Live feed of India's First TV guidance channel: WHATS ON INDIA"
WHAT’S ON INDIA: India’s First Consumer TV Guidance Channel
WHAT’S ON INDIA is India’s first and only Consumer TV Guidance channel. The 24X7 Satellite Channel has a nation-wide coverage across DTH and Cable platforms. The channel is designed to help millions of TV viewers in their day-to-day Television viewing amidst the Indian market reality of hundreds of TV channels and the resultant viewer confusion of ‘what-to-watch’.
Background
Since 2004, and the era of Digital TV (DTH, Digital Cable) the number of TV channels entering households has grown sharply. Better TV sets, more channels being launched and the growth of DTH has contributed to an explosion of available channel options. Add to that the availability of newer content types in genres never seen in our market before! All this has a dramatic combined effect on the way viewers consume their daily dose of TV.
The key finding guiding our channel’s design is that 70% of the times, Indian viewers switch on their TVs without knowing exactly what to watch. A similar 2007 study in the US had found Unplanned viewing in the US consumers at 67%. The TV industry is increasingly becoming aware of this “Unplanned Viewing” phenomenon that has been exacerbated with the supernormal growth in channels and programs over the last few years. The result has been - viewers getting overwhelmed by thousands of viewing options within a single day. In these 70% of unplanned TV sessions, millions of viewers are in a search-&-find mode in a bid to find interesting programs to watch.
Importance of NOW|NEXT
In all our studies in the last 3 years we have found that Unplanned Viewing is a universal phenomenon cutting across diverse markets and target groups. While it is intuitively most expected in male viewers, we have found incredibly high incidence of this behavior in housewives too. The housewife unplanned viewing happens in a lot of cases post bouts of appointment viewing occasions, specifically after their having seen their regular daily serials. In a majority of cases once these soaps are over is when the housewife tries to extend that TV session by searching for new content to watch. In this time they need guidance in their search for TV options.
Most viewers have been consistent in their feedback that they need TV guidance for the NOW and NEXT time segments every time they switch on their TV sets. This need is addressed by the WHAT’S ON INDIA channel which is constantly presenting viewers with information and recommendations of what TV programs to watch NOW & NEXT and where to find them.
International Learnings:
Internationally, viewers use TV Guidance channels to plan their forward appointments with their TV sets. They start every TV viewing session with the TV Guidance channel and check in every ad break what other interesting shows/ specials are being showcased on the TV Guide channel. Also on the TV Guidance channels, viewers watch promos of upcoming programs and find greater details, twists and turns of ongoing shows. The channel clearly plays cupid between the ‘right’ eyeballs and the ‘right’ content.
WHAT’S ON INDIA: Channel Design
The WHAT’S ON INDIA channel will air program recommendations as well as TV timings of other channels. We will highlight specials happening on various networks – whether they be in sports, news, reality shows, blockbuster films, etc. The recommendations are designed to inform and surprise viewers about shows or specials they did not know about. Besides these we will also air broadcaster messages in the form of promos, sneak previews and contests.
