Todd Miller, MD, AXN Asia

"A show to definitely keep your eye on in the next couple months is "The Agency," which AXN will premiere in India and Asia"

Todd Miller is the Managing Director of AXN Asia, the world's first and only all-action and adventure television network. An avid mountain-bike rider, competitive long-distance runner, and daring traveler, Miller brings his own adventurous spirit to the action-adventure network's continuing growth. Miller is responsible for guiding the network's expansion and development in Asia, overseeing AXN's three satellite services - AXN South Asia, AXN Taiwan and AXN East Asia - and branded program blocks in China, which now reach over 47 million Asian households across 18 countries. Prior to taking up the Managing Director's post, Miller was Vice President of Sales for Columbia TriStar International Television in Hong Kong for six years. At Columbia Tristar he was credited with growing its Asian business by 300 percent and doubling its market share and client base. Miller's media experience also includes work with Star TV in the early days of India's multi-channel industry. He holds a BA magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University and an MBA with beta gamma sigma honors from the Columbia Business School. In India, AXN continues to provide action and adventure related programming including reality shows to woo the Indian audiences. AXN is also shortly launching new programs like "THE AGENCY" and "FEAR FACTOR". In an interesting interview with Ms.Neha Pant of INSIDE MEDIA, the exchange4media newsletter, Mr. Miller shares exciting information about AXN's new shows, growth of AXN in Asia and the "AXN X-perience" in India.

Q. Tell us about what kind of promotional or consumer marketing initiatives planned for AXN India? Earlier you had brought in Sheena (Gena Lee Nolin) to India.

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We offer our viewers an integrated 360-degree AXN X-perience. We firmly believe that the way forward for us in building our brand and viewer loyalty is not only in delivering a great product on-air, but by also building bridges directly with them, both through the internet (www.axn-india.com) as well as through events. Viewers and advertisers can look forward to more events in 2002, including a continuation of the highly successful (in its third year running) Action Movie Festivals, which visits a different metro each month. We're also looking at bringing the AXN Challenge, a one-day multi-disciplinary adventure race, to India.

Q. What is the long-term view on AXN in India's market? Do you see it sustaining and move forward in say next 2 years?

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Very bullish. AXN has enjoyed some big growth in India since its launch about 3 years ago and because of the widespread popularity of action, we have a long way to go before we have fully tapped into the potential of the Indian market.

Q. How do you differentiate yourself from other channels and therefore become relevant for Indian audience?

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We're a unique content channel which is single-mindedly focused on action and adventure. Action-adventure is unquestionably one of the most popular television genres amongst Indian viewers. AXN's dedicated focus on this genre, and the ability to deliver the best of such programs from around the world, has gained us huge relevance amongst the Indian audience, which is sophisticated, discerning, and expects only the very best in international television programming.

Q. How has the distribution and ad sales arrangement with Sony working out? Are you contemplating your own ad sales team?

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SET India is AXN's exclusive distributor and advertising representative in India. They've done a good job in establishing the channel in India in a short time, and in growing our revenues. Our partnership with SET is long-term.

Q. Apart from India and China, which are the other growing markets for you?

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Much of Southeast Asia is on the move for us. We've just launched as a basic channel in Malaysia on their main pay TV system, and our service is beginning to take off there. With strong support from both viewers and advertisers, Philippines and Singapore continue to be very strong markets for AXN, and last month AXN hit an all-time ratings high, not just in these two markets, but also in Taiwan. We're continuing to raise the bar on our performance and popularity across Asia.

Q. What does AXN stand for, vis-à-vis several specialist English Music & English Movie channels available for Indian audience?

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AXN is Asia's action-adventure channel. We deliver the "buzz" through a unique mix of programming pillars: hot action movies, all-time favourite action series, cool cutting-edge action animation; the hottest reality/adventure shows, and adrenaline-gushing lifestyle sport. No other international channel in Asia - including India - offers such a program mix or focus on action and adventure.

Q. Reality TV shows: Survivor hasn't done too well. Is Indian audience different from other Asian audience? What are your expectations from Amazing Race?

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Without question, the tastes of Indian audiences do differ from other Asian countries, which is why we customize our service for India. However, if we were to look at the bigger picture across Asia there are more commonalties in tastes than differences. One such commonality is the almost universal appeal of reality, one of AXN's strongest pillars.
We're very proud to have the three best reality shows on our schedule: Survivor, The Amazing Race and Fear Factor. All three are classy, innovative shows.
Survivor: Africa (the third installment which is currently on-air) has picked up steam in the past several weeks and has maintained a core, loyal audience throughout. We have more modest expectations with "The Amazing Race" as a newer reality show than Survivor. Interestingly, however, The Amazing Race did actually go through India, with participants having to visit Jaipur, Delhi, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and the famous Karni-Mata Temple near Bikaner. Local relevance, such as this, enhances the appeal of the programs amongst our Indian viewers. Next month we're launching some more reality shows - Fear Factor among them - for which we have high expectations in India.

Q. What are the new programming initiatives being planned for 2002?

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It's going to be an action-packed year. I'll keep it simple: viewers can expect something new and exciting on AXN every month. In the first four months of 2002 alone we are launching 12 new shows. That's a lot of action. A show to definitely keep your eye on in the next couple months is "The Agency," which AXN will premiere in India and Asia. This is a highly topical Wolfgang Petersen-produced series. Petersen, for your information, is also well-known for his big-action movies, including The Perfect Storm, Air Force One and In the Line of Fire. Several advertisers have already expressed keen enthusiasm for this brand new series, which has also sent waves across the United States.

Q. What are the trends in Media and broadcasting industry that you have noticed as part of your responsibilities at AXN?

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The mega-trend is growth. Multi-channel television is still an emerging industry in India and Asia with considerable room for growth relative to Western benchmarks. We can expect to see more of everything: wider and deeper penetration of cable into India; more eyeballs turning to cable; more advertisers relying on cable to reach their target audiences; more channels; more competition; and more fun.

Q. English is still a very small audience in India, especially for not widely viewed channel like yours. Are you contemplating using mix of Hindi and reality TV?

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We always consider language localisation and have experimented with Hindi versioning of some shows in the past. However, our customers - viewers and advertisers alike - prefer English. One of AXN's strengths is our international appeal. With content acquired from around the world, and a world-class on-air presentation, English is the preferred language, given this international orientation.