MUMBAI: Viacom18 will launch Comedy Central, the sixth channel from the stable, on 23 January.

With the launch of the channel, Viacom18 will mark its presence in another under-served genre ?English comedy. "Given its rich library of world class shows and distinct positioning, we are confident of Comedy Central establishing itself as one of the dominant players in the English entertainment space in Indian television," said Viacom18 group CEO Haresh Chawla.

The channel?s brand philosophy, developed internally, is ?Laugh It Off?. The TG is 15+ SEC, A,B Metros.

Comedy Central expects to be available in 20 million homes, across analogue and digital cable and DTH platforms. On DTH, it will be available on Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV initially, but within two months the aim is to be on all the direct-to-home (DTH) platforms.

Viacom International Media Networks president, CEO Bob Bakish said, ?Comedy Central is one of Viacom?s most distinct and successful franchises globally. We feel that the time is now right for Viacom18 to introduce Comedy Central in India, given the growth curve in the Indian television entertainment market.?

Viacom was planning to get Comedy Central to India for quite a while now. Said Viacom18 Media senior VP, GM English entertainment Ferzad Palia, ?The time is right partly due to the spread of digitisation and also because people at this time are stressed. They are open to comedy and to laughing at themselves. Exposure to international content is growing as people increasingly travel.?

The programming will be a mix of sitcoms, sketch comedy, British comedy, stand ups and gags. Some of the shows the channel will air include Daily Show with John Stewart, South Park, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, The Office and Seinfeld. Movies will eventually air during the weekends.

Local shows will form part of the content strategy. ?There will be something for everyone. Among other things, we will develop our own talent which we would take overseas to give them a wider platform.?

For the youth, South Park will air a block called Cinderella Hour at midnight. Shows like Fawlty Towers, Allo Allo will air on the weekend where people have more time on their hands. ?Unlike other channels that mainly run marathons to allow viewers to catch up on the weekend, Comedy Central will also have premieres. In terms of the channel?s overall content, around half of it will be fresh,? said Palia.

Comedy Central has no plans to introduce a dubbed language feed as the nuances of comedy are difficult to translate. ?The channel will, however, have subtitles,? said Palia.

The business model for the channel will be led by advertising, followed by subscription. ?Many advertisers today want to own humour as a platform. We will ask advertisers how they want to use us. We will create packages and interaction mechanisms. Our relationship with advertisers will take the form of activities and doing on-ground events with them among other things,? said Palia.

In India, Viacom18 is planning to take the brand beyond the television screens and is planning to have live events and merchandising.

The launch will be backed later by an extensive marketing campaign. ?Besides television, print, outdoor, other touchpoints will be created including gyms, salons, cafes, cinema halls. 500-600 touch points will be there including in places where one might not expect it like hospitals and chemists through things like prescription pads. We have tied up with Religare Wellness,? averred Palia.

New media will be used as a brand extension. ?We will be present on YouTube, Twitter, etc. We will also have a dial in service on the mobile. The success will rest on how much people interact with the channel. It is not about how it fares in eight weeks. This is a long term commitment,? said Palia.

BBH is the creative agency while Vizeum is the media agency for the channel.

?We are confident that Comedy Central will carve out its own space within no time. All Viacom18 channels are doing extremely well,? said Bakish.

Viacom18 already airs Hindi general entertainment channel Colors, youth channel MTV, kids channel Nick, English entertainment channel Vh1 and has recently launched action channel for young audience ? Sonic.

Initially launched in the US in 1991, Comedy Central started global expansion late 2006. At present, Comedy Central has localised channels in Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Ireland, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Israel and Spain.

MUMBAI: In a move that is bound to add muscle to its movie library, Star India has entered into a movie syndication deal with rival Viacom18.

As per the deal, Viacom18, which runs Hindi general entertainment channel Colors, has offloaded 500 of its Hindi movie titles to Star India for an estimated Rs 4.5 billion.

Viacom18 was aggressively building up its movie library as it was planning to launch its own Hindi movie channel. However, with competition, rising acquisition costs and a mounting internal debt, the company decided to defer the launch plans.

Star India is already a major player in the Hindi film space with over 700 titles in its library. Moreover, the company has started to premiere big-ticket movies on Star Gold, the movie channel. It has also taken some bold steps like reducing the ad breaks and airing 6 movies daily, which has forced other players to change their business models.

Talking about the deal, Star Gold general manager Hemal Zaveri said, ?This is the first of its kind deal that we have entered into.?

Colors spokesperson said, ?As part of our overall strategic plans, we have off loaded part of our film library. We still have a large library and have also kept enough runs to take care of our main channel needs.?

The most pressing need for the group companies, TV18 and Network18, is to reduce their debt load. ?For Viacom18, the deal makes sense as its launch plan has deferred and it allows the company to monetise a part of the library. Also, the amount directly reaches to the bottomline,? a media observer said.

To a query on Viacom 18?s strategy for acquiring films for Colors in future, the spokesperson said that they would look at acquiring new movies on syndication if and when the need arises. However, the company is still holding on to the plan of launching the movie channel. ?The movie channel is an integral part of Colors? growth
strategy and we will revisit our plans at an appropriate time,? the spokesperson said.

MUMBAI: TV18 Broadcast is snapping up Ramoji Rao-owned Eenadu TV to expand its regional broadcasting presence that is confined to Marathi news at this stage.

A formal announcement is expected soon, according to sources familiar with the development.

ETV?s talks with Sony proved inconclusive. Sources confirmed that Sony pulled out of the deal as the global major found the valuation too high. Sony was involved in an all-cash deal but did not agree on the valuation of Rs 25 billion for the regional entertainment channels (news was out of the ambit).

The acquisition of ETV Network (TV business) will give TV18 Broadcast a quick presence across all important regional markets of India, barring Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"This ensures that TV18 does not have to launch green-field operations and fragment the market further. TV18 will be able to effectively compete with its 3 biggest rivals - Star, Sun and Zee - across various markets as ETV‘s portfolio is fairly good in terms of ratings. This could also help in driving carriage charge synergies as TV18 will now become a much larger bouquet. Content can obviously be leveraged across languages," a media analyst at a local broking firm said on condition of anonymity.

The acquisition will be partly funded through a rights issue. As the enterprise valuation of ETV is expected to be above Rs 20 billion, the market is predicting a part-cash, part stock deal.

ETV?s annual revenue is around Rs 5 billion. "Some speculators are saying that the valuation is around Rs 25 billion. That is about five times the revenue of ETV and seems too high. This may mean a part-cash deal," the analyst said.

TV18 has a market cap of Rs 10.31 billion.

A deal with ETV will possibly spoil Network18?s joint venture with Sun Group for channel distribution. But if it goes unscathed (just as the Zee-Star distribution deal), the bouquet will become formidable.

TV18 Broadcast runs four news channels (CNBC TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNN-IBN, IBN 7) and has a 50 per cent stake in Viacom18 (which runs Hindi GEC Colors and channels such as MTV, VH1, Nick and Sonic) and owns 50 per cent in IBN Lokmat (Marathi news channels). Network18 also has interests in Internet, print (magazines) and home shopping.

ETV Network has the largest coverage of India in terms of regional channel portfolio with presence across South India to UP. It runs 12 channels and all its channels carry news content (for at least ? an hour) along with entertainment content depending on geography.

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