In April 2009, when the programming team at NDTV Imagine sat down to brainstorm ideas for a new reality show, their brief was clear: come up with something to make the channel a contender in the crowded Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) space, but at half the going cost of a reality show. There was no question of getting stars. So, they roped in quote-a-minute Rakhi Sawant and got her engaged on prime time. Rakhi Ka Swayamvar was NDTV Imagine’s first hit —after almost 20 months of being outsmarted and outspent by rivals.

“2008 was the year we got thoroughly beaten up,” concedes Sameer Nair, Chief Executive Officer, NDTV Imagine. The confessionals come easy, now that the channel has recovered from that beating and has acquired a new parent, who is willing to invest more money and is showing more intent than the old one in building an entertainment business.

In December 2009, Turner Asia Pacific Ventures, a subsidiary of the $47 billion media conglomerate Time Warner, paid $126.5 million to buy 92% in NDTV Imagine. Of this, 87.4% was bought from original promoter, Prannoy Roy-backed NDTV, for $76.5 million. The rest came from buying new shares, for $50 million. Following the deal, Turner will own 92%, the management and employees, 4.8%, and NDTV, 3.2%. It’s only a matter of time before the ‘NDTV’ in ‘NDTV Imagine’ is done away with. “We now have a good, strong parent,” says a visibly relieved Nair. “We are looking forward to settling down and achieving what we set out to achieve.”

NDTV and Sameer Nair—a minority shareholder, but the man in charge—set out to build an entertainment powerhouse. But, as the months rolled by and NDTV Imagine failed to make a splash, the parent started reviewing the wisdom of going beyond news broadcasting, its strength. Money tightened up for the GEC, even as the competition came on hard. NDTV Imagine posted a loss of Rs 274 crore in 2008-09. All along, it was shuttling between fourth and fifth place out of 12 GECs, with a market share of a modest 5-7%. It didn’t have a way forward.

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Now, in Turner, it has a parent who is more serious about taking it forward. “India is a priority market,” says Steve Marcopoto, President and Managing Director, Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific. “And Imagine is a high-quality property that has a lot of room to continue to improve.” This will be Turner’s second attempt in the Indian GEC space; the first one, Real, a joint venture with the Alva Brothers-promoted Miditech, failed. In India, Turner also owns channels such as Cartoon Network, Pogo, HBO and WB. NDTV Imagine is, by far, its biggest investment in India.

NDTV Imagine wanted to come out of the saas-bahu serials. But cricket forced it to go back to them. Every GEC was hit hard by IPL 2008 .

Marcopoto refers to Nair, who was the architect of the Turner deal, as “a strong leader”. This April, Nair will complete three years with NDTV Imagine. Although he hasn’t delivered the magic that he worked for Star TV, his previous employer, he is still the main man. But pressure is mounting on Nair to double, even triple NDTV Imagine’s viewership and catapult it among the top three GECs.

Twice in the past, says a defensive Nair, untimely events and aggressive spending by rivals hurt NDTV Imagine when it needed everything going for it. Media rivals and observers scoff at this, saying he too splurged similarly—but without similar results. They accuse him of making excuses. “One can’t blame the environment when it is obvious that the content was faulty,” says the CEO of a broadcast venture. Now, with Turner as promoter, Nair can’t say he was held back by budgets. As he gets ready for a third run, anything less than a substantial presence among the top three GECs will be a failure.

Take One: Stumped By IPL

Sitting in his plush and tastefully done up office in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri (West), Nair is a picture of calm. He blissfully points at a large model of Ben 10, the latest superhero of Cartoon Network, which occupies a prominent position on his desk. “This is supposed to be a limited-edition series. I’m told I’m the only person in India to own one,” he smiles.

Imagine is a high- quality property that has a lot of room to continue to improve.Steve Marcopoto, President & MD,Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific

Ben draws his superpowers from his watch, which lets him change form to fight evil. Nair might have liked something like that in NDTV Imagine’s first year. The channel got off to a good start, in January 2008, but couldn’t sustain the tempo. It brought back mythology to Indian homes, with Ramayan, which worked well.

Alongside, it experimented with new concepts in shows like Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain (a fiction show that taught spoken English) and Nachle Ve (a dance show where choreographer Saroj Khan taught dance steps). “We wanted to be a classic GEC, with something to interest an entire family from the age group of 6-60 years,” says Nair. “We wanted to try out something we had never done earlier,” adds Shailja Kejriwal, Content Head, who had worked with Nair in Star. The idea was to come out of the women-skewed, saas-bahu serials that Nair and company pioneered at Star.

But cricket forced them to go back to it. All GECs were shaken by the first season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in April 2008, with matches being screened at prime-time. “I never expected the IPL to create such a storm,” says Nair. “We were hurt the most (among GECs) since we were the youngest.”

Turner has given us the war chest we need to fight the big GEC war.Gaurav Gandhi, Executive V-P (Business Operations/Content Sales), NDTV Imagine

Viewership of a TV show is measured in television rating points (TRPs). A TRP of anything above 5 is considered excellent, 3-4 is good, 2-3 is average and 1 is low. The measure of a channel’s overall viewership is gross rating points (GRPs), or the sum total of the TRPs of its shows. NDTV Imagine opened with GRPs of 55 and saw it rapidly climb to 92 (the top three were between 250 and 300). But the IPL pushed it down to 75. “With the IPL, the dads and the kids got splintered in terms of viewing,” says Nair.

The NDTV Imagine team realised their strategy of being a GEC for the 6-60 age bracket wasn’t going to work. So, they went back to what they were good at: women-focused shows. Soon after the IPL, they pulled the plug on all their older shows, including Ramayan. On came new shows like Jyoti, Bandini and Kitni Mohabbat Hai, which targeted young women.

Take Two: Eclipsed By Colours

NDTV Imagine had barely recovered from the IPL hit when it was shaken again. In July 2008, Colors, the GEC from the Viacom and Network 18 team, was launched. Colors had, what Nair calls, “an all-guns-blazing strategy”. Colors was aggressive in every aspect of GEC operations. Its content strategy was disruptive. It broadcast reality shows (Khatron Ke Khiladi and Big Boss) on prime time, against the established norm of weekends. It reportedly paid Rs 80 crore to cable and DTH operators in its first year to occupy prime channel position on the viewer’s remote control—termed ‘carriage fees’.

Our show has to be an idea in itself. This strategy is beginning to yield results.Shailja Kejriwal, Content Head, NDTV Imagine

“While the high-risk, high-return strategy worked well for Colors, we couldn’t afford to be that extravagant,” says Nair. Yet, Colors had raised the spending bar and NDTV Imagine had no choice but to follow. “Our carriage fees increased by three times from our original plan,” says Nair. NDTV Imagine is reported to have spent Rs 60 crore as carriage fees in the first year of operations. It also spent about Rs 300 crore on programming and marketing, which was considered to be on the higher side given its scale of operations.

Even as Colors was making its onslaught, and other GECs were responding with vigour, the economy hit a wall. Advertisers pulled back. Funding dried up. NDTV Imagine, still in start-up mode, was left scrounging for funds. “It was like getting hit by a truck,” says Nair. “Had the downturn not hit, we would have fought back.”

Some media observers are dismissive about Nair’s line of reasoning. The CEO of a broadcast venture points out that NDTV Imagine spent about Rs 300 crore in its first year. “It was a team of over-confident people who got their strategy wrong,” he says. The media practice head of a leading consulting firm echoes him: “If they could make Rakhi Ka Swayamvar work in a depressed environment, they can’t blame the environment for the failure of the other shows.”

There was a lot of stress, but Sameer has never let it trickle beyond him.Harsh Krishna Rohatgi, Executive V-P (Revenue Mgmt/New Ventures), NDTV Imagine

In India, success is based on GRPs, and a GEC needs good fiction shows to garner ratings. “Imagine has failed in fiction,” says the media practice head. Nair concedes that weakness. “I am still on the lookout for a great fiction idea that will catapult us into the top three.” He launches into a cricketing analogy: “We may not have hit a four or a six, but we rotated the strike and kept the scoreboard ticking. We’re still playing, not out.” He’s alluding to Real, which has gone off air, and 9X, which went through a period of uncertainty and changed hands.

With Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, NDTV Imagine got some bounce (average TRP of 4). Its follow up reality show, Pati Patni Aur Woh, about parenting, did well (average TRP of 1.7). And its latest reality show, Raaz-Pichle Janam Ka, which is based on past-life regression, is seeing a strong opening (TRP of 2.6). “We are clear that our show has to be an idea in itself,” says Kejriwal. “Our strategy is beginning to yield results.” According to TAM Peoplemeter System, in the first two weeks of January, its GRPs averaged 89 (the top three­—Colors, Star Plus and Zee­—averaged GRPs of 276-313).

Take Three: The Turner Era

According to Nair, the past year has been the most challenging of his 25-year career. “When I was at Star, I was completely insulated. I had no clue of how difficult the outside world was.” A newspaper cutting pinned up on his soft board says, ‘keep calm and carry on’. “I pulled this out from an old British Army ad that The Times had carried as part of an article,” says Nair. “I keep telling this to my team through the innumerable mails I write to them.”

Despite the adversity, his team has stuck around. “In the last three years, our attrition rate has been just 5%,” he says proudly. Almost 80% of Nair’s team comprises ex-colleagues from Star. The last two years, according to some of them, have brought out the leader in Nair. “There was a lot of stress, but Sameer has never let it trickle beyond him,” says Harsh Krishna Rohatgi, Executive Vice-President (Revenue Management and New Ventures).

Besides grappling with a tough environment and content challenges, Nair also had to deal with setbacks at the corporate level. NBC, which held 26% in the NDTV holding company that controlled NDTV Imagine, pulled out in October 2009. This was when NDTV Imagine was in dire need of more funds. “Sameer took it in his stride and started looking for fresh investment. The credit for the Turner deal should go entirely to him,” says Gaurav Gandhi, Executive Vice-President, (Business Operations and Content Sales). “Not only has he proved to be a great leader, he has also displayed his capabilities as a smart entrepreneur.”

With Turner coming in, the feeling in NDTV Imagine is that things can only get better. “Turner is a great organisation. I look forward to building a great, profitable business and integrating into the (Turner) system,” says Nair. “Turner has given us the war chest to fight the big GEC war,” adds Gandhi. Nair, however, is clear that NDTV Imagine won’t take up lavish projects just because they can afford it. “Our focus would be to do great idea-driven shows and put in more money if the idea demands.” Adds Gandhi: “Our focus will be on shows that we can monetise. We will not have top celebrities unless we require them from a creative standpoint.” For the upcoming season of Swayamvar, it has opted for Rahul Mahajan.

In spite of the inroads, the biggest challenge for NDTV Imagine remains content. “It has to do something drastically innovative to challenge the top three,” points out the media practice head of the consulting firm. The last two years have proven that there is space for just two or three players in the Hindi GEC space. The pressure is still on NDTV Imagine.

Nair’s agreement with NDTV was for five years, until April 2012. After the Turner deal, all Nair is willing to reveal is that he has a “new contractual agreement”. He is confident that NDTV Imagine will get its act together in 2010 and crack the top three in 2011. “I’m sure we will meet soon to do a story on NDTV Imagine’s success,” he laughs loudly. If that doesn’t happen, Turner might not take it too kindly.