It is going gung-ho on the digital medium to promote Nach Baliye-5.

    According to Star Plus VP marketing Nikhil Madhok, this time one lucky couple will get a chance to actually participate on the show and compete with the celebrity ‘jodis‘. The only way to participate is digitally – to upload a short dancing clip of the couple onto Star Plus‘ site. “We will then invite our fans to vote for their favorite Jodi by ‘liking‘ their clip. Based on a combination of likes received and points awarded by our judges, one lucky couple will get to participate in Nach Baliye. It‘s a great way of driving viewer engagement with the show using digital,” Madhok explained.

    It will also launch a ‘Nach Baliye‘ mobile game through which people can chose their favorite jodis and earn points basis how the jodis perform on the show. People who accumulate the maximum points through the series will be given prizes. “We also have a really fun facebook app where you can get a friend of yours to dance with a Baliye of choice,” Madhok said.

    Meanwhile, all the jodis and judges of Nach Baliye will be present constantly on twitter and Facebook interacting with their fans, besides chatting live frequently.

    As a part of below-the-line activities, there will be mini Nach Baliye events on the ground, where people can participate and the channel will shoot their videos and upload them onto its site for a chance to participate on the show. “The idea is to not only engage with the audience but also facilitate their chance to participate on the show. This activity will happen across 10 cities in the country,” Madhok added.

    Also Read:

    Star Plus readies return of Nach Baliye after 3 years