Mumbai: Viacom18 youth, music and English entertainment cluster has created a brand-new business division called KaanPhod to provide emerging musical artists an opportunity to showcase their talent. The cluster comprises brands such as MTV, MTV Beats, Comedy Central, Colors Infinity, and Vh1.
KaanPhod will co-create original music IPs with emerging artists and distribute them across platforms. The division is set to launch a show “Mic Test” that will introduce ten promising new artists and their original tracks which will also be made available for viewers on television (MTV, MTV Beats, Vh1), social and streaming platforms.
The brand has also launched its maiden short-form video offering called Fully Faltoo, with over a dozen web shows and snackable content. This year the cluster is returning with the new season of MTV Roadies which is shot in South Africa with new host Sonu Sood. It is also returning with the second season of the rap reality show "MTV Hustle." English entertainment channel Colors Infinity has announced a new show called "The Inventor’s Challenge" which highlights the journey of an idea from paper to a working prototype of the product created by amateur inventors.
The clusters brands garnered 9.8 billion impressions on content across TV, social media and the networks streaming/OTT platform Voot in the past year. The business unit was also able to draw viewers during non-prime time through its sports content.
The YME unit recently launched the Fully Faltoo NFT platform that saw more than 3000 digital collectibles sold out within a couple of hours. The marketplace offers a range of diverse digital collectibles from its iconic brands like MTV, Vh1 and Comedy Central.
“Viacom18 YME is the only brand in its category that brings to the youth uniquely entertaining ‘escape clusters’. With fiction, non-fiction, sports, short-format and snackable content, and a foray in the metaverse, the brand has its finger on the pulse. The YME division will reinvent, reimagine and risk as it pivots across platforms in a way that is daring and contemporary, just like the audience it caters to,” said the statement.
“The last two years have been unprecedented for young South Asians,” said Viacom18 head – youth, music and English entertainment Anshul Ailawadi. “They’ve emerged stronger after grappling with a once-in-a-generation black swan event. This is the right time for the youth, music and English entertainment (YME) cluster to pivot. In the coming fiscal we will scale up and revamp each and every legacy property from Roadies to Hustle to Splitsvilla and launch newer formats. We will double down on our growing digital presence and launch a multiplatform short video offering ‘Fully Faltoo’ along with ‘KaanPhod’ - a platform to discover and mount emerging musical talent and original songs. The success of our maiden NFT offering will be followed up with more Web 3.0-focused initiatives. We’ve also worked on a new slate of international English content for Colors Infinity and Comedy Central. The team is geared up for an action-packed year like never before.”
