ABP Network will look at creating more avenues to accelerate our digital presence by increasing our offerings and focusing on an untapped sector in 2022
By Avinash Pandey, CEO of ABP Network
In, the last 2 years of the pandemic past the ABP Network has demonstrated great resilience and dedication towards bringing our audiences engaging content all through the period. Now as we move into 2022, we remain positive that this too shall pass, based on the continuing progress in vaccination alongside the relentless efforts at rebuilding the economy. We however continue to exercise caution and urge our viewers to follow all health guidelines and necessary protocols, as we together strive to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 variants.
ABP Network is positive that 2022 will be a game-changer for its studio production arm – ABP Studios. ABP Studios has shown tremendous potential with its critically acclaimed feature Marathi feature film, Karkhani sanchi Waari (ashes on the road trip) which has been streaming on SonyLIV. ABP Studio’s second major launch, on Discovery Plus, has been the TV series ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ based on the hit international series by the same name. The show is hosted by Bollywood megastars – Anil Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan. In 2022 ABP Studios is excited about developing and presenting content from its recent acquisitions in adventure, horror, and crime drama genres.
In the year 2021, we also saw huge investments being made in election programming and as we inch closer towards the 5 assembly elections, slated for the first quarter of 2022, ABP Network is geared towards investing in thoroughly researched and engaging content for our viewers. Our continuous tracker for the election – ABP News CVoter survey will continue until the election month. We have specifically created 10 new programs to cover the 2022 assembly elections, of which 8 are running on our Hindi news channel – ABP Ganga. We hope to make good revenues during the election as political parties will use our advertisement space. It is estimated that in UP alone the political spending would hit about Rs. 8000 crore in advertising.
We remain hopeful that 2022 will also bring the much-needed reforms in the broadcasting sector, as the government is expected to release its National Broadcasting Policy draft. We will continue to work with all stakeholders for ensuring that policy is created which will address the issues and concerns highlighted by the industry. We are confident that the new mechanism will create a more transparent system to gauge viewership particularly as the industry has faced challenges with advertisers impacted by a lack of credible data to drive their investment decisions. Further, we hope that this framework will ensure a level playing field for all the players and help us in growing the industry collectively.
Our experience through the pandemic has highlighted the importance of creating a diverse digital content portfolio. ABP Network, in 2021, has taken great strides in this space with its launches of regional news platforms ABP Nadu and ABP Desam. In 2022, our focus will remain on developing more personalized and innovative offerings which capture the attention of discerning audiences whose expectations have grown beyond the traditional programming that was on offer in the past. We will look at creating more avenues to accelerate our digital presence by increasing our offerings and focusing on an untapped sector in 2022. Further, we foresee that the DTH providers will innovate to provide consumers with subscription-based content which the consumers would be able to view on their preferred devices.
In keeping up with this innovative approach, we have also taken key decisions to expand into sports broadcasting with the acquisition of broadcasting rights for Tata Steel PGTI, MP Cup 2021. Further, we have committed to creating special sports features which will cover the key sporting events throughout 2022. We will incrementally also explore partnerships with other sports franchises through the year 2022.
Lastly, we look forward to building on our capacity and expanding our offerings in this New Year, as we weever committed to offering the best content possible for our audiences while providing our stakeholders with diverse platforms to reach out to them and increase their numbers manifold in 2022.
