Will Discovery JEET replicate the digital engagement figures into TV viewership…?

Will it be an easy cakewalk for JEET to take off and fly high in a highly competitive GEC space in India?

Mumbai:Discovery JEET, the soon to be launched general entertainment channel from Discovery Communications India (DCIN),is claiming that the channel is roaring and riding with rousing reception as the channel is getting rave reviews for its differentiated, clutter breaking content. However, such tall claims from the channel also come with the question of whether they can replicate the success in digital media into TV viewers.

A week prior to its commercial launch on February 12, 2018, the company has claimedthat it has achieved unprecedented consumer engagement for the entertainment domain with content trailers of Discovery JEET achieving record high completion rate of 65% on YouTube and 40% on Facebook. The company further announced that Discovery JEET’s content led trailers have cumulatively delivered more than 300 million impressions, more than 100 million views in just over of 2 weeks on YouTube and Facebook.

According to the channel, the trailers of 21 Sarfarosh and Swami Ramdev Ek Sangharsh have crossed 50 million views on YouTube and Facebook and JEET is likely to release another 100+ pieces of digital content,with an aim to further intensifyits reach on digital and give consumers a glimpse of range of content on offer. While the trailers always come with the curated version of the best part of any show and it will always be easy to impress the digital viewers who are always skewed towards short form of viewing, to attracts and retain the TV audience, it always needs a consistently sustained quality standards for a longer period of time.

Moreover, many of the shows announced by JEET are finite series with very high cost of production. While most of the GECs operate on long format dailies and reality shows. It will be interesting to see how JEET will be able to retain the audience continuously with such kind of short format shows and withstand such kind of high cost of production. The concept of short format series might have been a successful one for niche genres like English Knowledge and factual entertainment, How far it will be applicable to GEC is a big question again that we need to wait and watch.

JEET also clams offinding many sponsorslike Reckitt Benckiser, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Marico, Mondelez International, Johnson and Johnson etc. and achieving pre-launch inventory sales targets. The advertisers always come forward and support such initiative as part of their continuing relationship with other network channels. However, their long-term association will be determined purely based on the consistent performance of the channel with sustained viewership.

On the other hand Karan Bajaj, Senior Vice-President & General Manager- South Asia, Discovery Communications India is upbeat about his plans and said, “We started speaking about entertaining and inspiring contentin all our sales pitches a while ago, but the moment we started showcasing rushes of our shows to advertisers, the response started to change dramatically as they were able to experience Discovery JEET’s line-up of dramatic, compelling stories of real, relatable characters presented in a cinematic, larger than life format,We are enthused with the response that Discovery JEET has been able to garner from the consumers, the advertising community as well as the affiliate partners. We will be dialing up an aggressive marketing campaign even further as we get closer to the launch of Discovery JEET.”

JEETis hoping to break the clutter in the Hindi GEC arena riding on purpose driven entertainment content. The channel will launch with 5 hours of programming band daily out of which 3 hours will be bespoke, ground-up original programming built on the thesis of underdog winning. But industry observers are keep their figures crossed as to how JEET will be able to complete with the likes of Colors, Star Plus and Zee TV and scores of siblings that are deep rooted in Rural GEC HSM market. As of now JEET looks colorful but soon we will know whether it will be good enough to compete with likes of Colors.

Poor or Near Zero Awarness in Tamil and Telugu Markets:

While JEETis set to be Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, it seems they have not taken any marketing efforts to promote the launch in Tamil and Telugu market, as there is near Zero awareness about the channel in these two markets.

Finally, it seems Discovery is carrying the legacy of its laid back approach in niche genres like pseudo-scientific, technology and history and applying it in the Hindi GEC that needs aggressive method to meet the prevailing competitive scenario.

Time will tell the rest as DNAP has invested huge money on Project JEET.