MUMBAI: A new world has emerged with the advent of mobile and digital platforms, with every media house wanting to engage consumers on them as consumption rises. One of the leading international music channels today, Vh1 has also forayed into the space by developing ‘Vh1 Hub’ in partnership with Techzone to help fans search and buy International music content across mobile and web.
Aiming to build a digital platform for most businesses and helping them monetize their content, content aggregator and developer Techzone has entered into a six year deal with the channel to develop the one stop mobile content shop.
Speaking about this new product, Viacom18 Pvt Ltd Sr VP and GM- English Entertainment Ferzad Palia, said, “Vh1 Hub is going to be the one stop destination for all international music lovers. Since, today’s generation want everything at a click of their finger, Vh1 Hub will help fans avail a plethora of features. They can download songs, ringtones, wallpapers and much more just by logging on to this product.”
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The product has been developed on the WAP and SMS platforms with IVR being slated for the next phase of the agreement. The SMS platform has been developed primarily on the search aspect. Music fans can download mobile content like songs, ringtones, caller back tunes, videos, live footage of award shows on the channel and wallpapers from the vast repertoire of content available on the channel. The platform will also enable users to access the content from leading music labels like Sony Music, and in the future Universal Music too.
Speaking with Radioandmusic.com, Techzone MD Naveen Bhandari said, “We aim to provide the international music catalogue of Vh1 on mobile platform. This will drive consumers to download music from one destination. It is basically a D2M – Direct to Mobile site and we have several initiatives lined up for the phases ahead.”
The content will be available across all telcos at similar price points. It is currently available on the Android, Blackberry and Symbian platforms only.
With digital emerging as the new future for most media houses, these products basically aim to diverge traffic from the television or large screens to the mobile or small screens. Techzone had earlier entered into a similar deal with another international music channel 9XO.
“Our aim is to get everybody on the basic digital platform first. The promotion and tweaking of product and content can happen later on also. We had lots of workable ideas for the product but wanted to keep it simple and uncluttered in the beginning,” he added.
Bhandari added that he aimed to see atleast 15 per cent of the total VAS business to be driven by media houses. Taking the thought forward, the company has several plans in store to make innovative content available to consumers ensuring a rich experience.
Going forward, the next phase of the deal will witness content being sourced from independent artistes and regional rock bands from across the country. As per a research, Bhandari mentioned that there is a large population of rock bands in India, which includes around 650 in Tamil Nadu and 70 in Pondicherry and more.
The artistes will be consolidated and brought on-board, who will then perform on the television channel. They will further also be promoted by bringing their TV content onto the mobile platform, thus ensuring a regional click within the product.
But with VAS revenues witnessing a considerable fall due to the stringent Trai guidelines for double confirmation and more, it is indeed a challenge to ensure profitability on the mobile platform for both, the aggregator and the channel.
As reported by Radioandmusic.com earlier, the subscriber revenue from VAS has been falling month on month since November 2012. It has witnessed a 40 per cent drop in the last six months and could further drop by around 20 per cent over the next two- three months.
Commenting on the same, Bhandari said, “The idea is to convert push based products to pull based so consumers can see it on their mobiles and consume it. If content is strong, people will want it. The consumption maybe a little fragmented but it will increase steadily. We in turn are thus searching for the right methods to ensure active consumption on mobile. TV onto mobile and web onto mobile are some of the ways currently in use.”
With Techzone having invested more than a crore in developing the platform, revenue earning for them is equally important in the long term as well. Of the total revenues, 70 per cent goes to the operator while 30 remains with the company. After removing the share of content royalties, the total amount is then distributed between Techzone and the media house.
