Non-stop action from ESPN-Star Sports

Last month, Manu Sawhney took charge as executive vice president, programming and marketing, ESPN-Star Sports. His new role will extend over network presentation and marketing communications. For India, Sawhney's agenda is to get the channel to adapt to Indian situations. In an interview with Sangeeta Singh he talks about special programming strategies.

What are the new programmes ESPN-Star Sports has introduced to attract viewership?

Well, we started TNA (Total Non-stop Action) Wrestling in Hindi in August, which is in line with ESPN-Star Sports' strategy to innovate and localise content to suit the taste of Indian audiences. The sports network is also driving a strong marketing campaign to popularise localised wrestling.

For this we roped in two new anchors - Joe Baath and Manish Batavia. Besides commentating, both anchors will analyse matches in special pre and post shows.

With so many channel wars, how does ESPN-Star Sports make a place for itself in cricket?

ESPN-Star Sports has live and exclusive telecast rights for six out of the 10 test playing nations in the world. And don't forget the Indian viewers who are hooked on to cricket watch matches played anywhere in the world. The recent Ashes series played in England had a reach of 36 million individuals across India.

Again, during Bangladesh's run chase against Australia, ESPN registered a channel share of 8.1 TVR, way ahead of other channels including Star with 6.9, Sony with 5.7 and Zee with 4.6. So you see, even Australia-Bangladesh cricket sells!

What are the other events which the network is popularising through local content?

We recently had commentary in Tamil for the viewers in Tamil Nadu for the F1 racing. We realised that even people in rural areas would like to know how Narain Karthikeyan was performing. ESPN tied up with a number of cable operators in Tamil Nadu to facilitate the commentary in Tamil and it was a big success with the average rating growing over 200 per cent. Similarly, we had a parallel commentary in Hindi of the recent FIFA Confederation Cup 2005.

Last year, we introduced Hindi commentary during UEFA EURO 2004 that happened in Portugal with pre and post shows also in Hindi. This helped us increase penetration in traditional soccer markets and enabled us to get into non-traditional soccer markets like UP, Gujarat and Punjab.

Does ESPN also have special marketing initiatives for the rural areas?

Yes, we recently started offering special packages through cable operators in rural areas. These are both a la carte and bouquet offers which help us get more subscribers and provide quality products at affordable rates.

Today ESPN-Star Sports has a reach of 28 million households out of a total of 60 million. Our marketing initiative of four 'Os' include advertising on ground, print, channel and online. This is giving the network good dividends.

Isn't it frustrating to see networks fight over cricket telecast rights and lose out in the process?  

Since the matter relating to cricket is subjudice, I don't want to comment. But don't forget ESPN-Star Sports has signed a three-year exclusive telecast deal for all international hockey matches under the aegis of IHF, to be played in India.

Similarly, in tennis, ESPN-Star Sports has exclusive telecast rights for the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Besides, we also own the telecast rights for the ATP Series. Then there is football, wrestling and F1 and A1 races. So we have a lot to offer.