There are
quite a few entertainment networks in India that air a wide range of programmes
in a number of languages. Most of the channels in India air programmes in the
Hindi language as it is the most widely spoken and understood language in the
country. Hence, it has taken over as the language of national entertainment.
Lately, the entertainment networks have realised that the English language can also
be a potential market, given its international outreach. So they started
launching channels in English with the urban youth as their target market.
If you
analyse it, you would see that the scene of English entertainment in India is
largely dominated by the movie channels which air blockbuster Hollywood movies.
There is a huge potential of English channels in other genres as well, but it
has been quite disappointing that the entertainment networks have failed to
explore them. However, this trend was changed with the introduction of the Viacom
18 network in India. It laid an emphasis on tapping the market of English
entertainment in other genres such as music and comedy. It did so with the
introduction of two fantastic English channels: Vh1 and Comedy Central. Comedy
Central is known for its wonderful share of stand-up comedy shows and gag based
reality shows, whereas Vh1 is known for its nonstop English chartbusters. Today,
Vh1 is considered to be a music channel that is at par with the Hindi music
channels such as MTV and 9XM.
It was quite
refreshing to see that Viacom 18 did not stop after tapping the genres of music
and comedy in English. It went ahead by capturing the general entertainment
genre in English through the launch of Colors Infinity.
This channel airs drama, thrillers and general reality shows for English
general entertainment lovers.
Viacom 18
had also paved the way for regional entertainment in a few languages such as
Gujarati, Odia and Kannada. This is a field in which other entertainment
networks shied away due to the fear of facing competition from Hindi general
entertainment channels. Today, Colors Gujarati,
Colors Kannada and Colors Odia are a few popular channels in the bouquet of
regional entertainment provided by Viacom 18. In the established language
markets such as Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali, Viacom 18 is gradually
becoming the market leader with the help of its channels.
The
secret of Viacom 18’s success seems to be its ability to take up challenges and
explore new genres while other entertainment networks try to play it safe. At
present, Viacom 18 has also started investing in an on demand mobile
application known as Voot, along with a few non-screen entertainment ventures.
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