Dangal: Ruling The Heartland

To an entertainment loving Indian, the word ‘dangal’ is most freely associated with the Aamir Khan blockbuster about wrestling champions from rural India. The word is Hindi for wrestling, after all. In the world of Indian television, though, there’s another Dangal, that’s fuelled – in part, not wholly – by rural Indian audiences: free-to-air (FTA) Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) Dangal from Enterr10 Television Network. It’s the object of our attention this fortnight because the channel has been topping the viewership charts almost every week since March 2019. Last week (Week 35), as per data by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, Dangal, with 905.52 million impressions, was the No.1 channel across genres, leaving behind contenders like Sun TV (871.63 million impressions) and Star Plus (795.44 million impressions).

Dangal is a free-to-air Hindi GEC. FTA channels don’t have a subscription fee. In other words, any licensed distributor, cable or DTH operator can downlink the signal and distribute it to their customers without paying any fee to the broadcasters. Advertising is the only source of revenue for these channels.

‘Mahima Shani Dev Ki’ and ‘Bandini’ are the two top shows on the free platform, and both air on Dangal. The former is a mythological show which first aired on NDTV Imagine (a discontinued GEC) in 2008, and the latter aired its last episode in 2011 on the same channel. Most of Dangal’s top shows are re-runs of shows acquired from other broadcasters. However, the broadcaster made a foray into original programming too. On September 7, 2019, it launched ‘CIF’, a crime investigation show with almost the same cast as Sony’s iconic ‘CID’.

In 2004, Manish Singhal (see box), designated as MD of the network, launched Enterr10 Television Network out of Indore. In 2006, he launched the flagship channel Enterr10, a Hindi movie channel, and subsequently expanded his network’s footprint with Dangal in 2009, Bhojpuri Cinema (Bhojpuri movie channel) in 2015, Fakt Marathi (a 24-hour Marathi movie channel) in 2016 and Enterr10 Bangla (a Bengali movie channel) in 2018. While all the channels fare well in their respective niches, Dangal has become the show-stopper by claiming the top spot consistently.

Interestingly enough, Dangal was launched as a Bhojpuri channel, but Singhal then decided to launch it in Hindi. By nature, Enterr10 Television Network – which reported an operational revenue of Rs 111 crore in FY 17-18 – is free-to-air. Following the implementation of TRAI’s new tariff order (NTO), which requires users to choose their channels/ packs as per their needs, Dangal started outshining others.

Here’s why: In a bid to woo subscribers, broadcasters started bundling channels and creating attractive packs. But the NTO prohibits clubbing of free and pay channels in the same bouquet. Consequently, most broadcasters converted their erstwhile FTAs (Zee Anmol, Star Utsav, Sony PAL, etc.) to pay. This left Dangal with hardly any competition in its space.

However, refer to Dangal as an FTA channel and the rebuttal from Joy Chakraborthy, CEO, Enterr10 Television Network, is instant. “Dangal is not the No.1 free channel… it’s the top channel across genres…” he says.

Chakraborthy insists nothing is ‘free’, because each kind of audience, in every market, has purchasing power. Besides, though the channel is free-to-air, cable TV subscribers do not get it for free. As per the NTO, each subscriber has to pay a base price of Rs 100 (excluding GST), which lets her choose 100 FTAs, and, mandatorily, at least 26 Doordarshan channels.

Dangal’s popularity defies conventional wisdom that advertising follows eyeballs. Chakraborthy says that advertisers consider free-to-air as ‘rural channels’. Therefore, unlike Sports or Hindi GECs, FTA channels aren’t considered in the ‘high value category’. In fact, Chakraborthy’s personal ‘dangal’ or fight is to change the way advertisers look at FTAs.

Former CEO of TV Today Network, Chakraborthy has over 25 years of experience in the media and entertainment industry. He has worked with Times Group, Star India, Zee, and most recently, Network18 as president – revenue and CEO, Forbes India.

Edited excerpts with Chakraborthy:

The Birth of Dangal, as shared by Manish Singhal, MD, Enterr10 Television Network

“It was in 2000 that I first thought of entering the television business. Before that, I used to be a distributor of electronic appliances in my home town Indore, something I began doing in 1997. That’ s when I realised the potential of teleshopping. In 2001, I launched a teleshopping company; we used to run programmes on local cable channels in Indore. That was my first stint with television. Gradually, my interest in this business grew. I was inspired by what Zee was d doing, I also met the team at Dainik Bhaskar Group a couple of times while they were planning to start a television journey.

This willingness to get into the TV business is what led to the launch of Enterr10 Television Network. In 2003, I applied to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, for a license. In 2006, Enterr10 was launched as a music channel. Within a year, we made it a movie channel - this, I believe, was the first free-to-air movie channel in India.

In 2009, because I wanted to grow the network beyond one entity, we launched Dangal as a Bhojpuri channel; it was a very well planned launch. We acquired content and inked deals with most of the cable and DTH players to have a good distribution system. Soon after the launch, though, we realised our mistake: the Bhojpuri distribution market back then was not at all mature. And because we were already running Enterr10, a Hindi movie channel, all our distributing partners were in Hindi speaking markets. So, effectively, we had a Bhojpuri channel running on a Hindi distribution network.

We understood that immediate course correction was required; we just couldn’t keep running a regional channel with a national distribution plan. And that’s how, within months of its launch, by 2010, Dangal became our second Hindi channel - a GEC.

To be honest, the reason Dangal worked is not because we did something drastically different; rather, it’s the result of a strategy that worked better than that of others, be it on the programming or distribution front.

Presently, we have six channels across four languages - Hindi, Bangla, Marathi and Bhojpuri. We’re planning to expand our footprint to other markets. Initially, I had no knowledge about the rating game and the television market, so we did whatever our friends suggested or things we thought would work. Now we have become a data-driven organisation. Our expansion plans are all strategic investments driven by data. While television continues to be our core business, we are evaluating options in the digital space too. Reliance Jio has changed the digital landscape of the country and OTT is a great opportunity. We plan to launch a subscription-based, video-on-demand platform soon.”

This interview was first published in our magazine afaqs! Reporter on September 15, 2019