Viacom18 dials up regional content for profitable growth

Year 2019 has been one of the toughest years for the television industry. The changes in tariff order has led to a sharp decline in the number of subscribers. But Viacom18 sees this as an opportunity to dial into newer revenue sources and improve profitability.

For Viacom18, this is the time to invest in more profitable and underpenetrated areas, which is the regional language content. The company plans to do it in a holistic manner.

“While 59 per cent of Indians consume content in regional languages (other than Hindi), viewership is only at about 44 percent. It is underindexed for the use of the languages. Monetization is even further under indexed. Only about 36 percent of ads are targeted towards regional content. Therefore we see strong tailwinds in regional content,” Sudhanshu Vats, CEO at Viacom18, told BusinessLine.