Now anyone can be on air! This is what MTV India guns for with its plans to go interactive. The music channel is extending its claimed pioneering creativity to the digital world by a phase-wise launch of four new blocks of interactive programming on air in real-time.
This initiative is to ensure that by simply using their mobile phones, viewers across the country are literally ‘into’ the channel as never before by actually being able to react to what they see on screen as well as communicate with other viewers instantaneously. And all this is aimed to change the television viewing experience as we know it.
The four new interactive straps that will be launched in a phased manner include Doctor Love, Love Letter, Bol Baby Poll and Ha Ya Na. Here, the viewer can just SMS the programme code to 6882 and start the communication.
India is, in fact, one of the few markets in Asia to introduce mobile interactivity on such a large scale, having partnered with Yarosa, which provides mobile interactivity for TV broadcasters around the world.
In June this year, MTV Japan launched FLUX, a subscription-based service delivering entertainment and music via mobile and online networks to consumers in Japan. The new developments in India indicate MTV Network’s focus on digital media as well as on India as a key market in the space. Similar interactive programmes will also be launched in Singapore by the end of this week.
Laurent Verrier, Vice-President, Digital Media, MTV Networks Asia, said, “India is only the third market after Japan and Korea to launch mobile interactivity. MTV Networks has always been a leader in developing innovative entertainment for new platforms. China and India’s time is now, especially for a network like ours, where the target consumers are voracious users of mobile phones and the Internet.”
“MTV Networks has always stood for the shape of things to come, whether it’s innovative programming, unique marketing properties, unexpected merchandising and now… mobile interactivity,” said Vikram Raizada, Vice-President, Marketing and Interactive, MTV Networks India.
He, however, reinforced the fact that it was not only about using cutting edge technology, but rather how it translated into a new viewer experience. “Although we’ve been reaching out to our audience through the Internet and mobile phones, platforms that GenNext is extremely comfortable with, this is the first time they can actually communicate with the channel in real-time like they would with a friend or trusted advisor and have amazing fun while doing it!”
MTV has been in thick of action lately with the launch of MTV Desi on DIRECTV. It is the new network serving young people with ties to the Indian sub-continent but living in the US.
DIRECTV has added MTV Desi to its HindiDirect(TM) programming package at no additional cost. With this, MTV Desi is the first MTV World channel to launch and MTV Networks is anticipating launching MTV Chi (for young Chinese-Americans) and MTV K (for young Korean-Americans) later this year.
This is not all, a study conducted by Synovate, Pan-regional Young Asians Survey indicated that MTV attracted the highest weekly and monthly youth/young adult viewership, compared to all other regional cable/satellite TV channels in Asia. It is definitely time to see a lot more action from the music network.
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