While we all know that Sony has purchased the television rights of Television and is currently broadcasting it on Channel Setmax, very few of us are aware about one of the greatest Cricket aficionados inside Sony - who had the vision to spearhead this deal apart from many other winning deals. Yes its none other than Kunal Dasguta the CEO of Sony Entertainment Television. Not only all matches and statistics are at the tip of his finger but also he never misses any match be it a charity cricket or an international tie.
Cricket and Movies has always been the prime driver of Indian Television and this was the reason why Setmax was born which telecasts a mix of Cricket and Bollywood movies. Though many critics described this as the craziest idea initially but time has proven that Kunal was never wrong in formulating this winning mix. Starting from the first Cricket coverage of Tri Series Aiwa Cup held in Sri Lanka the channel has broadcasted several Cricket series along with movies.
Sure the current IPL telecast is the greatest of them all and has already proved its worth shoving away the stale and staple diet of Saas Bahu type serials but also the Bollywood Movies and it has crossed all expectations and currently ruling all the sec’s plus the young, old, rich and kids alike.
While speaking to a website Kunal mentioned correctly that the true test lies in sustaining the brand IPL even after the tournament is over. He said - Ideally I would want the IPL to be a successful brand that has a long term play. After June, I will continue to do promotions to keep the team brands alive. This was one of the conditions on which we bid.
We will do shows around the IPL. You could see teams (franchises) practicing and discussing strategies for the next season.
This might happen. Apart from April-May, you cannot have another period where all the stars are available. What will happen is that once the league is built the new players who are playing will become the core. You can then have matches in different parts of the world to popularise the game there using these new players.
The trick for us is not getting ratings for the first season. This will happen as a matter of course because of the way the IPL has been hyped. The challenge is to sustain the excitement after that and it is here where we will have to take a leaf out of the book of the EPL. Teams have marketed themselves and have thus become iconic brands.
So Mallya for instance, will use the Royal Challenger brand name to go out there and create opportunities for exhibition matches. They can do charity work in Bangalore and build a fan base. Each franchise will have its own website where clips will be available. They can create merchandise.
We think that this is the correct approach in building a property somewhat similar to NFL where the hype continues for the entire near with the pitch rising above average during tournaments.
Kunal also said that Sony will pitch in through magazine shows. Otherwise it will just be a flash in the pan. As we come closer to the next season you will see transfers and there will be speculation.
New heroes will be born. It is possible that the likes of current heroes like Glenn McGrath, Kumble, and Saurav will not play beyond two seasons. Once that happens, then the brand will live outside the big names.
One of the major attractions will be the presence of big Bollywood stars. Akshay Kumar will perform for Delhi. SRK will perform for Kolkata and you will see proper Bollywood entertainment.
We have even tweaked the timings of some of the matches to accommodate our entertainment specials. One match was supposed to start at 4 pm but we have pushed it back to 5:30 pm. We will even have stand up comedy for Extraaa Innings. On air we have gone in for fresh faces. We did not want Mandira (Bedi) for this. She is more suited for ODI cricket. I want 20-year-olds in T20. We also did not want Kapil Dev, Gavaskar. We wanted anchors who represent today’s kids. With the ICC World Cup we broke the mould and brought in females. Now we are breaking the mould back with IPL.
Great going for Max and Sony - we hope the Indian Cricket fans are also enjoying every bit of this evolution of Cricket and waiting anxiously for more to come.
© IPL Cricket Forum
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