Southern Spice to open branded music shops

Padmaja Shastri in Chennai

SOUTHERN Spice Music channel, promoted by Chennai-based Fortune Media Private channel, is planning to open ‘SS Music’ branded shops ‘a la MTV’ across the country in the coming year. The channel, devoted exclusively to film-based and pop music in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, has been on the air since April this year and has a penetration of 12 lakh households.

The free-to-air channel is looking at getting into tie-ups for merchandising this year, apart from a slew of other promotions.

Speaking to The Financial Express, a spokesperson for Southern Spice Music channel, said the music channel is planning to open its branded shops across India. “We will start with the four southern states first and then go to the rest of the country,” he said. In each of these states, the channel is looking at two cities—Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Bangalore and Mysore in Karnataka and Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala.

Starting with its flagship store in Chennai, all the eight stores in the South are expected to be launched by April 2002. While the store in Chennai will be company-owned, the rest will all be franchisees. These stores will sell music, apart from branded products ‘for the young’ like caps, shoes, jackets and T-shirts. Apart from talking to interested parties for franchise agreements, the channel is also scouting for tie-ups with manufacturers of garments and other accessories for merchandising.

Packaged and positioned as the ‘MTV of the South’, Southern Spice plans to stage 10-12 major ground events across the country that will appeal to the youth and make them identify with the channel.
The channel is also looking at cross-media tie-ups for joint promotions and co-hosting events. In addition to print media, it is waiting for the private FM radio channels to launch in the South to forge marketing tie-ups with them, a company official revealed.