MUMBAI: In a move to introuduce new programming concepts, MTV India, the music channel owned by Viacom 18, is planning to expand its horizon by exploring other platforms of media including web, mobile and voice portal. The music channel has also dropped â€?Music Television’ from under its logo that has been around since 1981 since it launched in the U.S.
Channel officials announced the details of the refurbished MTV in Mumbai on Monday afternoon.
The channel also has a new VJ on board with VJ Rhea, a participant of its own reality show â€?Teen Diva’ and has launched four new shows out of which only one premiers on television.
Related Post
Speaking to radioandmusic.com on the need for revamp, MTV India General Manager and Senior Vice President Creative and Content Ashish Patil says, Dropping the â€?Music Television’ from under the logo is a big symbolic statement and finally closes the loop on the repositioning exercise MTV kicked off two years back. We were born of music, inspired by music, driven by music but not limited to music. MTV is about new ideas, new formats and new ways of reaching people in the new places they choose to live in. MTV’s about constant change and the guts to make it new and important again. MTV is beyond music, beyond television.
We want to be content creators for our audience. Our audience is not just on television but on facebook, twitter, mobile and several other platforms. We want to cater to all of them. Also there are so many other channels that play music hence music has to be interspersed with several other formats,… he further adds.
The channel will also have a new graphics environment. The graphics environment essentially reflects a transition of viewers to consumers,… says Patil. It is made of the youth, for the youth, almost by the youth. Going back to basics with simple post-it’s, scrolls, buffering of videos, commercial breaks pretty much how they youngsters consume media, scraps, comments, RSS feeds, pop ups and more,… he explains.
On being quizzed about the percentage of music that the channel airs Patil says, We still play 40 per cent music on our channel. It is not just playing music but what more can be done with it. We do not want top limit ourselves to music. Apart from music we have earlier experiment with genres like fashion, adventure, biking, even current affairs and would continue to do so….
Following are the new shows that will be show cast across the diverse platforms
â€?RANT’ is one of the new shows that premieres only on mobile platform. Every week MTV will cherry pick the raging issue of the week and break it down and help viewers to look at it for what it is. From Gary Kirsten’s ‘Sex improves performance’ dossier to ‘Serena is posing nude’ the channel claims to go beyond the music to ramble on other various topics.
â€?What The Hack’ is another show that premieres only on the web. MTV’s got Ankit Fadia – an ethical Hacker to give the users everything from tips, tricks to cheat codes that will make using the world wide web a whole lot simpler. The show can be viewed on MTV’s official site www.mtvindia.com.
The channel has also started a show called â€?Acting Classes’ that premieres only on their voice portal on 5056882. The users can for the first time ever attend MTV’s Acting Classes from their mobile phone. Everyday MTV VJs will teach, guide and test the users on various acting classes. They can rate and get rated on a different dialogue everyday or a range of emotions.
Nuon MTV â€?Making the Cut’ is the only show that premieres on TV. The show is a new reality series to hunt for the best in fashion where in eight designers, 16 models will compete. The show will be judged by an expert panel of style gurus and celebrities including the likes of Lara Dutta, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Neha Dhupia, Celina Jaitley, Madhur Bhandarkar, Narendra Kumar Ahmed, Dipannita Sharma and more. The show will air every Saturday at 6pm starting October 17th.
Explaining the investment model Patil says, Since three of the shows are on platforms that are not very expensive to explore comparatively the investment has been less…
About his competitors Patil adds, We have a 50-60 per cent lead over our next competitor and two times the size of the next. Our market share is very strong and we are growing continuously….
