A multi-platform Broadcasting Venture soon for youth in India,SAsia

New Delhi, Nov 28: Even as general entertainment channels dishing out family soaps and "saas bahu" sagas abound on the television scene in India, there is an attempt, in recent years, to address entertainment needs of youth, a crucial segment of India's populace that seems to have been ignored by the broadcasters in the race for TRPs.

In the latest such attempt, the UTV Software Communications Ltd.

has announced a new Broadcasting venture which envisages the launch of multiple channels, across languages, in India and Southeast Asia to take care of the entertainment needs of the youth.

Being launched as a joint venture with Malaysia-based Astro, the new venture will operate across multiple platforms, including a television channel, gaming, mobile, licensing&merchandising, ground events and the Internet, focus of which will be on the Youth segment.

For UTV, the launch of the new venture, under which the first television channel in Hindi is slated for launch in the second quarter of 2007, comes following its earlier successful foray into the Broadcasting space in the form of Hungama TV, a channel targeted at kids.

Launched over an year ago, Hungama TV is an unparalleled success today, with the channel reaching the undisputed No. 1 slot amongst all kids channels in less than two years from launch.

On the launching of the new broadcasting platform, Zarina Mehta, COO - Broadcasting, UTV, said,''as much as 23% of the viewership of cable and satellite television comes from the youth space which is currently very underserved by existing broadcast offerings. The Hungama TV experience has been enormously enriching and has reinforced our belief that innovative content, marketing and distribution are the key factors in determining success in Broadcasting.

Our extensive learnings on Hungama TV will help us address the changing needs of the exciting 17-25 year target group. The UTV team is currently immersed in understanding the need gaps in this segment and working on innovative ways to address them.'' The plans for the venture include the launch of multiple channels across languages in India and Southeast Asia. UTV had earlier entered into a business co-operation arrangement with Astro to set up kids channels in Malaysia and Indonesia, which launched on the Astro platform earlier this year.

The launch of the first television channel in Hindi in the second quarter of 2007 will be supported by a huge multimedia campaign and multi-city ground events, UTV sources said. UTV is currently conducting extensive research on this target group as an input to its Programming and Marketing plans. On the launch of the new broadcasting venture for youth, Ralph Marshall, CEO of Astro said, '' I feel the youth segment in India provides tremendous potential for creativity and expression.'' On their tie up with UTV, he said,''our association with UTV goes back a long way. We recently launched ASTRO CERIA our successful kids channels with them in Malaysia and Indonesia.'' Meanwhile, in what can be seen as the heralding of an era of synergies in areas across television content production, movie production and broadcasting, UTV and Disney recently concluded the acquisition of Hungama TV with the final approval from the FIPB, followed by the subsequent inflow of Rs. 140 crores from Disney to UTV within a week.

Under the agreement, Disney has also invested Rs. 67 crores towards a 14.9 per cent stake in UTV. The two organizations have identified areas of common involvement, including the launch of niche channels, movie co-productions and television content creation by UTV for Disney channels.

The launch of the new broadcasting venture for youth comes in the wake of the success of several television channels targeted solely at children and youth in the last few years like Cartoon Network, Pogo and Disney Channel.

Observers feel launch of several television channels aimed at the age group 15-25 comes with the realization by content providers of the huge revenue generation potential provided by those in this segment, considering that these children and youth form a sizeable proportion of population in India.

UNI