MUMBAI: Sony Pictures Network India (SPN) is prepping to engage the world’s second largest English-speaking market where 60 per cent of the population is under 35. With an active English cluster, SPN has some global offerings for India in 2018.
It has picked up some of the best films from the biggest studios in Hollywood including Walt Disney, Universal, Warner Bros and PVR Pictures among others. SPN India’s English Entertainment cluster includes four channels catering to three genres - Sony Pix and Sony Le Plex HD for movies, AXN for English entertainment and Sony BBC Earth for English infotainment.
As per data shared by SPN for All India: NCCS 15-40 AB, Sony Pix, in the tier 1 space, is ranked second with an 18 per cent market share and time spent by viewers (TSV) of 23 minutes just behind Star Movies which has a 20 per cent market share and TSV of 24 minutes during the calendar year 2017.
SPN India classifies audiences into influencers and adopters - the influencers are the compulsive viewers, active across digital platforms and watch rated and recommended content. The adopters prefer watching TV with a relatively low awareness quotient and often seek advice on the content they need to watch.
Sony Pix reached around 34 million households in 2017. The content on the channel is curated from the top five studios in the world that included Disney, Warner Bros, NBC Universal, Sony and Lionsgate.
According to SPN India EVP of English channels Tushar Shah, the ad sales revenue for the whole of English entertainment and movies genre is upwards of Rs 700 crore. “We are extremely competitive as far as the ad rates are concerned,” says Shah. The prime time for the genre is 8-11 pm.
When asked whether the trend of content consumption on OTT has affected traditional media, Shah says that there is always a churn between different platforms around the world. But this hasn’t led to viewership shrinking. Instead, it has grown by 54 per cent for the English category between 2016 and 2017. The English movies genre overall has grown by 67 per cent in 2017. “Some of the new content which we have curated will be on the OTT platform for a period of time,” adds Shah.
“The launch of OTT has augmented the growth of TV channels in India,” says SPN India senior VP- marketing English entertainment Neville Bastawalla. SPN’s movie catalogue consists of 500 films with movies like The Fast and the Furious 8, the latest The Mummy, Despicable Me 3, which Pix will air for the first time on TV in India.
“There are no other channels in the market that offer such diverse content from the top five studios in the world,” Shah says. “Our distribution is very tight and best in the industry and is backed by excellent creative ideas and execution.”
SPN India’s premium English movie channel, Sony Le Plex HD, is at the top position with 29 per cent share in the premium category, according to the network. SPN India channels will showcase movies like Happy Death Day, Victoria and Abdul, The Red Turtle, Mary Magdalene, Dragon Heart etc.
AXN, SPN India’s twenty-year-old legacy brand, topped the charts with a 25 per cent market share and a reach of 26 million households in CY 2017, according to the network. Compared to 2016, the channel witnessed a spectacular growth of 118 per cent in viewership in 2017 claims SPN India. AXN will host the Indian television premiere of the show with two Golden Globes and eight Primetime Emmy Awards - The Handmaid’s Taleon 5 February. AXN will also have the much awaited new seasons of shows like Vikings and Billions and the return of popular reality shows such as Top Chef and Top Gears.
Sony BBC Earth is set to benefit from the quadrupling of HD subscription by 2030 according to a Chrome Data & Analytics HD report. “Sony BBC Earth airs extremely premium content. We don’t believe in thrills which are for the sake of being there and for attracting viewership. As of this week’s HD data, the channel has 14 per cent market share,” informs Shah.
BBC claims to have made the most expensive natural history series Planet Earth 2 which took three years across 40 countries. The channel has content for all types of audiences from 8 pm to 12 pm starting with science at 8 pm followed by nature and wildlife at 9 pm and adventure at 10 pm. Sony BBC Earth will air a new show Blue Planet 2, which took four years to make with underwater shooting filmed at depths of up to 8 kilometres. Apart from this, it will also cover the length and breadth of India and reveal some of its untold stories from a new perspective.
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