After getting to the top, Star has now trained its sights on the road ahead. But it also has to have one eye trained firmly on the rear-view mirror for the competition.

By Brian Carvalho

Star's Peter Mukerjea with Amitabh Bachchan, the host of the show that started it all, KBC

Peter Mukerjea enjoys long drives-make that long and hard drives. Colleagues who work with him at The Masterpiece, Star India's Mumbai headquarters located in pot-holed, bustling suburban Mumbai, recount in awe-and a tinge of horror-stories of their CEO's exploits in his Toyota Land Cruiser. They'll tell you how he once reached Pune in a couple of hours, tearing down the newly-built Mumbai-Pune expressway (at least the part that's ready) at speeds of close to 200 km per hour.

Speed hasn't been a buzzword for Mukerjea just behind the wheel. If he's been burning rubber on the road, the 46-year-old head honcho of Rupert Murdoch's Indian satellite television arm has set a scorching pace for Star India, ever since flagship channel Star Plus went totally Hindi last July. From a distant number three, in just a year, Star Plus-and the entire seven-channel network-is today head and shoulder above yesteryear's No 1 and 2.

Evidently, Star's investments in programming-especially for flagship Star Plus-and its metamorphosis into an aggressive marketer, in terms of selling Star Plus and its other channels to advertisers, have paid off. Now, Mukerjea and his team need to translate the success of one channel into the success of an entire network. More important, they have to leverage this-preferably by feeding off the synergies and transforming the television operation, over a period of time, into a cash cow-to create India's, even Asia's first entertainment conglomerate (See The Digital Gambit) that spans television, both network and interactive, radio, and the net.

That's easier said than done: the competition has wisened up to Star's ways and is emulating them, and no one, anywhere in the world, has ever made money from either interactive television or the net. Star itself admits its new ventures are long-gestation projects and it is when seen in that light that its television operations appear that much more critical. For the record, Star is still in the red, although it claims it will break even next year.

So when Mukerjea-along with James Murdoch, the Hongkong-based CEO of Star TV-checked into the Murdoch-owned News Corporation's New York headquarters on Sixth Avenue and 48th Street last month, he wouldn't have wasted much time in keeping the chairman posted on his Indian operations' feats: a 40-per cent share of eyeballs; a fourth of the $460 million or Rs 2,163.9 crore cable and satellite ad revenues at stake; total revenues of $130 million or Rs 611.52 crore, up by nearly 60 per cent (Star India hasn't revealed any figures to BT, complying with sec regulations); and a 65 per cent contribution to Star Asia's revenues.

Oh, yes, he may have also mentioned in passing that KBC had become the most-watched programme in the world, overtaking Baywatch, and was set to enter the Guinness Book of World Records.

SANDEEP GOYAL, CEO ZEE TV

Now that he had Murdoch's attention, Mukerjea would have probably found it easier to brief the boss on the status of his new projects-and how much of an investment they would call for. By the time you read this, Star would have already flagged off Radio City in Bangalore, the radio station on 91 fm, to which it will provide content, and handle the sales and marketing.

But the fm venture is small beer when you compare it to the mega-ambitions Star has on the digital platform. After years of trying to launch a direct-to-home (DTH) service, Murdoch is, well, still trying, and is willing to pump in as much as $500 million or Rs 2,352.1 crore into this venture. Mukerjea would have also informed Murdoch that the plans to launch a television portal, provide interactive television (via cable as well as DTH), and consolidate the five portals that Star had acquired equity in last year for some $140 million (658.59 crore) were on track, although the scenario here is fluid, and could alter depending on government regulations and the changes in the dynamic dotcom domain.

Would Murdoch have been happy? He's said to be a tough man to please. And he's sunk in some $660 million or Rs 3,104.8 crore into India over the past eight years, without any return on it. But if Star India's success between July 2000 and June 2001-let's forget about the dotcoms for the time being-didn't please him, nothing will. Take a deep breath if you have to, and run through these figures: before Star Plus launched Kaun Banega Crorepati, its channel share was laughable, compared to Sony and Zee TV. Last June, for instance-KBC was launched on July 3-Star Plus could just about muster up a share of just 1.9 per cent on the 7.00 pm-11 pm band, as against Sony's 8 and Zee's 9.2.

Last month, Star Plus was boasting a channel share that's much more than that of Zee and Sony combined on this prime band-17.4 as against Sony's 5.5 and Zee's 5.3. If you consider the non-prime time bands too-the 7 am-11 pm period-Star Plus is ruling the roost, with a 11 per cent share, as against just 2.1 per cent last year.

What's even more significant is that the success of Star Plus has rubbed off on the entire network. The Star Network's share last month had climbed to 24 per cent from just 10.2 last year during prime time. And during the 7 am-11 pm period, the network's share almost doubled to 18.6 in June 2001.

Star's Trek Upwards

Now let's get a feel of how programming contributed to this rosy picture. In the first week of last June, Star Plus had just one programme in the top 50-Kora Kagaz, at No 38. By June 2001, Star had all of 38 programmes in the top 50. That surge was of course fuelled by weepy soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, which is commanding viewership figures in the 13-14 range.

Even KBC, a year after launch, is in the 5.5-6 bracket, and although it barely figures in the top 10 these days, its ratings are almost as much as Zee's and Sony's chartbusters last year. ''One of the most amazing feats we've achieved is that we've been able to register a 300-per cent increase in eyeballs in just 12 months,'' beams Mukerjea.

So if viewers were gravitating toward Star, advertising naturally followed. Before the switch over to ''100 per cent hardcore Hindi,''-which is how Sumantra Dutta, Executive Vice-President (till recently in charge of ad sales) puts it-selling Star to media buyers wasn't exactly a piece of cake. Pre-KBC, Doordarshan was able to command the highest rates, of up to Rs 1.2 lakh for 10 seconds. A month into KBC, and Star broke that barrier, and was able to command up to Rs 4 lakh for 10 seconds. Over the past three months, those rates have stabilised-along with the ratings-at Rs 2 lakh. And let's not forget the 10-11 pm slot (home to Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kyunki Saas Bhi...), for which the asking rate is Rs 3.5 lakh per 10 seconds. ''The perception that earlier existed that Star Plus was a jeans-t-shirt channel disappeared completely. At 9.00 pm the whole nation-including the Hindi heartland-would come to a halt,'' says Dutta. Adds Sameer Nair, Executive Vice-President (Head of Content & Communication): ''We got KBC to attract everyone from sec a to sec e. And then we fed them other programs.'' Significantly, none of the shows other than KBC received ad support; they were all promoted on KBC.

Even as Star Plus created a whole new audience and succeeded in convincing the big brands of India Inc to associate themselves with the Star brand (rather than just a channel), it rewrote many of rules of Indian cable & satellite broadcasting with its confrontationist game plan. Consider this: Pre-July 2000, the 8-11 pm slot was dominated by half-hour weekly shows from Monday through Friday. That meant 30 weekly programmes and if you consider that at least four channels were adopting this schedule, it meant that there were all of 120 half-hour weekly shows-impossible to keep track of.

As Nair explains, ''We simplified the viewer's choice.'' That was done by simply introducing daily soaps at prime time. As a result, the viewer had a less complicated schedule to keep in mind.

Another first: Star has been able to extend the prime band by an hour-to 11 pm. This also resulted in the introduction of the concept of ''super prime time', a broad time band operating consistently at a viewership of 35 per cent-plus. Not just that, the popularity of the 10-11 band resulted in a huge audience flow into the following band.

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