Channel V rebrands again; experiments with bi-weekly

The channel is rebranding on the back of four new shows, out of which three shows will be aired twice a week, while the fourth one is a daily show.

A little more than a year (July 1, 2012-November 25, 2013) since Channel V dropped its music content, it has decided to don a new avatar. The youth music and entertainment channel which transformed into youth GEC (general entertainment channel) in July 2012 is dressing up with a new logo, a novel tagline and a fresh new line-up.

Starting November 25, the channel viewers will witness a new logo, which is the current logo with a fold on top left with 'All New' written on top of it. The baseline this time says 'Correct Hai!'.

Talking about the need for a change, Prem Kamath, general manager and head of Channel V, tells afaqs!, "Nothing changes as such. It's really an evolution from where we were. Basically, we continue to be a youth entertainment channel but we are now changing the format of the shows running. We will continue to run dailies but are also experimenting with shorter duration, finite series."

"Correct Hai comes out of our brand philosophy wherein we believe that the tonality of the brand needs to be politically incorrect, emotionally correct. We believe that if something feels right, it really can't be wrong. We encourage people to listen to their inner voice," explains Kamath.

Effective November 25, the channel is launching four new shows. While 'Sadda Haq' will be a daily show airing Monday to Friday at 6:30 pm, 'Confessions of an Indian teenager', 'Paanch' and 'Relationship Status-It's Complicated' will be telecast twice a week. Sadda Haq will be aired for 12 months as the other three will wind up in 26 weeks, Kamath adds.

'Confessions of an Indian teenager' is being produced by Balaji Telefilms while 'Sadda Haq' is being produced by Beyond Dreams. Sunshine Productions is producing 'Paanch' and 'Relationship status – Its Complicated' for the channel.

Channel V is taking two of its shows -'Suvreen Guggal' and 'Crazy Stupid Ishq' - off air as it introduces the new shows at the same time slot. At 6 pm, Confessions will be aired on Monday and Tuesday; Paanch will be aired on Wednesday and Thursday; Relationship status - It's Complicated will be aired on Friday and Saturday.

Buddy Project, Dil Dosti Dance and Gumrah will continue to be aired on their current slots.

"There are two reasons for doing bi-weekly, shorter format shows. Firstly, within the youth segment, there is a need for refreshing stories, content at a much quicker pace than a regular Hindi GEC. And secondly, shorter format shows let us bring far more variety on the channel and we have the liberty to experiment with multiple genres. Also, we are able to attract different kinds of talents in terms of creation of these shows. We are able to tap into completely new set of talent for creating this and it's extremely important! We need a different kind of thinking, freshness, to differentiate strongly from Hindi GECs," Kamath avers.

In order to communicate the rebranding, the channel has launched an integrated brand campaign. Taking support of the network channels, Channel V's fresh look and programming will be promoted on sister channels. Apart from this, it has a 15-city plan that includes Mumbai, Delhi, UP (1mn + towns), Maharashtra (1mn + towns) and PHCHP (1mn+ towns).

The channel has been promoting the new change on its social media pages. It will launch an OOH campaign in the above mentioned cities, the execution of which will be done by DDB Mudra.

Channel V has launched four brand films running for about 15 seconds on 'Correct Hai'- titled Live In,

Formula, Late Night and Katrina Kaif. To give an idea of the campaign, the 'Katrina Kaif' promo features a girl reading newspaper with the headline 'Katrina learns Hindi'. As she folds and keeps the newspaper down, she asks a question - if Katrina talks in Hindi its cool, but if she talks in Hindi people call her 'behanji'. Is this correct?

"Correct Hai comes out of our brand philosophy wherein we believe that the tonality of the brand needs to be politically incorrect, emotionally correct. We believe that if something feels right, it really can't be wrong. We encourage people to listen to their inner voice," explains Kamath.

Nipa Asharam, VP, marketing, Channel V, says, "We already have markets which are high consumers of Channel V so our whole strategy is to get a lot more from these markets and that's how we prioritise the markets. We are trying to show disruptive concepts and a true human insight of that life stage. Marketing for rebranding is simple. Correct Hai stands for 'what feels right, how can it be wrong?' And it's true for this audience because there is constant fear of consequence in them."

In terms of increase in prime-time programming, Kamath says that in April, the channel might look at increasing prime time content. "We will add two more slots on weekdays and one more in the weekend," he adds.