Viacom18 to strengthen youth, music portfolio with new channel MTV Beats

The channel will replace MTV Indies and will focus on Hindi - primarily Bollywood - music.

Media conglomerate Viacom18, which operates brands like Colors, Vh1, Nick and MTV, is all set to strengthen its youth and music portfolio with a new 24X7 Hindi music channel called MTV Beats.

MTV Beats will replace MTV Indies, a channel which caters to the 'indie' subculture. And though MTV Indies will go off air by the end of September, it will continue to stay as a brand on digital.

Elaborating on the portfolio redesign, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18, says in a press release, "MTV initiated India into the experience of pop culture, making it a socially and commercially successful phenomenon. This presents us with the unique opportunity to redesign our youth and music portfolio and take brand MTV into sharply segmented content buckets within the genre. The flagship channel will be focused on youth and branded content while MTV Beats will replace MTV Indies, with an eye to take the MTV brand to a more mass audience. MTV Indies will continue to cater to the indie subculture on digital."

Giving a deeper insight into MTV Beats, Ferzad Palia, business head, Youth and English Entertainment, Viacom18 adds, "This is a channel aimed at the 15-30-year age group across urban and rural India, people who love music and often imagine their day having a sound track of sorts. To give our audience's life a unique beat, we're working on defining the week into mood based themes and curating our playlists accordingly, thereby making music viewing a more relatable experience."

Music seems to have found its place back in the youth and music genre. Recently, Channel V went back to being only music and now Viacom18 has come up with its own only music platform. It remains to be seen whether music manages to rake in more ratings and eventually more money for the broadcasters.