Entertainment - India;NDTV Lumiere goes on air;eyes premium audiences & high end advertisers

Swapna Rahul Shah

Connoisseurs of world cinema have one more option – NDTV Lumière, the 24-hour world cinema channel from NDTV Ltd, which went on air on October 10 at 10 pm. Media planners see channels like NDTV Lumière catering to a select premium audience and, therefore, could be part of the media plan of high end advertisers.

Speaking on the channel’s marketing and promotional strategy, Dhruvank Vaidya, Senior Vice President, NDTV Imagine, said, “We will be using a mix of traditional and innovative means to reach out to our consumers. The idea is to build a complete communication experience leveraging our 360-degree presence across theatres, DVDs, television, the Internet as well as other on-ground properties.”

Vaidya, however, declined to say anything on expected advertising revenues. “NDTV Lumière is the first world cinema business in the country to provide a complete 360-degree experience to its viewers. It provides a unique platform for high end advertisers to associate with a premium property and reach out to their audiences,” he added.

Speaking on the key movies to be showcased on the channel, Vaidya said, “NDTV Lumière will deliver high quality, contemporary, award-winning, never-seen-before films, with the biggest films screening in prime time at 10 pm every night of the week. Each night offers a different flavour, a different adventure, a different view of the world.”

Further elaborating on the movies to be screened, he said that ‘Project Monday’ offered edgy films from maverick and young debutante directors; Tuesdays and Wednesdays focussed on ‘Festival Flix’, showcasing critically acclaimed films, award-winners and nominees; Thursdays would feature action, thrillers and war epics. ‘Friday Lounge’ would air cosy entertainers. Weekends would see ‘Saturday Box Office’ featuring popular and latest movies, while ‘Sunday Showcase’ would feature the crème de la crème of international cinema.

The initial line up includes highly acclaimed films such as ‘Gone With The Woman’ (2007), winner of the Discovery Award for Best Film at the 2007 Hollywood Film Festival; ‘Fractricide’ (2005), winner of the Silver Leopard at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival; and ‘Good Morning Heartache’ (2008), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema section.

When asked about the success of the tie up with jaman.com, Vaidya said, “The jaman.com tie-up has made our films available to a much wider audience base. It is seeing a steady growth in viewership.”

Media planners’ take

When asked about NDTV Lumière, Nikhil Rangnekar, Executive Director, West, Starcom India, said, “These kinds of channels are typically for premium upper end audiences who like art films and are comfortable reading English sub-titles. These channels, therefore, do feature in media plans that are targeted at those audiences and more on the channel profile than the actual GRPs that they deliver. The advertisers are also similar, for instance, cars, finance, luxury goods, etc. Even among FMCGs it would mostly be the likes of Dove and L’Oreal and so on, which would probably look at such channels to advertise on.”

Kunal Jamuar, GM, Madison Media, observed, “This kind of a channel will have a select audience, which will be rather niche. But it should provide another option to the connoisseur of good cinema. The challenge for the channel would be to drive sampling for their fare. Advertisers would be a function of content fit and distribution of the channel. Currently, I believe that the high end brands would be the one that might feature in the initial weeks.”

NDTV Lumière made its foray with theatrical releases of highly acclaimed movies. In the home video segment, NDTV Lumière releases a collection of 10 movies every month in a tie-up with Excel Home Videos. NDTV Lumière movies are also available through online streaming on www.jaman.com, and would soon be available on www.bigflix.com. Zenzi Lumière Film Club in Mumbai and Tabula Rasa in Delhi are also furthering the cause of world cinema.