MUMBAI: The groundswell of serving Indian audiences with regional content has now proved to be a battlefield. Broadcasters are realising the potential in the southern areas of India. Days after Living Foodz decided to add southern language feeds, Discovery Networks-owned TLC is all set to target the Tamil and Telugu markets.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Discovery Networks Asia Pacific VP premium and digital networks Zulfia Waris said, “We are particularly keen on the Tamil and Telugu languages.” She adds that the languages are in the pipeline and no specific launch date has yet been decided.
She says that TLC has a strong line-up of international shows and other franchises that will be launching one by one. “We have kept our focus on what we are good at and we ensure that we telecast the best programming that our audience may like,” she added.
Highlighting on today’s marketing strategies, she says that they have taken a very different form and the traditional marketing roots are not completely relevant in the case of TLC.
The channel has lately been inclusive of Indian faces and local content. Last year, it launched a comedy series titled Queens of Comedy, dedicating it entirely to the female comedians who will compete and be judged. At the time of launch, Waris had said that this was one of the several shows the company has in mind to reach out to Indian female millennials.
Broadcast Audience Research Council’s historical data shows that lifestyle channels have equal male and female viewership. The top six cities witness highest numbers coming from the age group of 41 to 50 followed by 2-14 years.
Giving an update on Discovery’s recently launched digital channels that focus on categories like military, girlist, automotive and food, Waris said that the first two genres on the channel Veer had done well. For now, all of Discovery’s digital channels focus on Hindi language unlike the TV channels.
Waris claimed that when they kick-started the first digital channel—Veer, it had crossed 10 million views within a month. Marketing and promotion were entirely dependent on digital.
Veer will now be available on Jio, Airtel Wynk and YouTube along with its four-episodic new show named Breaking Point: The Indian Submariners that will premiere on Discovery Channel starting 19 March at 9 pm. The series has attracted marquee advertisers including Byju’s The Learning App, Skybags, Too Yumm, BigBasket, Woodland, Toyota Kirloskar Motors and Abu Dhabi Tourism to its fold.
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