MTV to come up with 10 hours of original content per week

The youth entertainment channel has already launched India's Next Top Model and will also add Elevator Pitch and Ace of Space to the lineup.

Viacom18's youth entertainment channel, MTV India has announced 10 hours of original content per week. As a part of the plan, the channel has already launched the fourth season of India's Next Top Model on October 6. The channel is launching Elevator Pitch, a quirky speed-dating show on October 12 and Ace of Space, a reality show built on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, on October 20.

While MTV India has been the No 1 ranked channel on BARC for weeks, we asked Ferzad Palia, head - youth, music and English entertainment, Viacom18, the reason behind launching these shows now and the kind of research that goes on behind them.

Ferzad Palia

He says, "MTV, right from its inception in India, has done a lot of research with the youth. We continuously work with the audiences and that's how we have stayed ahead of the curve all these years. Every two years we have put up the country's largest youth-related research - The Youth Marketing Forum. For this year's insights, we will be putting it up at the end of November or December."

Palia adds, "I think we started this journey about a year and a half ago where we introduced a lot of unscripted content on the channel and saw some phenomenal success with it. Whether it was the introduction of Love School, Troll Police, MTV Dropout or Dating in the Dark, the shows have done extremely well on TV and on Voot. We have seen consumption to an extent that our TV ratings have doubled in the last 12 months and have gone up three-fold on Voot. So, the content and strategy is clearly working and with that success, we are launching three shows. Post this, we will continue to do a lot of unscripted content."

MTV India's core TG is 15-25 male and female.

Talking about the marketing plan, Palia states, "We have a complete 360-degree marketing plan. Apart from using network channels, we are also promoting these shows through print, digital, Out of Home and much more. The OOH campaign of India's Next Top Model is already out. We begin sequentially for the next two shows in a few days."

With regard to how important it is for youth channels to keep innovating so that they don't fall behind, Palia, says, "If it's anyone who wants to stay ahead of the curve, it's any brand dealing with youth audiences because they are the ones who are evolving and adapting to newer things faster than ever before. It is really for us to lead and spot trends. MTV is the only channel that has been catering to the youth. The rest are all music channels, so the pressure is even higher on us to stay ahead of the curve and serve differentiated things and that's what we have been doing for the last couple of years now and it is working well on TV and digital."