For more than a decade, SAB TV has given us memorable shows like Chala Mussaddi Office Office and left Right left. Anooj Kapoor, business head of the channel shares why the channel has steered clear of saas bahu shows
You joined the channel as a business head in 2007, how has your journey been so farIJ
When I joined the channel, it was positioned as a youth centric channel. We repositioned it as a light hearted family entertainment channel from 20-25 to 170 GRPs. Business revenues increased about 900 times during that period and we reached out to an audience of 10 crores. Made the channel extremely profitable which it continues to be. We brought about a bit of social change, despite the fact that we have done about 8000 hrs of comedy since then, there has never been vulgar humour/dialogue/toilet humour in any of our shows. Apart from which, our shows not only entertain but also educate and therefore we have seamlessly embedded social messaging across our shows. We have achieved social positivity on two levels. The 1st through our brand message Asli Maza SAB Ke Sath Aata hain — has brought families together to watch TV rather than women individually watching sops and men individually watching news. On the second level, we have fostered through all our shows, values of respecting family relationships, virtues of a joint family system, respect for the elders, and therefore we have impacted society by bringing back good old Indian values and virtues that were fading away.
SAB TV has given us exceptionally good shows — Taarak and Gutur Gu. Has this always been the strategy of the channel to generate content other than from Saas Bahu serialsIJ
Yes it was a conscious decision to provide content that stood apart. We were very clear that in our shows the Saas and Bahu should love each other. Showing the positives of the joint family system instead of projecting the negatives as was being done on other channels.
What was the strategy behind providing light hearted family entertainment at a time when saas bahu serials were at their peakIJ
At that time, I felt there was too much of negativity — people were beginning to feel a little frustrated with the overdose of negativity through Saas Bahu shows. So the challenge for us was to wean away those consumers to our channel. In fact we were the first ones to coin the word — ‘daily linear comedy format’. Everywhere else in the world, even today people have ‘Weekly comedy’ and ‘26 episodes’ serials. Because we had to counter the strong saas bahu dailies, we chose the daily family format and we tom-tommed that we stand for everything that those shows do not. That appeared interesting to the consumers along with the fact that one can watch our shows with the entire family without feeling awkward or embarrassed nor is there vulgarity to watch together.
Were you surprised with the response you got with the show(s)IJ
Yes I was. I was expecting a growth from 20-70/80 GRPs. Our each was particularly 30-40 per cent less than the top channels, our budgets have always been much less, my expectations were less and I was pleasantly surprised when we actually touched 170 GRPs.
What is your strategy for the channelIJ
The first endeavour this year is to bring SAB back to the ratings that it enjoyed previously and continue with the strategy of differentiation through innovation, be it in programming, marketing and PR or any aspect that is relevant to the channel. Also, there are lot of exciting new collaborations and shows in the pipeline, we are definitely looking good in 2016-17.