India’s biggest adventure reality show, Infinix Smartphones MTV Roadies is all set to embark on an adventurous journey with the newest season in South Africa. Hunting for new thrills and challenges, this season will be hosted for the first time by multi-talented superstar and philanthropist SonuSood. The show premiered on Saturday and will be aired thrice a week for the first time from Friday to Sunday on MTV. The show will also stream exclusively on Voot.
Sticking true to its philosophy of giving successful and edgy content since its inception, the brand-new season of MTV Roadies will witness new contestants paired with former Roadies in an unprecedented ‘Buddy pairs’ format. The new format will also see contestants and SonuSood come together over bonding sessions and camp-fire huddles, forging a strong camaraderie through their challenging multi-city adventure. The iconic MTV Roadies motorcycles are all set to take viewers for a breath-taking ride on international lands, as the show returns to its roots in a new avatar in full glory.
Medianews4u spoke to Anshul Ailawadi – Head- Youth – Music and English Entertainment – Viacom18 at the launch event.
MTV Roadies in its 18th season. How has the growth and trajectory been?
The show has been through three phases, the first was the original phase then it moved to a hardcore reality show with auditions and then we moved into the gang leader format and now the 18thseason will witness new contestants paired with former Roadies in an unprecedented ‘Buddy pairs’ format. This is the latest format where we will ensure to give young people what matters the most to them – adventure, thrill and the journey. The young generation nowadays is generally lost and spaced. The pandemic was particularly harsh for them with no job, education, no relationships and the people they go to for advice don’t have an advice to offer because they haven’t been through this phase. We wanted to help them with this process and prepare for the next 5-10 years of Roadies and that led to this new avatar. The show has a progressive, authentic and raw style of storytelling and is a lot of fun.
Today’s youth is also exposed to a lot of other content, international content thanks to OTT. How does today’s generation look into this space, look at Roadies which is your marquee property?
For this particular season, time will tell. Roadies has been an inspiration for South Asians across the world, so while we think it is watched only in India, I can tell you that the kind of attraction we see with young people of South Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka is phenomenal. According to me, this is arguably one of the most popular reality formats for young generation. We have been receiving a lot of traction from these markets as well.
This year the format has changed with Roadies going international. What has been the strategy and why did you think international travel will give a better boost to the show?
The idea for going international was to create a new experience that is visually refreshing and we thought that the best way to do so was to go to South Africa. We could have gone anywhere international but the reason for going to South Africa was that the country gave us amazing visuals and beauty that’s absolutely stunning. You will get to see the whole country and its different and beautiful landscape with great weather conditions made South Africa an obvious choice for Roadies.
Where do you get the maximum eyeballs for the show in India?
We have been focusing on the unconventional feedback we get for the show. For us, sometime back we abandoned looking at TV ratings, as the only method for feedback. We looked at impressions and traction on social media too. We also looked at the interest we get from people from different parts of the country who want to participate in the show and that for us is a very important metric. I can say with certainty that MTV Roadies is a national property with interest from people across the country. The 20 contestants we have come from all parts of India.
Roadies airs on Voot too and will also look at multi-language content?
What has happened right now is that we have got a lot of attraction from the south. They reached out to us saying that we can take the show in our language. So yes, one option is to go multi-lingual and the other option is also to become a national IP now.
Are we going to see some big innovative marketing plans skewed towards digital?
There was a lot of buzz and chatter on social media during the lockdown when SonuSood took people back home. Using that idea, we kept one of the promotions around Sonu talking about taking people home and asking the audience to watch Roadies. The promo was played in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore metros in different languages. The idea was to create something phenomenal, a mixture of radio, social, digital and broadcast which transcends.
This show is also on Voot. How differentiated will the content be on Voot?
Honestly, whatever we do is for our target group and it has to work for young people, whether they watch it on Voot or social media platforms or TV. But there are some special pieces of content that we have created for digital platforms over and above which are not on TV. TV as a medium has certain grammar. For example, you can see additional content on social media.Similarly, there are a lot of pieces shot in South Africa which will be seen on Voot Select also, but primarily on Voot.
Roadies has got Infinix on board. What is the brand’s TG? In what way has MTV associated or integrated with the brand?
Infinix is a young ambitious brand with an urban outlook. To further define this, their target is the millennial consumers from metros. This fits perfectly well with the audience that a cult show like roadies or a channel like MTV targets. It’s a great association with Infinix and this partnership is all about excitement, innovation and thrill.
