As the readership of physical copies of newspapers and magazines declines, publications globally have had to pivot their business model as digital and video grabbed the headline space. Now with consumers tuning in to audio, Chennai-based media house, Vikatan has taken the podcast route by launching Vikatan Play recently on the Vikatan app.
The insight was to capture the audience who didn’t have the luxury of time to read but were listening to podcasts. Srinivasan B, Managing Director, Vikatan Group says, “Vikatan Play was born out of a marriage of convenience and technology. The audio format has been a fascinating subject for me for a while now, and we've been trying to work on carrying the written word into an audio format.”
However, this was easier said than done. Getting the magazine read professionally was an expensive proposition and using Google text to speech resulted in an automated voice that wasn’t a pleasant experience. Post these experiments, Vikatan’s tech team found a way to synthesis an AI enabled voice that could then read out the magazine and this got positive feedback. Srinivasan says, “We should ideally make Vikatan Play a Spotify for the magazine where playlists could be curated. Users too should curate their own playlists which can then be shared on their social platforms. We can then socially engage with our audiences much better. However, this is still work in progress.”
With a rich legacy of 98 years, Vikatan publishes seven magazines across genres. This repertoire provided the opportunity to delve into its archival content. Starting off, Vikatan turned their popular magazine series, Kottaipurathu Veedu to an audio series. Says Srinivasan, “We have put out some original content, synthesized content and then we've got our archives which is what I believe will start driving things. We are trying to get a feel from the audience and asking them what they would like to listen to.” He continues, “We believe that we are in the stage where we want to evolve from being a print first player to an audio first player. The reason why we are taking one step back from video is that when you listen, your imagination can wild, just like when you read. We believe that this can blow up your senses. We would like to be in that realm.”
The initial response has been “extremely encouraging,” and in the last three weeks since launch Vikatan Play has had close to, 100,000 listens. Currently, the average time spent is about 3:00 to 3:30 per listen with the average user coming back about 4 to 5 times in a month. As it is still early days, Vikatan is still in the process to fine tune and understand key data points such as the content audiences are listening to, when, how much and how often etc.
Vikatan has also started spreading the word to their readers to sample Vikatan Play. He states, “If we get this spike, then this is the start of something much bigger. Rather than reaching a few million Tamils who spend their time reading, why don't I reach my entire audience of 70 million Tamils who can listen. NRIs are also a huge draw for us.” Vikatan is not just looking at the Tamil audience but look to scale this up further. While the initial plan is to focus on Vikatan’s in-house content, the next step is to aggregate content in Tamil across genres, followed by content across multiple languages. He states, “We want to use this as a platform to move beyond audience and language. We are trying to make it a platform where you can listen to good, curated, quality content that is well read and produced.”
Coming to monetization, the initial focus is on creating excitement leading to sampling and then go the AVOD route and keep SVOD as an underlying opportunity. With brands and advertisers gravitating to audio content, Vikatan has seen interest with some advertisers already on board in the first month. Srinivasan says, “We are among the early players in audio and believe that we will be able to get enough advertising. Right now, we have restricted advertisers at this experimental stage and don't want to get advertisers in. We are trying to understand our audience, their behaviour and the matrices. However, some advertisers are willing to be part of this journey and have come on-board. We are creating content exclusively for them and hosting it on Vikatan Play.” He adds, “Right now I would like to see every single user of Vikatan which is somewhere about 9 to 10 million monthly active uniques to listen to Vikatan Play as much as they are reading Vikatan. I would like the time per listen and the number of listens to go up. We are at about 100,000 listens. I would like it to go up to 100 million listens, but the journey from 100,000 to 1 million, 1 million to 10 million and 10 million to 100 million will be absolutely distinct in terms of how we will have to work on it and get that right.”
Talking on the other businesses, Srinivasan says that 2024 has been “a year of absolute acceleration because we are seeing green shoots on multiple fronts.” Looking at the production arm, Vikatan Televistas has been one of the most successful Tamil production houses but it was a mixed bag when it came to Hindi content. In 2009, Vikatan licensed one of its most successful serial, ‘ Thirumathi Selvam ’ to Balaji Telefilms, which became the very popular ‘ Pavitra Rishta’ on ZEE TV. Next, in a joint venture with UTV, another popular Tamil serial, Kolangal was adapted on Star Plus as ‘ Maayke Se Bandhi Dor’ which did not perform to expectations. After more than a decade, Vikatan is once again looking at the Hindi market, this time as Rolling Tales Production – a JV with producer Rahul Kumar Tewary of Swastik Productions with Vikatan TV handling script and creatives and Tewary handling production. It’s first show, ‘Udne Ki Aasha’ – a remake of the very popular Tamil serial ‘Siragadikka Aasai’, started airing on Star Plus in March 2024 and Srinivasan proudly states that this serial is today the Number One program on Star Plus and All India. The company has also pitched another of its popular Tamil show, ‘Deivamagal’ to Colors which is expected to go on air in January next year. In addition, another show is being pitched for Star Plus.
Vikatan’s events vertical launched Vikatan TV Awards in 2024, in addition to its four marquee awards, Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, Nambikkai Awards 2024, Aval Awards and Naanayam Vikatan Awards. Plans are now afoot to launch a Sports Awards soon.
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