Sameer Nair, the chief operating officer of Star India, an arm of the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Star Group Pvt Ltd, can be a reticent man. Very unlike his boss and the company’s country head Peter Mukerjea, who always exudes charm. But at times, Nair can be totally disarming and charm personified. Even when most of his colleagues were away on year-end holidays and he was the one left to “mind the store.”
It was in one such expansive mood that indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra caught up with Nair in Delhi over a breakfast that turned out to be endless cups of hot freshly brewed coffee, followed by glassfuls of water melon juice.
Despite at times threatening to lapse back into his reticent self, Nair did give a sneak preview of Star India’s plans for 2004 and the way forward from a position of complete dominance of the Indian market for the fourth year in a row, courtesy Star Plus.
The distribution has to be further beefed up, the marketing team has to reinvent itself , the programming team has to do things “differently” and a new zing has to be added to ad sales. Otherwise, as Nair points out, complacency may start setting in, spelling doom. Excerpts from the conversation at the "power breakfast":
What are the plans, big and otherwise, for 2004 ? We are looking at targeting new growth areas, a new push for ad sales and doing additional things like looking at launching new channels. |
||
What sort of channels is Star looking at launching? I cannot spell out the details, but there would certainly be some new channels coming, especially in the light of conditional access system (CAS) showing signs of becoming a reality wherein niche channels would make sense and some newer mode of delivery systems lurking in the corners to break out. |
||
By new mode of delivery, do you mean that Star’s DTH plans would finally fructify? |
||
What sort of channels is Star looking at bringing in 2004 to India? Will they be third party ones like The History Channel or some from the News Corp stable? |
||
Is launching of Indian language channels, like a Telugu language channel, also part of the plan? |
||
How do you look at Star Plus’ continued trek northward? I would call that dominance, complete dominance. But in a way, such dominance of proceedings and the market can be self limiting too, because to drive growth we have to do new things, do things differently and set ourselves new challenges. |
||
Like what? So, what we are thinking of doing is to come up with new shows even if that means giving a rest to some successful shows and replacing them with new shows, for starters. |
||
Which are the shows that are likely to be phased out and what would their replacements be? Then we have lined up a comedy/laugh show that too will debut along with the detective series. Though such new shows would be part of our quarterly change, it’s the way we market, communicate and position these shows that would spell success or otherwise. We certainly want to bring the popular Pop Idol show to India, but the logistics are still not working out for a show of that magnitude. |
||
|
||
'Pop Idol'? We have been hearing about that for ages. It’s like waiting for Godot. Remember, when Star Plus introduced the SMS facility for KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati), so many messages came in that the whole network just crashed. We have gained the expertise of doing reality shows through the Pop Stars contests and shows, but for a show like Pop Idol, the infrastructure needs to be in top shape. We are looking into it. |
||
Year 2004 would also see lot of cricket. The ongoing Australia-India test series, which would be followed by the tri-nation one-day series. Then there is the India-Pakistan series. Later in the year, the Champions Trophy is also lined up. Do you foresee an intense fight for ad spend between soaps and cricket and does Star India have a flanking plan? If you look at Star Plus’ growth, its share in the 9-11 pm time band actually grew despite the World Cup cricket in 2002-03.That’s where Sony erred as they did not have programmes strong enough to keep the cricket viewers with them after a match was over. So, what happened? The cricket match got over and people switched channels to Star Plus. What I am trying to say is that cricket may not mean a major dip for Star Plus. However, having said that, we must have good enough programming, including new stuff, that would pull audiences back to us even if they have gone away from us for cricket on some other channel. |
||
Since we are talking about Sony, what do you have to say about its new show 'Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin'? It has shown that with good programming, one can take a shot at Star’s dominance. |
||
What’s happening on the distribution front since international reports say that Star would double its subscription revenue in five years time and it would be driven by markets like India ? Having started off the transparency scheme in 2003, we would like to continue with it. We have set ourselves a target of increasing the Star Network’s subscriber base from the current 10-odd million to 14 million. It’s a tough target, but we’d like to end the year with a figure that is at least very near the 14 million mark. |
||
|
||
Do you think that CAS, though its rollout is becoming a faint hope only, would help pay channels drive up their subscription revenue? |
||
You are saying that CAS would drive up subscription revenue, but there is a feeling in the government and in certain quarters of the industry that Star is opposed to CAS rollout. Your comments. Are we opposed to CAS? Certainly we are not. The Indian market is extremely large and we are of the opinion that for such a big market, things should be done in a pragmatic manner without rushing into a change in the set-up. It cannot happen overnight. CAS is really good for the industry in the long run, but along with its introduction, the consumers too should be empowered. Tell me, can you change your cable operator on the grounds of bad service? No way. For a technology like CAS to be really successful, the consumer too should be given other choices, apart from just a choice of channels that they wish to see. |
||
Does Star have a plan if CAS is finally implemented ? |
||
What are the new initiatives being planned on the ad sales side, since you head that team too? This new software that we have acquired would generate lot of data , which would help us in managing our affairs better. If that happens, we’d also be in a position to maximise and deliver greater value to our advertisers. We can help our clients do proper planning of the airtime based on the information that we would have on the inventory. |
||
What is the overall growth that Star India is looking at in 2004? |