Why ape when India can innovate: Sahara One, CEO

Avinash Kaul is a true grandee of the television business. He is currently the CEO of Sahara One and leads its operations as well as those of Filmy and Firangi. In his previous stint, he founded NDTV Media, and as its executive vice-president, headed cross-functional domains including finance, marketing, strategy and business development. In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Kaul offered astute insights into Sahara One's performance and plans, and also into the state of the industry. Excerpts:

Adgully: Take us through us Sahara's evolution¦

Avinash Kaul: We have been in the business for a long while; in fact, it has been more than 10 years, primarily in the space of general entertainment channels. (GEC). We also launched Filmy, a logical extension of our film business. In essence, that's where it all started. Taking into account the phase when there weren't too many GECs, the race probably started three years ago. Till that time, the business was operating on a different model, with Star Plus enjoying the prime-mover's advantage. That was a different era for the GECs. Then new channels began to proliferate and a lot of money has been spent in trying to woo Indian audiences. How much of that money has been recovered or will be recovered is anybody's guess. But the competition has led to disruption and, obviously, it has set very high standards of production. So much so, the cost of content has shot through the roof. Moreover, the carriage cost has also risen sharply, causing more and more fragmentation in the business. In all probability, ratio of the number of television boxes to the population is skewed. When we had 46 million households with cable and satellite connections, there were around 4000-5000 boxes. In such a situation, the dependence on each and every box becomes more dramatic. This amounts to even more pressure from an advertising-and-sales perspective. You are considered lucky if your channel's rating is 5-6. And if the top channels get that rating, it exerts added pressure on other players down the table. This is how the dynamics of the business work. But interestingly enough, as far as Sahara is concerned, during the course of its evolution, it did eventually go through a phase of rationalisation. It tried to understand that there was a way to play to the gallery. We have been in the business for a long time to understand the cycles and that gives us a strong of sense of maturity.

AG: What conscious steps did Sahara take to anticipate the business zeitgeist of today?

AK: Well, we don't go into the phases of excess. We have cut down on reality and non-fiction shows. Though non-fiction will give you audiences for sure, the cost of the effort is enormous. If you can't earn more, we believe we don't have any right to burn more. We are optimising our resources and might do it [launch non-fiction shows] later. The choice is between wanting to become a small frog in a big well or a big frog in a small well. Slicing will continue because those who run businesses in India know how to stay in the business. There was an article somewhere which stated that, earlier, there used to be exclusive movie deals; but today syndication is favoured because price points have to come down. Now, that is rationalisation to us. Many trends could emerge out of that model. For instance, today, there is non-exclusivity as far as movies are concerned; and who knows, tomorrow, it might be the same as far as content is concerned. In the earlier model, intellectual property rights would rest with the channel. But there might be a different model in the future. Necessity is the mother of invention: so people will amend business models as they go along.

AG: Talking about reality shows and the international format, what would Sahara's eventual plan be?

AK: See, it's not necessary that reality show and international formats go hand in hand. For example, there would be no reason to reformat "Desi Girl', which is a BBC show. We have plenty of creative people in our country. Besides, whenever you go across markets, you will find that somebody has experimented with a show and it has worked in some small territory, and hence it is supposed to be workable elsewhere. But my point is that in this country, you have a test market of, let us say, 103 million households with cable and satellite connections. US has 97 million, but UK stands nowhere in comparison. Now if we adapt a successful show from UK, only time will tell if the show will succeed. Today, we don't know what formats are being tested by regional players; if some of the formats work, a national channel can take them up. Instead of the top-down approach [to adapt formats], international-national-regional, it should be the other way round. Indeed, our homegrown concepts could go international. As far as we are concerned, we are as happy to look at the international scene as we are to examine the Indian.

AG: What is on Sahara's marketing agenda?

AK: As of now, plans are already on the floor and a whole lot of activities have been slotted for the future as well. You have seen two recent launches and you are going to see four to five more coming through the year. We realise one or two shows are not enough to keep you going to reach a stable level of viewership.

AG: What is the most innovative campaign you have come across recently?

AK: I will be very honest. I don't know what innovative means in that context. Am I to react to the recent logo change of Star? There is nothing innovative about it. Front-page jackets are not innovative either. What stands out is innovation in content, not innovation in marketing.

AG: How is your partnership with AIDEM faring?

AK: It has been in place for more than two years. Earlier, it was NDTV Media, and now it is AIDEM. So the relationship continues. Our business is with them and they are monetizing it.

AG: What growth path have you charted for Sahara?

AK: It is fairly simple. We are continuing with the work we started. The shows are being launched and will continue to be launched. Our guiding principle is that the business will rule.