Discovery Channel - Discovering India

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Themes : Differentiation
Period : 1995-2003
Organization : Discovery Channel, Sony Entertainment Channel
Pub Date : 2003
Countries : India
Industry : Media and Entertainment

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Case Code : MKTG052
Case Length : 10 Pages
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Discovering India Contd...

In 2000, it entered into a revenue sharing agreement with Vijay TV¹³ to provide two hours of Discovery programs in Tamil. Under the agreement, both channels shared the revenues earned through sale of advertisement slots during the broadcast of Discovery programs. In December 2000, Karnik announced his resignation and Deepak Shourie (Shourie) took over as MD of Discovery India. By 2001, Discovery realized that Indian viewers' perception of the channel had not yet changed - they still perceived it as a niche channel airing programs on wildlife and nature.

Changing Perception

After Shourie took over as MD, he commissioned a market research to find out how Indian viewers perceived Discovery. The research highlighted the following points:

• Discovery channel viewers consisted of mostly urban males between 25 - 54 years.
• Around 60% of its viewership was from the SEC A and B.¹⁴
• Discovery was very popular with kids and their parents.

According to the study, the channel needed to pay more attention to its image and its communication with viewers to improve its performance in India. The study revealed that viewers loved to watch the channel but were not aware of program content and unclear about broadcast timings. Shourie said, "Discovery gives you so much - from travel to adventure to medicine to understanding sex, to murder mysteries.

So the first issue was to communicate the sheer width and intense variety of the programming on Discovery."¹⁵ The second issue was changing the image of the channel. Discovery was regarded as a serious channel with infotainment programs.

However, according to channel sources, unlike its image, Discovery offered a variety of programs covering a range of subjects and topics, such as Junkyard Wars (two teams competing to be the first to build a machine out of scrap found in a junkyard), Fabulous Fortunes (this program explored the sources of wealth in the 20th century) and Understanding Sex (this explored the origins of sex) etc.

In August 2001, to address the above two issues, Discovery announced new programming strategy with around 118 hours of new programming per week. This strategy was implemented in October 2001. The new strategy - 'My Time on Discovery'- was based on viewer needs and viewing habits.

Commenting on the new programming strategy, Shourie said, "The concept of 'My Time on Discovery' recognizes the viewing convenience of each family member individually and collectively, by giving them what they want from Discovery at the time that they want it, while still catering to the family as a whole. In this way the new viewer response will be 'Discovery is a must watch for me', and in the process provide advertisers a focused platform to reach out to their key target groups."¹⁶

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13] Popular Tamil (state language of Tamil Nadu) Television Channel.
14] The Market Research Society of India (MRSI) does Socio-Economic Classifications (SEC). MRSI identified eight SECs, by grouping households according to the education level and the occupation of the chief earning member. The eight categories are labeled as A1, A2, B1, B2, C, D, E1, and E2. A1 denotes the upper-most SEC, and E2 stands for the lowest SEC. The groups SEC A and SEC B represent educated urban consumers, making up 5.88 million households in sixteen cities. More than 75% of SEC A and B homes are in eight cities of India. They receive the greatest attention in respect of trendy and lifestyle products.
15] www.agencyfaqs.com, September 3, 2001.
16] Discovering Change, The Hindu Business Line, August 13, 2001