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Satyamev Jayate which marked the television debut of actor Aamir Khan on Sunday is Star India's costliest show. And despite charging a premium from advertisers, the channel is not particularly hopeful of recovering its investments.
The show is being simulcast in eight languages across all key channels of the Star network – Star Plus, Star Pravah, Star Jalsha,Star Utsav, Asianet, Star Vijay besides ETV Telugu and Doordarshan.
Mr Sanjay Gupta, Chief Operating Officer of Star India said, “It is one of the costliest shows. Besides a huge cost of production and marketing, we have other costs since it is being dubbed across many languages and simulcast on all these television channels. We might not break even.” He refused to give the specifics of advertising revenues.
Higher ad charges
This is even as the television channel is learnt to have charged over three times more from advertisers compared to other television shows. “The power of the concept and the power of Aamir Khan have helped us charge much higher than we would from any other television show,” he said. Airtel is the title sponsor and other key sponsors include Axis Bank, Berger Paints, Skoda, Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson.
After launching its Hindi general entertainment channel, Life Ok, Star has just launched its movies channel Movies Ok. “To be able to grow our share in the Hindi speaking markets, we had to bring in a different proposition which led us to launch Life OK. We are further strengthening the OK brand with the launch of Movies Ok, for the next 12-24 months we would be focussing on establishing these two channels,” he said. Movies Ok was launched after Viacom 18 sold a large portfolio of movie rights to Star India early this year.
The channel was launched even as the media industry is reeling under pressures on the advertising revenue front. “The advertising outlook for the next few months looks robust but advertisers are becoming choosier about the properties they want to invest in as well as evaluating more on where they want to put their money,” Mr Gupta added.
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