Analysis: The Star Value Packs will cement Star’s position at the top of the broadcasters’ pyramid

By Yohan P Chawla

Star India’s was the first media round table to announce its offerings for the 180-million-and-growing M&E economy of television households.

It was obvious that Star India considers this announcement an extremely important one, considering that for a round table, it was MD Sanjay Gupta himself, along with Gayatri Yadav, President Consumer Strategy & Innovation, Star India and young veteran Gurjeev Singh, Head of Distribution – India & International addressing a media round table.

The new television pack and a la carte rates have already been published by all broadcasters per a TRAI directive, providing options for consumers. This, as we know, is because come end December, the new tariff regime that TRAI introduced for transparent pricing and greater choice for consumers, will come into effect.

As Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director- Star India said, “The biggest change this tariff order is making is bringing transparency into the whole system, of how content gets created to how content gets bought. When one goes to buy a bottle of water, one is aware of the exact price and can buy it at any shop. The new tariff order is great value from a consumer point of view. Transparency means the consumers have a choice. Whether they want to buy it or not. They will have all the prices and a variety of options to choose from.”

And now the big move from Star India that should makes one pack in particular, a default choice for most if not all SD consumers in India. Remember, SD is where the maximum consumers are; HD is still a very small piece of the consumer pie, and Star has done well by creating the Star Value Pack.

Across SD, in 7 languages (Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi), driven by GEC, Drama and Movies in each of those languages, and also including infotainment channels Nat Geo and Nat Geo Wild. Plus, that one great big leveler of them in a nation where, if movies are a passion, Cricket (and soon, other non-cricket sports that Star has helped create, build and grow) are religion. Yes, Sports.  Viewers will get a truly big line-up of sports properties like the Vivo IPL, ICC Cricket World Cup, BCCI tournaments, Vivo Pro Kabaddi League, Hero Indian Super League and more. So every Star Value Pack will offer Star channels across Entertainment, Movies, Education and Sports.The cost? Across the seven languages, it is a startlingly small sum of Rs 49 for the Hindi Star Value Pack, and across the rest of the six languages, drops to the lowest number of Rs 25 a month for all the offerings.

Check out the grid below:

 And here’s the Star Premium Packs grid:

What this one smart, bold and disruptive move could do, is make the Star Value SD Pack, in whatever language across the HSMs and all the main regional markets, the default pack of the consumer.

The Hindi pack would cost a consumer a shade over 1 rupee per day. Divide that across all the channels, and we’re looking at coin denominations that are out of print — off the mint, as it were.

What one sincerely hopes this will also achieve, is that it will put an end to the interference in the freedom of any broadcaster to conduct their business in a free and fair manner without having to share the feed with a DD to make it accessible to the poor and underprivileged. One agrees that they absolutely must receive such feeds, even though one wonders why a Government-backed organization like DD cannot become more competitive in the marketplace and buy such rights on its own power rather than look askance each time to the left and right at whichever broadcaster holds any prime telecast rights. So hopefully, at the tiny price points that just about anyone who can buy whatever kind of TV set in India can afford, the Star Value Pack with all the sports channels too, should put an end to that rubbish.

If one does a back of the envelope calculation, I’d say across most of the language Star Value Packs, they offer great ratings and therefore eyeballs to brands and marketers.

So across the value chain, one is inclined to believe that however intensely price-aware and –sensitive a consumer is, the superb value of the Star Value Pack will be a decisive factor in individual consumer choice.

On why the Star Value Pack has been priced as it has, Gupta said,“Our pricing has been decided as per regions. We have a different price in Tamil Nadu, Malayalam, Bengal or Hindi, all of this depending on the strength of our bouquet and the quality of content we are offering.

“We are trying to provide value to each customer by differential pricing as per geography. Our first principle is transparency, which is to provide power to the consumer. Second, providing value by including the entire star sports bouquet along with entertainment, drama and infotainment. And third ensuring that regionally we adapt to every market regionally and consumers have a choice.”

“Our strategy” Gupta said, “has been in delivering great value to consumers. Sports in this country has always been at a premium. For the first time we have added sports channels to the most basic pack because every child in this country should have access to sports content. We are providing sports, entertainment and infotainment at a price which personally I feel, is of great value to the consumers, at INR 49. We are trying to make the price very affordable to ensure that every consumer is able to enjoy our content”, said Gupta.

Achieved, done and dusted. And to inform the consumers of India about the packs, Star India has come out with a #SachMein consumer campaign.

Over the weekend Star India launched a nation-wide multi-media, multi-starrer campaign to bring the idea of how unbelievably affordable the Star Value Pack offerings is. It’s been doing the rounds on social media and truly the campaign is hard to miss. It’s loaded with mega stars like Aamir Khan, Mohanlal, Kamal Hassan, Nagarjuna, MS Dhoni, Bengali movie star Dev, Kannada film star Darshan Thoogudeep, Swapnil Joshi and more are spreading the message to educate the consumers across the nation. They will be joined by prominent Star Network television faces like DivyankaTripathi, Gautam Rode, Sharad Malhotra, BhumikaGurung, Sushant Singh and more.

So, like I said, going by the offerings and the reasoning behind them that Star has not only shared but is also pushing out through this massive nationwide marketing campaign, plus an equally-invested-in Regional markets campaign, the Star Value Pack that Star India shared is the single most important initiative that will help Star India cement its place further at the top of the Television broadcasters’ pyramid in India.