A

PROJECT REPORT

ON

“MTV in India: The Positioning Strategies”

SUBMITTED TO

BALAJI INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS (BIIB), PUNE

BY

PARIDHI RAO

IB1614130

SUBMITTED ON-

28-02-2018

SRI BALAJI SOCIETY‘S

BALAJI INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS (BIIB)

S NO – 5/2-7, TATHAWADE, WAKAD, PUNE-411033

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 DECLARATION

I, hereby declare that this summer internship project on “MTV in India:

The Positioning Strategies” is the record of authentic work carried out
by me during academic year 2016-2018.

This is to declare that all my work indulged in the completion of this Project
Report is a profound and honest work of mine and it does not form a part of any
other work submitted to any other institution or university.

Date: 28/02/2018 Signature:

Place: Pune

Paridhi Rao
IB1614130

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

S.NO. CHAPTER PAGENO.

1. Introduction:

2. Overview

3. Organization / History

4. Analysis

5. Status

6. Case solutions

7. Annexures

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The customers are the only reason why we are in business, so satisfying them
will ultimately make our business more profitable. The Indian media landscape is
dotted with over 100 T.V. channels in 2004 but 80% of the Indian television
advertising revenue share goes to major channels like star, zee, Sony, Suntv &
Doordarshan. According to analysts the total advertisement revenue of the Indian
TV. Industry is INR 36000 million but the music channels garner only INR 800
million of the total advertising revenue. The music channel market has a no. of
contenders like Mtv, channel V, ETC music, B4U music, CMM & Zee music apart
from some regional channels, prominent among them being SS (southern spice)
music that airs music round the clock, in local languages. From an unknown TV
network housing a popular music channel MTV, Viacom18 has come a long way
over the last 10 years to take a sizeable share in the Indian television space.
Now with a 44 channel bouquet (14 overseas) and five businesses, the company
has had to take some disrupting decisions, some of which have paid off.

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 INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION TO THE TITLE:

MTV (Music Television) India is a 24-hour music channel that mainly targets
viewers between the age group of 15 and 34 years, MTV made its debut in India
in 1991 with many American programmes, which was targeted at the English-
speaking young elite of India. The initiative was partially successful. In 1996,
MTV was relaunched with an array of local shows and India-based programmes
to appeal to a wider audience. This case study is basically to know the journey of
MTV in India its challenges and success after all that challenges.

Objectives:

 To discuss the strategies adopted by MTV India to differentiate and

position itself firmly as the No.1 music channel in India.
 To analyse whether MTV India would succeed in consolidating its position
amidst competition from other channels.

Limitations:

 As it is very old case not much information is available over the internet.
 Information provided is not very much reliable.
 There was time constraint.
 All the data provided is secondary.

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 OVERVIEW

The Indian media landscape is dotted with over 100 T.V. channels in 2004 but
80% of the Indian television advertising revenue share goes to major channels
like star, zee, Sony, Suntv & Doordarshan. According to analysts the total
advertisement revenue of the Indian TV. Industry is INR 36000 million but the
music channels garner only INR 800 million of the total advertising revenue. The
music channel market has a no. of contenders like Mtv, channel V, ETC music,
B4U music, CMM & Zee music apart from some regional channels, prominent
among them being SS (southern spice) music that airs music round the clock, in
local languages.
One major problem for the music channels is that they attract a miniscule share
of viewership. According to the TAM Peoplemeter system, the share of music
channels across six metros among cable and satellites homes was 1.88 in 2003.
Another problem that music channels have to face besides small viewership
share is that very few people watch them for long. Viewers mainly watch the
music channel when commercial interrupts their favorite tele series or movies
and not something that they like to watch continuously. “The need to gain
stickiness has been our biggest problem. All these new shows, with their
suspense, and serial-like format, are a big attempt to do this. However, it is
opined that music channels despite their best attempts have not been able to
make a dent in the viewership of mass entertainment channels. “Even though a
large population in India belongs to the youth segment, the viewership is not very
high and therefore the advertising rates still remain very low.

There‟s also the question of how far the music channels can actually differentiate
in terms of programme content when their content pool remains the same- songs
from Bollywood films and indie pop, and some international pop songs. “If you
leave out one or two shows, all music channels look and sound the same to us.

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Frankly, the single largest differentiating factors is the rates on offer. If the
ratey7s suits me and my client, I buy time on the channel.

Mtv India has been trying to overcome these problems of the music channel
market with a series of strategic moves. First, it changed its programming content
which was predominantly American when it started in 1996 two more Indian
based programming airing Hindi film music and Indian pop. This helped it to
attract viewers who were not interested in its American programme content. Mtv
India also attempted to incorporate more youth oriented programmes catering to
the age group of 15-34years which was not necessarily music based. They
started airing humour based programmes on the channel like „Bakra which has
its host Cyrus Broacha playing pranks on unsuspecting people. This programme
and its host have proved to be hits for Mtv. They also have other humour based
shows like fully faltu & gaana masti which are basically spoofs on popular films
and music. Mtv India also airs programmes related to fashion, style awards,
music awards or anything they feel connect with the youth of India. It has also
launched reality shows on its channel „Roadies‟ that follows four youths on their
motorbikes as they travel through India. Mtv India is also launching a youth
based Hindi serial, with Balaji telefilms; a leading production house based In
Mumbai. Cyrus Oshidar, vice president, creative & content, Mtv India said, “We
are much more than a music channel. Mtv means Music Television but our
demographic is young people. We do whatever it takes to reach young people.”

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 ORGANISATION HISTORY

MTV India is the Indian version of MTV, a channel specializing in music, reality,
and youth culture programming. It was launched in 1996 and is now part of the
Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd based in Mumbai, a joint venture operation between
Viacom Inc. and TV18. MTV India is one of the oldest music television networks
in Asia. Music has always been distinctively recognized and acknowledged with
respect to India, thus MTV India has been very successful there. MTV India is
one of the most popular music channels across the Indian subcontinent, having
viewership shares in India and also countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Most of the programming on the channel is in Hindi.

MTV India creates shows across genres of music (Coke Studio, MTV
Unplugged), reality television (MTV Roadies, Splitsvilla) and youth-based sitcoms
(MTV Reality Stars).

MTV India has its office in Vile Parle in Mumbai.

Of late MTV India has put a greater focus on reality shows (as MTV has
internationally; as reality shows have become widely popular),

It has also ventured into youth-based fiction dramedies with India's first youth-
based sitcom, MTV Reality Stars.
The MTV India awards include the following.

 Fully Faltoo Film Awards

 Lycra MTV Style Awards
 MTV Immies

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 ANALYSIS
SWOT Analysis of MTV with USP, Competition, STP (Segmentation, Targeting,
Positioning) - Marketing Analysis

MTV

Parent Company MTV Networks (Viacom)

Category Music Channel

Sector Media and Entertainment

Tagline/ Slogan Stay Raw; I want my MTV; MTV is here

USP Reality shows and music for the youth

STP

Segment 15+ to early 30s (Male and Female)

Target Group Individual, SEC A,B

A channel for the youngsters who like to be raw and

Positioning who love music

SWOT Analysis

1. Channel has tremendous viewership globally

2. Raw reality shows made especially for youth
3. Nice hold over college going crowd
4.Merchandising also promotes the brand equity
5.Broadcasted in over 50 countries across the globe
Strengths 6.Organises the popular MTV Music awards

1.Censorship issues over bold programs

Weaknesses 2.Obscene and abusive languages causes problems

Opportunities 1.Tie-up with international concerts

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 2.More advertising would increase brand visibility
3.Promote brand through interactive websites and
mobile applications

1. Agitation from NGOs

Threats 2. Broadcasting Contents Complaint Council (BCCC)

Competition

1. Channel V
2. YouTube
3. Internet music sites
Competitors 4. UTV Bindaas

The table above concludes the MTV SWOT analysis along with its marketing and
brand parameters.

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 STATUS

From an unknown TV network housing a popular music channel MTV, Viacom18

has come a long way over the last 10 years to take a sizeable share in the Indian
television space. Now with a 44 channel bouquet (14 overseas) and five
businesses, the company has had to take some disrupting decisions, some of
which have paid off.

“We have grown about 40 times in the last 10 years,” mentions Sudhanshu Vats,
group CEO, Viacom18 Media. “We are highly dependent on advertising so its
share tends to be around 80%.” As per the financial statement of subsidiaries
disclosed by Network18, the holding company of TV18 (which owns 50% in
Viacom18), Viacom18 had booked a net profit of Rs.30.6 crores in the financial
year ended March 31, 2017, on a consolidated revenue of Rs. 3,036.5 crores.
While the revenue saw about 8% increase over the previous fiscal, gestation
losses on the launch of OTT platform Voot, Hindi movie channel Rishtey
Cineplex and Kannada GEC Colors Super pulled down the net profit, which was
at Rs 141.5 crores in the previous year.

But the company has been a disruptor in some genres. At a time when Star Plus
was ruling the Hindi GEC space for nine years, Colors came in with differentiated
programming and earthy shows like Balika Vadhu alongside glitzy formats like
Khatron ke Khiladi and Bigg Boss. It quickly climbed up the rating ladder within
nine months.

Amidst the glories are also brickbats, and Viacom18 needs to up its game to
compete with brands like Star India, Sony Pictures Networks and ZEEL. Rohit
Dokania, SVP, research, IDFC Securities states, “There appears to be a gap in
Viacom18‟s margins versus peers as many of its initiatives have been recently
launched and are in the investment phase. Media is a scale business and its TV
broadcast portfolio has few gaps.”

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As the network completes a decade, Brand Wagon gets an insight into the
company‟s plans, its strategic pillars for growth and the challenges ahead.
The magic word for Vats is segmentation. “We don‟t look at India as 1.3 billion
but a sub-set of many India‟s in one. Thus, we will have more segmentation
within a genre — the kids cluster being a classic example,” he says.

It has done the same with three distinct offerings in the music and youth space —
MTV, MTV Beats and Vh1. While MTV is now clearly positioned as a youth
channel with content synergies being driven with Colors too, the channel has
undergone several revamps in the last few years to find the right mix of content
and music. The plan now is to increase original hours of content and
simultaneously build ancillary verticals — MTV Studios and MTV Music Project.

“But we also realize that „M‟ is „Music‟ in MTV, therefore we need to continue to
play music. Thus, we brought in MTV Beats in September, 2016,” he says. MTV
Beats replaced MTV Indies, launched in partnership with Pepsi, whose format
failed to click with TV viewers. “TV was not a sustainable platform for Indies. We
will look at it in digital as we go forward,” Vats adds.

Segmentation has been the strategy in Kannada as well. Apart from Colors
Kannada, the network launched a sub-brand, Colors Super in July, 2016. “We felt
there is room to further segment the market through another channel. Now our
share between the two is around 41-42%,” states Vats.
The challenge is to balance and build the portfolio to reduce dependency on
Colors. Vats highlights that five years ago when he took over the reins of the
network, 80% of ad revenue came from Colors. That number has now come
down to about 52%.

Viacom18‟s TV journey has seen it entering newer genres, expanding into

regional, building a portfolio in kids with four channels, a rural play in Hindi

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entertainment through Rishtey and a Hindi movie channel through Cineplex.
However, its FTA (free-to-air) pieces — Rishtey and Cineplex — have not been
able to grow as much as FTA channels of other networks, thus making it a big
gap in a network that has been known to cater more to urban masses. But COO
Raj Nayak states that this is an ongoing process. “The FTA space in television
broadcasting calls for constant innovation, across content, marketing, sales and
distribution. We are happy with how Rishtey has shaped up and it is in line with
our business plans,” he says.

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 CASE SOLUTION

STEPS TAKEN BY MTV INDIA:-

The Indian music industry (IMI) and Mtv networks India have announced a
partnership to host music awards show called the „Indian music excellence
awards‟ (Immies). The awards will be presented in 23 categories, ranging from
Indie pop to international, and gazals to devotional to remix. Any artist performing
in India will be eligible for the awards, and registration can be made for music in
Hindi or Punjabi released in India. The Indian market research bureau (IMRB) will
conduct the nomination and voting process along with Mtv and IMI, and conduct
a quantitative study of the nomination received in the popular categories across 7
cities. The final nominations of these categories will be put up for a viewer‟s
choice vote on Mtv; there will also be a separate jury for other categories.
Airtel is the sponsor of the awards, which will be held in December and this year
show is also sponsored by LG and Maruti.
The event will be executed by Mtv India along with an international Mtv team,
and will be telecast on Mtv and Sony entertainment television.
Leading up to the show, Mtv will have over 80 hours of dedicated programming
and 1700 promos, supported by print ads, outdoor, online and on-ground
activities. "The industry has had a long standing desire to honor talent and to
institutionalize Indian music awards." said VJ Lazarus, President, IMI, at the
announcement. "This is a serious commitment to the industry and the artist."
Given the involvement of MTV and the support of IMI, this will be a credible
Indian music awards show, said Alex kuruvilla, managing director MTV networks
India.

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 ANNEXURES

 www.ficci-frames.com
 Ibid.
 www.indiantelevision.com
 www.hindu.com
 http://medianet.indiatimes.com
 www.fortune.com

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