Tarun Katial is the chief executive officer of one of India?s youngest media houses, Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd (RBNL), and has had impressive stints previously at Star India and Sony Entertainment Television (SET), part of Multi Screen Media (MSM). In 2006, Katial launched RBNL?s FM radio network Big FM with 45 stations. He has
also led RBNL?s foray into television broadcast with Hindi comedy
channel Big Magic, Bihar and Jharkhand channel Big Magic
Ganga and Big Thrill. In this conversation?with FE Brandwagon?s Anushree Chandran, Katial discusses RBNL?s key plans for radio and television. Edited excerpts:?
A lot of changes are afoot at RBNL. The company has been delisted and it has also exited its joint ventures with CBS and RTL. What was the reason for these decisions??
The shareholders placed faith in the company and decided to own all of it. As far as television goes, our focus is on gathering proprietary local content. We want to adapt content to changing tastes in the market place and to grow in scale. There is limited scale with some of these international channels. There is also a high level of fragmentation happening in the English entertainment genre. Some of the existing broadcast companies are literally launching a channel a month in the English entertainment genre. Eventually, there is nothing unique left in it.?
Are you happy with the way your television channels have evolved??
We have invested in local consumer insights and proprietary content and it is around these twin pillars that our success is built. Big Magic Ganga, our Bihari channel, is now about 18-months-old. But we still have over 30% market share and are very close to break-even. The top five shows in this market are ours and resonate very well with the audience. Bihar and Jharkhand are tough markets to penetrate and despite their own film industry, music industry, film stars and battery of icons, the region has never seen a successful television business. When we came in, the Zee Group had just acquired Maurya and rebranded it as Zee Purvaiya, while ETV got acquired by the TV18 Group. Despite stiff competition, we are the leader. Our other channel ? Hindi channel Big Magic which was originally focused on Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar?is a comedy channel which we took national. If you compare it with other new launches in the Hindi general entertainment space, on the basis of television ratings, we would be far ahead of them. We have a marquee show called Akbar Birbal that?s done very well. The channel has a long list of advertisers and we have been able to double our subscription revenues. On the ad inventory front, we have moved from a stage when 70% of the inventory was sold to a level where 100% of the inventory is sold, with our ad rates having doubled.
Coming to Big Thrill which we positioned around crime and action, we have bought out RTL?s stake in it. We plan to launch local content on it by the end of this fiscal. We have rights to the international content till the end of next year.?All our channels are available on every direct-to-home (DTH) platform except for Tata Sky.?We are one of the few broadcast networks available on DD Direct.?Big Magic is distributed in the US, Canada and Australia. We plan to launch in the UK and Middle East.
Why did you decide to start a production unit of your own in Patna??
In Bihar and Jharkhand, we want to build on local insights.
We have picked up social issues such as acid attacks, taken those back to the government and are looking for adequate action. Our production unit in Patna produces this kind of local content. Religion and women?s emancipation are also big themes. We have also invested in a large game show in that market and a talent show which will be launched soon.
What are your views on the recent recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for the media industry??
The phase three auction of radio FM licences is a couple of months away. We are hoping that most of the radio-related recommendations that the Trai has made will be accepted. We are also hopeful that as an industry, we will get parity with television and be allowed foreign direct investments (FDI) of at least 49%, if not more. In the non-news category, the FDI limit for television is 100%. We also hope that some of the other operational issues of spectrum and frequency will be resolved. The government seems keen to accept the Trai recommendations on migration for radio. The minister has made some very encouraging statements, to us and on public forums that he was willing to look beyond AIR on news related content. On the overall cross-media ownership recommendations for the media sector by the Trai, I do believe that we are finally starting to see a method in the madness. The Trai aspires to create a level playing field. But it all depends on the
government finally. Some of these recommendations do make sense long term.?
What is your plan of action for phase three?
On radio, we have moved from being number five in Mumbai and Delhi to number one and number two respectively. The retro positioning has worked for us on radio. We found a market in the gap, and the gap in the market. Our first expansion will happen in radio during phase three but it is difficult to share key plans just yet. After phase three, we will look at synergies with our television business in the markets we operate in. But we are going to increase the hours of content on Big Magic Ganga as well as Big Magic. We will launch a slew of new shows, during the September-October 2014 festive period.
What does the report card on digitisation say?
As an industry, we tend to discount what has happened. Considering that India is a wide market and the kind of terrain that we operate in, we have made some very good progress. Digitisation has created democratisation of content. Carriage fee has come down significantly?as much as
30-40%. Broadcasters need to stop looking at placement of their channels and focus on content instead.
