Aiming high
TV Channel V India head Prem Kamath talks about the idea behind going for content-refresh
As Channel V India, the country's leading youth entertainment channel, brings in a new line-up of shows, Prem Kamath, Channel Head for India, says that this is not so much a revamp as it is a major content-refresh. "As a youth channel, we felt that we needed to bring a lot more variety to our content and needed stories that are finite. All the shows " three bi-weeklies and one daily " are 52 episodes each whose beginning and end were charted out well before shoot began," he points out.
Along with bringing in fresh concepts, this also brings in new writing talent. "Some of the shows are written by teenage literature writers, people who would traditionally not come to television also because writing a long-running daily takes up all your time and doesn't leave room for much else. We thought finite period dramas can help us bridge this as well," he says.
Fresh talent seems to have found its place among the actors chosen for the shows as well, of whom a few are from the dailies already on air and have gone on to gain immense popularity such as Shivin Narang or Shantanu Maheshwari. "It is always very good for us when someone we've discovered and brought to the audience does well and gains a foothold in the industry. But there's always the danger of someone leaving midway. It has happened with us at times. But then, that's something we must learn to live with," says Kamath adding that the channel's approach has always been geared towards freshness and variety in terms of writers, actors as well as concepts. "Most channels tend to start a show based on a concept. Our approach is different: we look at multiple concepts based on certain consumer insights that come to us via extensive research. Paanch' for instance, was one of many concepts we looked at based on the insight that there is a lot of anger against crimes happening against young students. Hence, the story of the girl who hits back at such crimes," explains the channel head.
Speaking of Channel V India's journey from a music channel to a full-fledged youth entertainment channel, Kamath says it has been a series of hits and misses but what stands testimony to their approach's efficacy is the fact that of all the shows launched in the last four years, only two have not worked while the rest have done fairly well. He signs off saying, "As a country in which more than 65 per cent of the population is youth, it is our firm belief that there is no reason why a youth channel shouldn't be the biggest channel in the country, which has not happened simply because the programming has not appealed to a wide enough cross-section of people. So our entire attempt has been to tap into a wider audience with time, and becoming a really large entertainment channel is what we are constantly building towards."
NANDINI D. TRIPATHY
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/aiming-high/article5463634.ece
