Mumbai: OTT app founder Vibhu Agarwal has announced his foray into the broadcasting space with the launch of a new Hindi general entertainment channel whose name is yet to be revealed. The channel will primarily cater to the target audience of 15 plus years.
In the past, Agarwal has produced a Bollywood film and numerous web series content.
The GEC is slated to launch in the first half of the new financial year and will have both fiction and non-fiction series spanning genres like action, comedy, and thrillers. Unlike other GECs, however, the channel will run finite series where each show will have a limited number of episodes.
Television revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of four to five per cent and reach Rs 826 billion by 2024, as per EY-FICCI media and entertainment 2022 report. The revenue from subscriptions for TV channels is expected to reach Rs 415 billion in 2022. Pay TV will continue to grow as states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and West Bengal get electrified. Free TV subscribers are expected to cross 50 million in 2025.
The report predicted overall growth of TV connections at a pace of five per cent per year to cross 67 per cent of Indian households by 2025.
“We have experienced tremendous success in terms of subscription and popularity with our unique offering on our flagship OTT Platform,” said Vibhu Agarwal. “Over the last three years, we have built a formidable content library spanning multi-genre content and age groups. While the digital entertainment space is poised to grow exponentially, the broadcasting industry is here to not just stay but also grow.”
He added, “Our new Hindi general entertainment channel will have a varied bouquet of shows targeting all segments of society. It will be heavy in both fiction and non-fiction which will have genres like thriller, crime, comedy, horror, and suspense, and star some of the most renowned actors. We will be working with the best of production houses and the most noteworthy talent across to bring content-rich hours of programming. Each show will have slick production value, a novel concept, differentiated narrative, characterisation, and a finite run time. The shows will also be available on the television channel’s own new OTT App wherein the audiences will be able to watch them at their own leisure. This is our commitment to bring entertainment to the household of every Indian across the country that enjoys and understands Hindi.”
The channel will be distributed across Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV and d2h, and cable networks such as Hathway, Den, and GTPL in India, as per the statement.
