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.
