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.