“I firmly believe that it is our personality that is the huge differentiator for our channel. Every thing else revolves around it. Be it our cutting edge animation, our fantastically produced channel IDs’, our contemporary packaging or the songs that we chose to showcase on the channel.” said Vikas Varma, Director, LaunchPad.
In this interaction with MediAvataar India Vikar unfolded the creative process behind the launch and programing of his channel Music F Fata Fati which is picking up greatly in West Bengal. Here is the Q&A…..
MediAvataar: What is Music F Fatafati? When was it launched?
Vikas: We launched in January this year in response to the market need of a new, contemporary and super-cool music TV channel in Bengal.
Music F Fata Fati is this fun, high energy and colorful friend that every Bangla speaking person loves to hang out with. Apart from our distinct personality, the likes of which Bangla music channel viewers have never experienced, we like to consider ourselves as the Las Vegas of Bangla music. We only play songs that are super-hit and loved by our viewers. So when you come to our channel, you are guaranteed a super-hit song, apart from experiencing the antics of our much loved characters, Jogai, Madai & Pappi Da.
MediAvataar: How did you conceptualize it?
Vikas: I created Music F Fata Fati as a celebration of the new, bright, colorful and energetic face of today’s Bengal. And by default, the new Bangla movies and songs.
Today’s Bengal is confident, energetic, colorful and draws inspiration from its rich past, yet it is eager to explode on the world stage and take its rightful place.
I took inspiration from this and conceptualized the personality of Music F Fata Fati as a reflection of today’s Bengal.
MediAvataar: How is the response like?
Vikas: The response has been super-dooper-fantastic!
The viewers have welcomed Music F Fata Fati into their lives with great joy. Our TAM numbers go on to validate this love by showing a phenomenal time-spent, beating all old TV channels in our space by huge margins, week-on-week since our launch in January. The jokes and songs of our channel heroes, Jogai, Madai and Pappi Da are being repeated and new ones are being created independently by our viewers. Bangla viewers can’t get enough of their Music F Fata Fati everyday.
MediAvataar: Is it region specific or you want to expand?
Vikas: I think, as a result of the multiple platforms that’s allow us to showcase our channel, it is difficult to remain region specific. However, yes, we will certainly remain language specific.
MediAvataar: What according to you is the differentiator of your channel?
Vikas: I firmly believe that it is our personality that is the huge differentiator for our channel. Every thing else revolves around it. Be it our cutting edge animation, our fantastically produced channel IDs’, our contemporary packaging or the songs that we chose to showcase on the channel.
MediAvataar: How do you plan to market it?
Vikas: Music F Fata Fati is also a platform for advertisers to market their products and reach out to their consumers. The channel has created this huge base of viewers and has achieved great numbers. So, there is really no compulsion to market our channel on other platforms. However, as always, the focus will be to deliver cutting edge content and keep our viewers wanting more.
MediAvataar: Tell us more about the animated characters on the channel and the website. It does look like an inspiration from another music channel.
Vikas: I like to call Jogai, Madai & Pappi Da the HEROES of Music F Fata Fati and they certainly do not play a ‘character role’ in our channel. As with the overall personality of the channel, my heroes are vibrant, colorful and very positive. They love to live life to the fullest and are always joyful. They are big fans of contemporary Bangla movies and music and love to dress, talk, sing and dance like their heroes.
Music F Fata Fati is a cumulation of experiences and inspirations from a journey I began in Radio in the year 2005 as National Programming Head of Radio City where we created lots of exciting features and shows.
This continued in Music Television in 2007, where I created a new way for music to be consumed on television by creating 9XM. I also introduced the concept of animated heroes in music television which I can happily say, these characters, Bade & Chote, Bheegi Billi, continue to be loved even today.
After which I created Hummra-M, which became the #1 Bhojpuri Music Channel in its 4th week of launch. It too had much loved channel heroes and a new exciting look.
Music F Fata Fati is the cumulative extension of all these experiences and certainly the latest upgraded version of music television.
The evolution continues and I look forward to my next upgraded version.
MediAvataar: How’s your new property called ‘Dance Party Jhinchak’ doing?
Vikas: It’s rocking the 10PM slot and our viewers are loving it.
MediAvataar: What’s there in the pipeline?
Vikas: Lots of new ways to entertain our viewers and hopefully new ways to spike the viewing experience of music.