MUMBAI: It’s been two years since BTVI has come into the English business news picture. A tough nut to crack, the channel has been at it by first challenging the incumbents and later by revamping itself to suit the new generation of business news viewers.

Money Mantra, an on-ground event introduced by BTVI is an attempt to raise awareness regarding personal finance management, current market trends and investment. In order to educate its viewers about financial matters, BTVI decided to host the Money Mantra event across eight different cities in India. With its Mumbai event being wrapped up, Money Mantra is scheduled for Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat and Kolkata.

At Mumbai’s Money Mantra event, BTVI COO Megha Tata and BTVI head of marketing, research and branded content Anuj Katiyar got conversing with Indiantelevision.com. They spoke about the channel growth, its strategies beyond television, attracting new audiences and reaching out to viewers in the interior parts of India.

Excerpts:

How has the year been for BTVI and what do you have in the pipeline?

Megha Tata – We’ve had a fantastic year. We just completed two years in August and it’s been an incredible journey so far. From the previous year to the current year we’ve had a phenomenal growth in every way, not only in terms of our shares but also for in revenue, and also in terms of our platforms which we have partnered with in order to reach a larger base of audience. Basically, we had realised that one of the challenges was to bring consumers. So, we said let’s go to where the consumers are. So, we looked at partnering with a whole lot of digital platforms. Hence, we are available on Hotstar, Jio and many more. We have also partnered with trading apps which we believe would be the perfect partners because that’s a very concise audience we want to reach out to and as they didn’t have a live streaming for any business news channel happening, so we brought that into the mix. So it was a win-win for both. We are also evolving in our digital strategy with more focused content on our digital platforms whether it’s our web portal or our Twitter feeds or our Facebook page and so.

Being a TV channel why would you do Money Mantra as an on ground event?

Anuj Katiyar – We are not a TV channel which believes in just passive communication of giving out information to people. For a business news channel, if I just keep giving information and keep giving news which we think is relevant but the consumers does not feel any value in that, what is the point? So, from a business news channel point of view, a two way interaction is very critical because if I give you news and if that news is not of any use to you, will you watch my channel? If I tell you that NIFTY is soaring and you know SENSEX is dropping and some new policies are coming but if I don’t translate that into the common language which you understand, you will not watch my channel. It is a very logical extension to take our channel offering to on ground and meet people and tell them that, you know this is the benefit that you get by watching BTVI, this is who we are, we are here not to give information that we feel is right, we are here to give you news and we are here to give you opinions and any kind of content that will benefit you directly.

What all has gone behind planning the event?

Anuj Katiyar – Any event requires immense planning, so there are different teams who have worked in it. The editorial team in terms of who should be the panellists, the marketing team in terms of how to execute the event, the research team in deciding which all cities we should go out and where are the people who are watching BTVI and who are the people who would benefit from this information and the production team that is shooting it and putting it on air. There’s a lot of effort which goes into doing anything and especially when this is just a first event. This event will get into different cities, Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad and Surat. After we finish this phase we’ll get into smaller towns because normally people just ignore and they forget that there are people in smaller towns as well who are ready to invest money. There are individuals who have that kind of disposable income. And also their requirements should be met in terms of pure knowledge and information about the economy of the country and the business. So, phase two will be moving into smaller cities.

How do you plan on to moving to these smaller cities?

Anuj Katiyar – There are multiple things. Our event covers mutual funds, market, personal finance, certain amount of investment in equity, so this is the far broader offering from this event. So, multiple cities will have multiple offerings. We have another show on Mutual Funds called The MF Guide, it is all about queries regarding mutual funds and it also has an on ground extension. Then we also have a show called Call BTVI, which involves interaction with the people. In Call BTVI, people call in and have their equity queries answered. Broadly we will take Money Mantra to different cities but in different phases, we’ll have more events of Money Mantra. They will be far more focused in a market where there are more mutual fund investors or if there’s a city which has more clients in equity investors, the conversation in those events will be far more associated with equity. But it’s not that we will change the format, it’s going to be the same format, the offerings of the event and conversation will be relevant and related to the people who are going to attend the event.

Has the advertiser’s interest increased or decreased?

Megha Tata – From previous year to this year, it’s a 60-70 per cent growth in terms of overall business. The previous year was a pretty bad year for us. Since then we have had a great year. Shilpa Shetty, who is the head of revenue, her team has done a fantastic job in growing the advertising base. Not only in terms of the number of clients who have come on board but the yield on the channel has also increased and obviously, the total revenue has increased.

What is your content strategy for the upcoming assembly and general elections?

Megha Tata – We are primarily a business news channel but obviously any political change brings impact on economy and policies. So, we will up the game on our political coverage and we’ll share more on that shortly. But basically, we are going to increase our political coverage which obviously will have an impact on business and economy.

How do you plan to catch up with the other news channels which are leading in the BARC ratings in your competing genre?

Megha Tata – CNBC obviously is a clear leader as they have been around for much longer. However, for sure we also kind of have a great story among them, from where we were and today where we are. Also, in one particular week we beat ET Now. We are moving in the right direction but as I said in today’s time it’s just not about television viewers but you have to grow outside of that. We were once talking about direct to consumer (D2C), your ability to reach to your consumer and as consumers are not consuming content only from television but they are moving out. Especially in our genre, a lot of business news is getting consumed on the go, whether it’s your mobile, tablet, and any other platform. We have the ability to be on those platforms and that is a milestone itself for us. That is the plan for us to grow. Unfortunately, the Bible of the country and industry is the BARC ratings and that we too value, but we are also looking to grow through other partnerships and through other platforms. Unfortunately, BARC is one quantifiable data but the rest of the quantifiable data is through these platforms. So, if the advertisers can look at us in totality, you know, how many consumers we are able to reach between linear and non linear, they will see the value.