In Conversation With| Bharat Ranga & Ruchir Tiwari on &Pictures turning 1!
Coming from the ZEEL stable, one of the newest kids on the block in the Hindi movie channel space &pictures’, which was launched a year back in August 2013, turned one last week. On the eve of its birthday (August 17-18), the channel ran a unique on-air contest giving its viewers a chance to win exciting prizes every hour. All one had to do was tune-in to &pictures and the guess the names of Bollywood stars from their childhood photos that was displayed on the channel every hour from 12 pm to 12 am. The audiences had to SMS their answers and one lucky winner received a unique gift. & there’s more… promising superior picture and sound quality, the channel is also present in the HD menu of all major DTH players.
Adgully: A year back ZEEL launched & Pictures as the first cross-platform interactive Hindi movie channel. What have been the key highlights of the journey so far?
Bharat Ranga: I think we started achieving success when we were getting ratings for the movies that otherwise won’t get good ratings on regular movie channels as people won’t expect those kind of movies on those channels. The biggest part of happiness was when we launched the brand and were getting good ratings for the movies like Iqbaal, Namaste London. These kind of films got rated because of the platform which got rated. Then we got films like Kai Po Che and then we started segregating films for Z Cinema and Pictures. So, the massy and masala films are meant for Zee Cinema and films with progressive attitude our meant for & Pictures.
Adgully: What was the thought process that went into involving your audiences in the 1st year celebrations at the chnnel?
Ruchir Tiwari: To acknowledge the constant love and support of the viewers that has encouraged the channel in their various endeavours all year long, a special initiative was undertaken to make &pictures first birthday a memorable day for its viewers also. one-of-its kind initiative, shared its happiness and love with all those who shared their birthday on 18 August – the date that the channel was launched last year. From surprises at the cake shops to surprise home deliveries, &pictures went all out to make viewers taste the sweet joy of happiness, success and celebrations! The channel’s digital agency, The Small Big Idea, was present at cake-shops in Mumbai and they anonymously took down all details of those who came to order a cake for 18 August. When they came to collect the cake; &pictures not only gifted them their cake but also surprised them with their desired birthday gift.
Adgully: What according to you are the key milestones achieved by the channel so far?
Bharat Ranga: It has to be the last one year that has been a year of differentiated interactivity and continuous engagement with our viewers. The unique campaigns we launched not only got &pictures the highest skew of youth and premium audiences but also won several accolades from the industry. The channel won the Silver Abby Award for the Best TV Launch, Silver IDMA award for Best Use of Blogs and Silver Designomics award for the Never Ending Film.
Adgully: Number charts suggest success for the channel for a while now? What according to you lead the new baby from ZEEL reach these success levels?
Ruchir Tiwari: It’s been exciting year for us as it’s not easy to start off a new channel and step by step we achieved what we set out to do. It has been a fantastic journey for us at &pictures and within a year, we have been able to capture the hearts of our viewers. The channel started off with a reach of 11.9 % in the launch week last year and today it stands at 34%. The market share in the Hindi Speaking Markets (HSM) has also increased from 3% in the launch week to 7% today. (Source: TAM, CS4+, HSM, updated till wk 33). & pictures has not only kept their promise of engaging and interacting with its viewers but it has also taken the quality of Hindi movie viewing a notch higher with its clutter-breaking campaigns. The completion of its first year has marked a very important phase for the channel. We will continue to enthral the viewers with many more creative campaigns.
Adgully: How has the Hindi movie channel category been like in the last one year? What according to you are the strategies which worked well for & Pictures?
Bharat Ranga: In terms of overall viewership so far because of & Pictures we were about to add 5% of total pie, about 7-8% market share, most of the growth came from the whole category overall and not only us. We are happy about competition as most viewers who were not watching Hindi movie channels are started watching, It’s important to grow the niche category, competition is has to happen.
Adgully: One of the promises that almost every channel has is to offer differentiated programming. How has it been for & Pictures on this front?
Ruchir Tiwari: When you run a secondary software channel, things become more difficult. Whenever we get opportunities we try to innovate and mount our planning well. We are clearly distinct in terms our own network channels let it be Z Cinema, Classic or & Pictures.
Adgully: Your new innovation – Dil Se was a success in the US. What made you to launch this property late?
Bharat Ranga: We had mentioned this idea earlier to where we said that we are going to come up with an interactive concept. So the idea was with us which we initiated in US already, but we wanted critical mass to come. 34% of CNS on week to week basis and cumulative reach of about 75% is good enough for the channel who know what is & pictures brand is all about. Most of viewers know the brand but don’t know that we are part of Zee group and I don’t think it matters.
Adgully: Speaking India-specific, what is the concept behind Dil Se?
Ruchir Tiwari: Zee Dil Se was created and launched in 2012 in North America to enable viewers to personalize and record video messages for their loved ones and view their video messages on ZEE TV - The No.1 South Asian channel in North America! Since then Zee Dil Se has been successfully
launched in the United Kingdom and is now venturing into the Indian market with &pictures. It provides experience for viewers to be on TV and engage them in a different way. It will create word of mouth, will create impression for the channel. It can be a reach building machine for us as we will be tracking out reach then the focusing on viewership with this initiative. It will lead in sampling of the market.
Adgully: Shed some light on the innovations done in the digital space that & Pictures has done (Dil Se and &pictures HD)?
Bharat Ranga: Dil Se is a digital platform which enables viewers to record and upload a 15 second video message using the channel’s website: www.andpictures.in/dilse. With ‘Dil Se’, &pictures endeavours to bring the fans and their video messages on the television screen... and if this is not enough, ‘Dil Se’ also endeavours to capture Bollywood celebrities’ messages back to their fans (whenever possible). & pictures has partnered with YouToo and Zee Americas to ideate and launch Dil Se for the Indian market. For the lovers of High Definition pictures and superior sound quality, &pictures is now also available in HD! The HD channel will now bring to the viewers the greatest Bollywood blockbusters, mega premieres & the biggest Hollywood hits under one roof.
Adgully: So, is this initiative limited to India market? Also how do the participants know of their video selection?
Ruchir Tiwari: Yes, this effort is meant only for the Indian audience. So, there are steps to be followed i.e. After opeining the page https://www.andpictures.in/dilse/, you have to login, you can also login from your Twitter or Facebook account and then you have to upload the recorded video of 15 seconds. Once, the video ins been uploaded you can share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter, the best video will appear in TV. Once an individual puts in his/her details they are been contacted on the given id by our team to inform that their video has been selected.
Adgully: Another interesting activity coming from & Pictures was ‘Aamir & You’ among many others. Highlight any key learnings of the one year journey?
Bharat Ranga: So, first thing is that for Chale Chalo, Aamir Khan’s unreleased film, we didn’t approached Aamir for Aamir & You, it was Aamir Khan himself who approached & Pictures. It was very joyful moment for us. We will keep on doing more and more new innovations as we don’t want to repeat the same things again and again. We learned that what to communicate, that message should be clear. And we were able to communicate our thought through different mediums in this span of time.
Adgully: We learnt that & Pictures HD will showcase Bollywood and Hollywood movies? Can you explain the thought behind the same as the channel primarily caters to HSM markets?
Ruchir Tiwari: When you talk about the HD channels, we are amongst them and have two channels. When you want to run two HD channels and want to pick up a brand like this you have to make it different. Specifically for HD its premium market and we were conscious that our competition is not only Hindi movie channels but English movie channels too. The & Pictures HD is clearly a premium channel. Now, the channel is been announced and campaigns will aggressively start soon. It was not easy to launch it in 1 year but we managed to do it. We have launched campaign initially more on web and TV and with time we’ll trigger across India.
Adgully: Share with us the plans and vision for & Pictures in the coming months?
Bharat Ranga: Appreciation that we’ve received has further firmed our belief that the audiences today are looking for much more than the regular movies on television. In the coming year, we have many more exciting plans that should set new standards in interactivity in the television industry. [By Ranjana Gupta| Twitter: @RGrightsreserve]
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