Vision: B-Plan

It is important to define the vision of the genre/channel/films and also to differentiate between the various content categories and their objectives. The overall company/genre vision might be to increase the SQ (spiritual quotient) of audience in order to increase the GNH (gross national happiness) by making people focus more on the INSIDE so that they pull back from the material rat-race and thus decrease unnecessary tensions, problems and creation of sanskaras for themselves. Also focusing on improving one’s own self and moving in the direction of Satchidanand will make people stop focusing on flaws in the outside world unnecessarily. This will also cause decrease of attachments/bondages/maaya which is the cause of all sorrow.

However, we have to clearly define the content categories in terms of objectives as they might vary. For example, films on Paulo Coehlo’s novels might make for good soothing entertainment but may not have the same didactic effect as a program on CWG (Conversations with God – a humorous Bruce Almighty kind of novel) or satsang/gita/shastras/scriptures. Also depicting the biographies of giants like Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramhansa might provide a much better ‘road map’ to spiritual aspirants rather than books/movies which have a high SQ (spiritual quotient) but are not necessarily written by a realized soul. Here, speeches/books by the likes of Vivekananda/Paramhansa Yogananda might make much more sense. Infact, now that so much content is being produced on mythology (including many repetitions of Ramayana etc.), why not make biographies of realized souls?

Then again the real objectives of the content might not be the same as stated marketing objectives for the content, as no financier will put in money for philanthropic reasons, but for a high ROI (return on investment). However, there are a few new channels like Pragya which do seem to have a backing for non-profit reasons for at least a few years.

Now, in both, while defining the objectives for the channel/genre content and in defining it’s marketing strategy one has to clearly identify the target audience. While movies on Alchemist and even a comic CWG might attract a much larger chunk of the mass audience, satsang and biographies of realized souls will be subscribed to only be a select few sadhaks. Now ‘subscribe’ is the instrumental word here, as in the near future PPV(pay-per-view)/VOD(video-on-demand) might justify making content for audience in the long tail (a book by Chris Anderson suggesting that the last 80% of less popular content might bring in more revenues in a personalized digital distribution model, thus enabling finely sliced niche segments).

In fact, the whole genre may be targeted only at a certain segment of the long tail rather than the mass audience. The mass audience is anyways not paying for all the content they watch currently and choose it while surfing in a pretty indiscrete fashion. They mostly buy 24*7 channels (Rs. 50-100) for a month.

So we might be only aiming at a small discerning audience, which luckily for us might also be SEC AB having the necessary money to pay for what they choose. And they might readily pay Rs.300 per month for your limited content (and with their limited time) rather than dishing out Rs. 300 to a MSO where they are just loaded in a plethora on inane and mundane media.

In any case, CAS/DTH will enable people to choose their channels a ‘la carte’ (pay for each channel you want) rather than paying for the whole menu!