Discovery Channel to focus on local production

Discovery Channel, which completed two decades in the Indian television market, will focus more on the local production, localisation of content and strengthening its presence in the rural market by providing content in more regional languages.

Rahul Johri,  EVP and GM-South Asia, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, told BusinessLine that, “Discovery has been able to reach every nook with the help of our distribution strategy that we took six years ago. We went beyond the ratings game and just kept adding new regions. We have been the major gainers among all other channels.”

Johri, however, refused to give out any financial details in terms of its reach, revenue and market share. But he said that the channel has doubled its growth in the last three years. “India is one of the top 10 markets for us and we want to take it to the top five soon. Russia and China are the most challenging market, and thus, India and Brazil are the high priority for us,” Johri said. He was talking on the sidelines of a new show that talks about inspirational stories about real life heroes.  

 The show, which is to aired from November 2, will be anchored by bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan. The nine-part series talks about Saji Thomas, a mute and deaf uneducated man who dreamt of building an aircraft, along with nine others, including the first woman firefighter and a dalit woman entrepreneur. 

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