Constant reminders of what is happening is going to be the strategy for all our shows. We believe that our fiction shows are our marquee shows. We would not depend on just one or two shows per quarter, like other channels do. With a plethora of new shows in the next few months, Life OK has newer markets to tap and the current markets to grow further in. The marketing strategy also has to be designed keeping in mind the target audience. Life OK has admittedly always targeted the UPs and MPs of the world, more than the metros. Even before TAM made it mandatory to count LC1 towns, Life OK was already making shows which made sense to smaller towns and cities – the vast majority in middle India, with a certain class of people and certain mindset – which the channel has targeted. The heterogeneity in terms of genre extends to the markets as well.
Life OK is also looking for homegrown shows at the moment, and is already looking at certain international formats. Depending on whether the idea is conducive to the market, the channel picks up its reality show formats. Other than ‘The Bachelorette India’ and ‘Savdhan India’, they have had shows like ‘Welcome’, a show on hosting and dining. The thin line between reality and fiction are blurring, the channel feels. Therefore, it can be both fiction and non-fiction, even as the bulk of viewers for this programme are the non-fiction watchers. ‘Savdhan India’, one of the more popular properties on the channel, is a reenactment of real life incidences. The variety of content also leads to certain overlapping of genres. But today the variety of content is so huge and versatile that it becomes almost impossible to say what is a sure fire thing.” “What works and what doesn’t is something we could have answered two years ago.
But for the present, we are focusing more on fiction,” pointed out Rajesh. If it is a striking idea, we will absolutely take it up. It can’t be just another song and dance show. “Every non-fiction that we have done, we have tried to make sure it is absolutely new and different. Their biggest property in this genre has been the recent ‘The Bachelorette India’ whereby the channel set out to find Mallika Sherawat her love. Life OK has, however, been choosy about its reality show selection. So it is as much a horror show as it is a family oriented series. This is about one man’s personal journey as he fights the demons. The show doesn’t follow the same format as other horror shows. We have data for only a week, but it seems to have touched a note with the audience,” said Sushma Rajesh, Head of Programming, Life OK. Again, ‘Khauff’ is our newest show in the horror segment. It is not that mythology is the only thing that is working for us. “One of the reasons ‘Mahadev’ has worked so well is because it caters to the whole family. In Week 40 of TAM 2913, the channel achieved the highest ever viewership, recording a gross TVT of 347 million. While ‘Mahadev’ remains the channel’s biggest show, garnering fans and TVT, newer launches like ‘Shapath’ and their kitty of reality shows have done well too. Life OK’s select few properties have shown great growth and potential. So a lot of work has to be done,” said Ajit Thakur, General Manager, Life OK. Our marketing needs to reach the next level so as to have more impact properties in terms of characters and shows. So there is more we need to do in terms of content. But more importantly, people are taking notice that in terms of reach, we are as good as the top channel! Having said that, we are getting as many failures as we are getting hits. We have grown to 14 per cent share and reached No. But the proof that we can actually do it has come only in the last 6-8 months.
We had the full backing of the management in terms of intent and investment. “Life OK was supposed to be a challenger to the No.