Making history "more entertaining"

New Delhi, Apr 27 (UNI) At a time when content on television is increasingly "entertainment driven", "information laced with entertainment" seems to be the motto of more and more "niche" channels like Discovery, MTV and V in their bid to broadbase their viewership.

The latest to jump on the bandwagon is the History Channel which, in a bid to make history more interesting, is making a well-defined shift to entertainment by presenting interesting stories from history through mini-series, re-enactments and films.

Announcing the more than three-year-old History channel's plans to pursue a new strategic direction in India by making a well defined shift to entertainment from May six, managing director of History Channel, Nikhil Mirchandani, in a press meet here, said,''the incorporation of these additional offerings on the channel is part of our strategic move from "infotainment to entertainment" through presentation of movies like 'Helen of Troy', 'Nero', 'Hitler', 'Haven' and 'Augustus' as also mini-series like 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'.

The basic objective is to broadbase our viewership by making the channel more entertaining while at the same time remaining true to our unique theme of History. The aim is to retain the essence of the History channel as we move towards becoming more entertaining in alignment with our viewers' interests and needs.'' Accordingly, the channel will now deliver to its viewers a spectacular combination of fact and fiction- for example the film 'Marlyn and Me' will be accompanied by the 'Biography of Marlyn Monroe'- thus fulfilling its promise to be informative while also being entertaining.

The interesting aspect of the shift to entertainment will be that the new content to be presented on the channel will be dubbed in Hindi, making its the first entertainment channel to be dubbed in Hindi, Mirchandani said.

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