Sony Six is expected to replace Set Max as the official broadcaster of IPL in season 7 of the tournament.

This season, Multi Screen Media or MSM (the owner of Set Max and Sony Six), has already sold combined airtime on both the channels for the tournament at a slight discount, compared to the previous season.

Manjit Singh, CEO, MSM said, “Our goal is to take IPL entirely on Sony Six and make it a English feed channel, while the HD feed will be in Hindi. Set Max will continue to be a Hindi movies channel.”

Viewership base

Having sold the combined ad inventory for both the channels during IPL6, the network expects to add to its viewership base. “Instead of cannibalising viewership, we expect to add to the viewership numbers by selling airtime on both channels. With two channels we hope TRPs (television rating points) go by 10-15 per cent and ad revenues should grow even more by 20 per cent,” added Singh.

The network gets nearly 50 per cent of its ad revenues during the two months of IPL every season. Last season, it raked in revenues to the tune of Rs 700 crore.

Sony Six marked MSM’s entry into the sports genre as it had been lacking a complete sports channel in its portfolio. Set Max, its Hindi movies channel, had been doubling up as a sports and entertainment channel before the launch of Sony Six last year.

MSM India also owns the broadcast rights for the ultimate Fighting Championship and National Basketball Association , and these sporting events are being aired on Sony Six.

“With IPL on Sony Six, we are now aggressively promoting the channel and expect to double its revenues,” added Singh. Recently, MSM launched a social initiative under ‘NBA Cares’ with Magic Bus (a non-profit organisation) to sponsor basketball training for underprivileged children .

Meanwhile, with Sony Pictures (the parent company) almost completing the acquisition of MSM by buying out the Indian shareholders, is expected to lead the network to make more acquisitions. As Singh says, “With Indian partners funding was a constraint. But now, there will be a lot more flexibility and we would look at new programming and channels which are niche like travel, health and lifestyle,” Singh.

However, MSM would be staying away from the children’s genre since its Animax channel did not get accepted in India. “Kids is not our core expertise since such channels need to have merchandise and comic characters to support them,” he added.

>purvita@thehindu.co.in

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