With a rather subtle tweak Discovery Network has chosen to transform its existing 24-hour Discovery Turbo (DT) channel, launched in January 2010, as “a premium English entertainment channel for men” with effect from December 1 by expanding its content offering to “reflect the new and emerging passions, desires and interests of aspirational male audience.”
“Before the transformation too, DT’s target audience was males, primarily appealing to them through motoring and auto-based shows. Currently besides these two segments we have added a lot more genres, namely, adventure, combat, reality, survival, hobbies, gadgets, lifestyle, trends, challenges, do-it-yourself programmes, etc. to evince interest of a wider section of males,” says Rajiv Bakshi, Vice-President, Marketing, DN, Asia-Pacific. In a nutshell he explains, “We have broad-based the appeal of the channel keeping male audience and English language in mind.”
A transformed DTDT’s makeover seems to be based on the observation that though there are many women-oriented channels in the Indian television landscape there was none for males. “The transformed DT caters to male interest, the underserved audience section with broad-based and varied content. This will make it standout not only within our portfolio but in the entire Indian television vista,” comments Rajiv. He gives examples of programmes like “The Fighters” that takes viewers inside the boxing world, “Top Hooker”, a reality fishing competition and “Toughest Military Jobs” which brings into focus people with the hard task of defending a nation.
The description of DT’s prime time slots from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week, proves that it is synchronised with the objective of the makeover and focuses on how courageous, humorous and creative men step in and work their way through the unthinkable and on men who have pulled off spectacular feats of physical strength and pushed the boundaries.
Rajiv expects a “jump in the viewership and overall appeal” and when asked if branding DT as a niche channel will restrict its audience, he replies, “The programmes which are women-oriented and interest them are viewed by 40 per cent men and one gender viewership is restricted to a maximum of 70 per cent. So in DT too there will be shared viewership of gender.”
On the point that television viewing in India is by and large a family affair, the marketing VP was categorical that they were targeting the metro men audience of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, etc who are “affluent and have a different lifestyle”. He explains that such men “belong to families which have multiple TV sets or they have dedicated television viewing time”.
The narrowing of the target viewers is also expected to evoke interest of advertisers who aim at that section through a “premium and good looking platform” like DT.
