January 25, 2010 exchange4media.com
Noor Fathima Warsia
India TV recently celebrated its fifth birthday, and given a channel’s lifecycle, for Managing Director Ritu Dhawan, India TV is in its youth now. To signify this milestone on-screen, India TV donned a new look beginning January 21, 2010. The process for this was kicked off six months back and India TV’s design team closely worked with US-based Cinemagic for the look and feel of the channel.
The last time India TV embarked on a makeover exercise was in 2008. At that time, it was the in-house creative team of India TV that had worked on the new look. Prior to this, it was only at the time of the channel’s launch when an external agency was hired to work on the channel’s on-screen look.
Cinemagic is known for the kind of work that it has done for international channels such as CBS and Fox. The process saw Cinemagic officials study hours of India TV programming, understand the Indian news market, the audience and the competition, paying attention to details like the market segment, the viewer profile and then decide on channel elements ranging from the manner in which the channel connects with the viewer visually.
Dhawan divulged, “Cinemagic spent a good three months to study the Indian market and the viewer, and after that, changes were made in the overall channel template and on specific aspects of the channel.”
The overall channel pattern has changed and three specific domains that see different treatment are news bulletins, shows and special reports. The placement of the logo has been changed as well, and while changes have been made to the logo dimensions, to the layman, the logo would still look the same.
Speaking more on the rationale behind the change, Dhawan observed, “India TV has completed five years and it is in its youth now. It is more aggressive in its programming, in the overall channel outlook and now the on-screen look also emulates that. You will see more vibrant, happy colours that are easier on the viewer. In all, you will see more energy on the channel. And the changes made are very scientific. There is a thought process involved behind every aspect that has been altered.”
Dhawan explained that the joint work of India TV’s in-house design team and the international expertise that Cinemagic brought to the table allowed India TV to implement things that not been done in the market yet. She said, “To cite an example, there is a channel voice leading the viewer into the next show. Indian news stations have not done that so far. There was time spent on what would scroll from left to right and right to left - everything is very scientific.”
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