Mumbai: Sony BBC Earth celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2022 with a commitment to provide its audience with inspiring, thought-provoking, and engaging content.

This year, the channel made its audience feel alive by delivering innovative programmes coupled with intriguing initiatives.

Let's take a look at the major initiatives introduced and the significant highlights for the year as 2022 draws to a close.

The fifth-year anniversary

With a tagline of "Make Every Moment Meaningful," the brand launched an anniversary-special 360-degree campaign that included a host of activities. On Instagram, Sony BBC Earth announced a user-generated contest titled #5YearsOfLife, inviting people to share how they have added meaning to someone's life through reels using the brand's audio.

Taking the excitement a notch higher, Instagram filters were built using augmented reality. The filter worked when users pointed their cameras towards the Sony BBC Earth logo (on-air, web, print, and outdoor), and their screens came alive with animated animal figures. This was complemented with a property called "5 Years 5 Mega Shows," which gave viewers a chance to vote for their favourite movies, which were then aired on Sony BBC Earth.

Tentpole show premieres

Sir David Attenborough’s Green Planet from the Planet series was launched on the channel. The channel aligned the promotional phase of the show with Earth Day, where the "Green Planet" campaign was announced. To engage people, Sony BBC Earth set up a "Green Planet" insulation - an Earth exhibit using plants—at Phoenix Market City.

During this three-day activation, people received a miniature sapling as a small and meaningful gift for sharing their efforts towards a green planet. It was followed by a workshop by eminent plantfluencer Ann Mathew on ways to upkeep indoor plants and the benefits of home gardening. The miniature saplings were also given to school kids to inculcate the idea of taking care of plants.

Sony BBC Earth premiered the second season of their marquee property, Frozen Planet, in India. A multi-city screening was organised across Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai. Mumbai witnessed a special star-studded screening with celebrities such as Makarand Deshpande, Jameel Khan, Saumya Tandon, Deepak Dobriyal, Shivin Narang, Rajshree Thakur, Vidyut Xavier, Sushant Singh, Amrita Prakash, and Priyamvada Kant, amongst the rest. Additionally, a user-generated contest was launched, and the winners were given access to the special celebrity screening.

Riding on the topicality of the James Webb telescope, the channel premiered the James Webb: The $10 Billion Space Telescope show. It gave the viewers a walkthrough of the most powerful astronomical observatory on the planet and showcased the making of the $10 billion glittering space jewel.

Brand IPs

Sony BBC Earth launched the second edition of ‘Young Earth Champions’ with renowned actor and environmentalist Jim Sarbh and professor Amritanshu Shriwastav from IIT Bombay. This year's contest was themed around the conservation of the planet’s resources: water, land, wildlife, forests, and energy. The top 10 winners received a chance to virtually interact with Jim and the professor about their ideas and exchange thoughts about sustainability.

This year's digital IP, "Earth in Focus," which was launched on the photography day, received a phenomenal response, with a 50 per cent increase in entries compared to last year. The theme revolved around seeking the ‘Thrill of Life" further divided into subcategories of landscape, adventure, and wildlife. The entries were judged by award-winning wildlife photographer Rathika Ramasamy.

The channel also came back with yet another season of its school contact program, 'Feel alive hours.’ Along with reaching out to schools, holding live sessions with experts, and organising DIY experiments, they further launched an inter-school quiz contest. This contest allowed children to represent themselves and their schools by displaying their general knowledge to the rest of the world. The property kickstarted in December and will go on till the next year.

On-ground integration

In an effort to be present amongst the brightest minds and engage with college students, Sony BBC Earth collaborated with Narsee Monjee College’s mega cultural festival, ‘Umang.’ The channel took complete charge of the waste management for the festival and introduced reversal vending machines that awarded those who helped them make the festival a zero-waste festival. The channel helped dispose of 1,394 kg of waste for the event.

The channel is partnering with IIT Bombay’s ‘Mood Indigo’ as the sustainability partner for the festival. Across the four-day event, the channel will be putting up hard-hitting messages across the campus to make students aware of the hazards of the plastic footprint in India.