Sony Pix eyes vacation viewing; targets youth through afternoon block

Every afternoon, two movies will be telecast back-to-back between 12 noon and 5:30 pm. The commercial time during the movies will also be decreased by 20-25 per cent.

In an attempt to tap the college-going youth during the summer vacations, MSM's Sony Pix has launched an afternoon programming block with a mix of movies from various genres. The channel is eyeing two movies back to back, with limited ad breaks to ensure continuous content and viewer engagement for an extended duration.

The channel has bought exclusive rights for several movies such as The Fast and The Furious, The Eye, Hitch, Just Go With It, Eat Pray Love, Days Of Thunder, The Tourist, 1408, Never Back down 2: The Beatdown, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and Rogue Assassin and Bad Teacher, amongst others. Pix will retain the rights for the movies for 15-18 months.

Every afternoon, Pix plans to telecast two movies back to back between 12 noon and 5:30 pm. It claims that it will not promote a strict time band-movie genre combination. It doesn't have a dedicated time-band for any single movie genre, the channel claims.

For a better viewing experience, the commercial airtime during these screenings will be cut by 20-25 per cent. Amogh Dusad, programming head, Pix, says, "It's not about the loss in the ads, it is more about the re-alignment of the ad breaks. We have been planning the ad breaks for this segment separately, so that a viewer gets about 30-40 minutes of continuous content to watch."

The channel already runs single break back-to-back movies on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons.

The afternoon slot, which is otherwise ruled by the housewives and kids (during vacations), is being targeted to tap the youth, too. How well will the effort work?

P M Balakrishna, COO, Allied Media feels that it is a tricky aim to meet. He says, "Whether the movies will work or not depends mostly on titles. Genre and time band is less decisive when the availability of the viewer is confirmed to some extent."

He also feels that the IPL season makes the broadcasters re-strategise their plans and programming. "It must be noted that even the youth concentrate on IPL. There are innovative and different afternoon-viewing options coming up," he adds.

Balakrishan adds that the afternoon slot is the only time band that can be experimented with and that is exactly what the channels are doing these days.

Amin Lakhani, head, exchange, Mindshare Media feels that this may be a part of the experiment. "No doubt there is an opportunity to grow beyond the prime time and it should work. But numbers would only be able to verify whether it works or not," he says.

"The movie channels are doing fairly well these days because they are trying to come out of the traditional limitations of the time bands and not limiting to slots. In a way it is a good strategy," he adds.

Lakhani is optimistic that the channel will get potential audiences and a good number of eyeballs. About the ad break time cut, he adds, "It is definitely a good call for the industry. It should help build stickiness."

Generally, any movie is exclusively acquired by a channel for a particular time window. This window varies from 15 to 120 months. Recently, the channel screened the premier of Smurfs, the animated movie. Also, it has scheduled premieres of new releases, twice every month. Straw Dogs is the next movie that will premier in May.