Viacom18’s Youth, Music and English Entertainment division is dialling up its flagship properties including shows like Roadies and MTV Hustle 2.0 in 2020 and will be offering more content this year.
"The quantum of content we plan for this year will be 3x of what we did on an annual basis in the past," Anshul Ailawadi, Head – Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18, told Moneycontrol.
He said that Roadies, which is one of the longest running shows, is going international this year with the venue being South Africa and actor Sonu Sood will be the host. Along with this, the cluster is launching a new show called The Inventor’s Challenge which will focus on the journey of an idea from paper to a working prototype of the product created by amateur inventors.
While the content lineup is strong for 2022, Ailawadi noted that there were disruptions during the first COVID-19 wave due to restrictions on content production.
"We witnessed a lot of shocks in show production that was a bigger issue. But from a revenue perspective, we did not have so much of an impact. And for us we evaluate revenue across TV, digital and social media. business. So, business has been more or less steady and it is growing. Only thing that hasn't kicked off in full earnest are ground events," he said.
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When it comes to pivoting to digital, the cluster is launching two new YouTube channels. Brand Fully Faltoo that recently launched non-fungible tokens (NFT) will now also offer short-form video content. The Fully Faltoo YouTube channel will offer 16 original web shows, 168 episodes and the channel will drop 13-14 episodes every week.
The cluster is also launching a new business division for original music called Kaan Phod which will start its YouTube channel with the show MIC Test that will have 10 artistes, 10 music videos and 25 original tracks.
Content of both the new YouTube channels will also air on TV. While MIC Test will play out on MTV, MTV Beats, VH1 and digital platforms including JioSaavn and Spotify, Fully Faltoo's content will be available on Facebook, Voot and Jio platforms.
Ailawadi said that not looking at TV, digital and social media separately helps in getting better traction from advertisers.
"The lens is IP (intellectual property) first or property first. So, if it is Roadies we look at all mediums from monetisation perspective and we monetise on all three," he said.
He added that the big sponsors come on all three mediums because they associate with the property.
In 2021, the YME cluster of Viacom18 recorded 9.8 billion impressions across TV, social media and streaming platform Voot.
Along with audio and video content, the cluster is focusing on digital assets and will be launching its second batch soon.
Fully Faltoo's first batch of NFTs which offered 3013 art pieces was sold out in the first 36 hours of their launch on the platform.
While Ailawadi did not divulge details on the second batch of NFTs, he said that they are working on two aspects for the upcoming collection of the digital assets.
"There will be format innovation because NFT is like images, GIFs. And the second aspect is how to dial up the utility value of the NFTs," he said.
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