Action in India

True to its brand positioning, AXN Action TV channel (AXN) - the only round-the-clock action movie channel in the world - is planning to conduct series of adventure sporting events like bungee jumping, go karting and other extreme endurance games, from this December in India.

"AXN as a brand signifies attributes like daring and adventurous. Our aim is to develop AXN as a brand reflecting a particular life style," explains Mr. Achal Mehra, director, south Asia, who was recently promoted into this position from his earlier position of general manager for India. Such events are being conducted as a part of the channel’s global brand building strategy, he adds.

As a part of its brand building exercise, AXN held a week-long action movie festival in Chennai recently, screening four different movies a day. Similar shows are planned for Calcutta, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. During Diwali (the festival of lights in the country), the channel will telecast five action movies a day on 28 and 29 of October. That aside, the 24-hour English language channel, is planning to air programs in Indian languages.

AXN Asia was launched in September 1997. The channel is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent company of Columbia TriStar - the company that produced action movies like Godzilla, The Mask of Zorro and Men in Black. Interestingly, Sony Pictures owns, or has investments in, more than 30 international channel ventures around the globe.

The channel claims that it is available in more than 22 million households throughout Asia including India, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea, Nepal, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. Separate AXN channels in Japan and Latin America have also been launched.

Action in India

In India, AXN was launched in 1998 as a pay channel. The channel is distributed from a new satellite, Apstar 2R and is uplinked from AXN's production facility in Singapore. With its initial focus on distribution, AXN attained sizeable market penetration.

According to Mr. Mehra, AXN reaches around 12 million out of 28 million cable TV-connected Indian homes. The channel is available in around 1,000 Indian cities/towns. What is interesting to note here is that AXN's Indian reach is nearly half of its entire connections in Asia.

With such a reach in India and a subscription charge of Rs 5 per subscriber, AXN's coffers should be ringing with cash, should be the logical deduction. "It is not so," laments Mr.Mehra. Citing the huge under declaration of their subscriber base by the cable operators, he adds, "the total number of subscribers declared by all the cable operators in India is around 8 million. There should be credit rating and subscription audit for cable operators."

As a result, in India, no channel can have a business model with revenues entirely dependent on subscriptions alone, though of late cable operators demand that pay channels should not seek advertisements.

Cagey about the channel’s revenue figures Mr. Mehra remarks, " 75 per cent of the channel’s prime time inventory is being used. 70 per cent of our prime time programs are sponsored ones." AXN has 8 minutes of ad time in an hour. For advertisements during prime time, AXN charges Rs 15,000 per 10 seconds. However Mr. Mehra proudly proclaims that, the Indian operations would break even in less than 4 years of launch, well ahead of the initial estimates.

According to him, between 10-12 at night (local time), AXN ranks as the preferred international channel. "Among all the channels put together, our ranking is around 12th", claims Mr. Mehra.

In order to go up in the viewer ship rating and to have a sizeable share in the Rs 3,000 crore-ad market, AXN, in recent times, has been introducing new programs. Early this year, the channel started airing action series like Beast Master, Pacific Blue,
Total Recall, Highlander, VIP, Silk Stalkings and action sports programs.

The program mix is designed in such a way that it appeals to a predominant male audience aged between 14 and 44 years. While young adults in the age band 15-24 are attracted to action animation, action sports and adventure programs, adults between 25-44 prefer action series and action movies.

"Action animation is very popular in Japan but not here," Mr Mehra adds. On the anvil are action series, action sports and adventure programs customised for Indian market, Mr. Mehra concludes.