Why is Star TV Network launching a second Hindi movie channel?
His magnetic charm and mass appeal make him one of the biggest draws in Hindi cinema. Not surprisingly, News Corp-owned Star TV Network is capitalising on Salman Khan’s charisma to hype the buzz around its soon-to-be-launched new Hindi movie channel, Movies OK.
The channel, the second Hindi movie channel from the network, is already on air after a soft launch and will officially launch on Sunday, May 6. So, to keep viewers hooked, it will showcase a Salman Khan film festival called Bhaiyya ji Smile, which will feature Khan’s blockbusters like Ready and Bodyguard. The latter, when premiered on its sister channel Star Gold, rated a high TVR of 10.0.
There’s more. To sustain the audience interest in its new property, Movies OK will also air seven Hindi film premieres, one every day, for a week, starting May 28, the day after the Indian Premiere League concludes.
Movies OK is the second channel from the Star TV Network to be branded under the ‘OK’ tag, after Star’s older channel Star One was rebranded as Life OK last year. But since Star TV also owns another Hindi film channel, Star Gold, why launch one more? The network has a library of 1,000 films and it felt it should cash in on this treasure trove.Movies OK will thus feature 250 of these titles and promises a robust programming line-up.
Besides, the target audience of both channels will be very different. Hemal Jhaveri, General Manage of Star Gold, who will also be heading the new movie channel, reveals, “The two channels will be different in nature. Movies OK will have unique content propagation and is targeted at the family audience. There is always a space for specialised channels, specifically for action films, comedy and drama. Globally, there are movie channels specialising in several genres of films and this is soon going to be the future of the Indian broadcasting space too.”
Jhaveri is confident this new channel will attract a large portion of viewers. “We plan to announce the channel through one of our most awaited shows, Aamir Khan’s TV debut – Satyamev Jayate. Thereafter, we will unleash a marketing blitzkrieg to tempt viewers.”
Movies OK will be a 24-hour free-to-air channel and will be available on all DTH platforms soon. It is already on air as part of a soft launch in analogue cable homes.
(According to a FICCI KPMG report 2012, on the Indian media and entertainment industry, the Hindi movie genre occupies 11.9 per cent of the overall TV viewership pie and is the third most-watched segment, trailing regional channels (33.4 per cent) and Hindi GECs (27.4 per cent).
