Disruptive innnovators-Welcome the breed!!

That news channels have wreaked havoc in my life is well demonstrated when one sees me interact with my friends. Most of my discussions with them seem to more often than not veer towards detailing the snippets that I end up watching on these channels.
Move over information and entertainment –curiosity is the king here!!When other news channel focused on what they should be –that is News providing vehicle, there were channels that trained their eyes on creating an amalgamated concoction of News n entertainment-‘newstainment’.
Sharing their deep insights about Bollywood to Sports to Politics to Candid camera to sometimes “news err..Breaking news” and packaging it in a way none other has have earned them numerous eyeballs (TAM-Television Audience Measurement sadly doesn’t do a great job of capturing that). That the savvy marketers at Colors, Sony, Zee , Star(GEC-General Entertainment Channel) as well as in the entrenched news channel space undermined their potential was a pity!!Or so would hope the Masaledar TV channels!! Memorizing Porters’ 5 forces and anticipating newer, disruptive competitors is something incumbents should have done.

Segmentation and Target audience : Some would argue that by virtue of attracting viewers from both GEC and news channels , these might end up targeting the ‘entire set’ of TV viewers. Should then it be called “Mass segmentation” or some form of “hybrid segmentation”. My take is somewhat different. The segmenting variable here is “Curiosity” here for one never knows what to expect from an otherwise ‘usual Tendulkar interview’ or the “Filmfare award function” when these are beamed on these particular channels .The post mortem of these is something that is sure to baffle any sane person watching it. Thus, one would assume that Creativity is the key here.

Organizational structure : Such an atmosphere of creativity and daily innovation is often the result of a carefully crafted Company culture. Let us delve a bit on their unique Organizational structure that fosters disruptive innovation of such degree. These channels replace “information gatherers” with “creatives” as in those found in Ad agencies. These are people with an IQ beyond 200(According to Lewis Terman,these are people with ‘Unmeasurable genius’ )having an innate ability to craft and transform ordinary TV viewing stuff to something that is out of the world both literally and metaphorically( I am referring to the Alien’s case here!!).However, they need to ‘Value Add’ on what is forwarded to them- just to justify the peanuts that they are awarded every month end.
Any segmentation based on the curiosity plank is bound to be successful and captivating enough for the audience to avowedly be a part of its fan base.
One of the innovators responsible for such a format has been a person who was last seen on Zee TV interviewing people, bowling them with his own personal grouses and cleverly masking these in the form of what he referred to as ‘janata ka aarop’. He seems to have been an ardent student of Porter and Drucker for he has not failed to imbibe n implement all that he could from the great thinkers.

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aCompetitive advantage : Moving on , their competitive advantage though imitatable, has to be their Human resources and thus the creativity that emanates from them. It becomes difficult for other organizations to recruit and retain such employees as they are known to put to display “a unique form of emotional catharsis” post which “creative juices start flowing” thereby rendering masterpieces like the Alien story. These people achieve such ‘flow states’ as Daniel Goleman defines it, with easier and frequent regularity than ordinary mortals inhabiting the planet. But these gifts of god may be inept as far as social niceties are concerned!!! Even though I am sure that the sequence of my writing doesn’t strictly constitute a Business Plan nor a Situational audit, I continue with this display of my unintelligent,infrequent creative bursts for the benefit of these very News channels that I am discussing about.

Entry strategy and Positioning : Before you ascribe their viewership to the ‘First mover advantage’,I may bring to your ‘attention’ (diminishing though!!)to the real market creator in the form of Aaj Tak. While Aaj tak remained restricted to displaying exaggerated version of humans n their quirky dealings and subsequently ceded turf, there were these channels who had till then already specialized in this and graduated to higher beings—again literally n figuratively. These talked about “Ravan’s(The villain in the epic Ramayan) ma in law s residence’ when other channels were busy talking about Bollywood villains and Politicians, about “alien n cow” when others focused on Hrithik’s performance in Koi mil gaya and on random rumoured -to –be UFO videos.

Case study : My personal favourite is the Alien and cow case: The piece shows an Alien(almost jadoo like)strolling the earth for some much needed meal and god-o-god finds an unassuming cow which gets whisked right away. The Alien for starters is also fluent in Hindi and gives an exclusive interview to the esteemed news channel reporter who for the benefit of viewers had unearthed the mystery that has only been speculated about hitherto . At the end of the ‘torture’ is a search by the distressed owner of the animal who all the way curses his plight but never manages to find the cow!! No wonder that people like Piyush Pandey(a Creative) and Prahlad Kakkar(an Ad director) rightly believe these people are breathing right down their neck!!

Market growth strategy : Moving on to funnier things, I attempt to invoke Mr. Ansoff’s aid (The person has devised a useful matrix to aid businesses decide their market growth strategy)to help me chalk out a possible diversification strategy for these channels. I am sure this is at the risk of inviting chagrin from my friends who by now would be dead sure about my famed intellectual abilities. Here it goes : These channels should start defining their business as that in “Entertainment” and not just News. I am sure doing that would put them in strict competition with Disney which also views itself as an “entertainment provider” that makes people happy. And so does brighten its chances of an International foray to challenge Disney’s might!! Only that these “news channels” evoke feelings closely mimicking distress and with days of increased exposure, alienation (from people around!!) and mental depression. Diversification strategy: 1. Into Comics-they should view themselves as those entrusted with reviving Comic reading among children. 2. Content provider for Stage plays n theatre –Apart from ‘ commercialising’ theatre and getting more money into it, this may force stalwarts like Nasser uddin Shah to do some self introspection and probably inspire him to add a new dimension to his acting skills.

Finally, they should at the earliest call up an IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) expert so that the “mind blowing idea(s)” that generate/s content for these channels do not get replicated and thereby get confined within our country .This would help spare us the embarrassment that the TV audience of other countries might generously afford, if these channels do get beamed on their idiot boxes. Ever that is!!