TV channels let viewers 'read' their movies

Bangalore: Did you ever struggle to follow the unfamiliar accents in an English movie? Or fretted over that dialogue you didn't hear well? Sit back, relax and get ready to read your movie.

That's what Ashok Karanth, a sports marketing professional in Bangalore, does these days. English channels in India are increasingly adding subtitles to the movies they play, helping people like Karanth enjoy their time in front of the TV better.

"Apart from the fact that subtitles actually help (me) follow all the dialogues on-screen, they also allow me to watch a television movie at a reasonably low volume at home," Karanth says.

Subtitling is just the latest tool English movie channels are employing to arrest their losing popularity in the country. Be it HBO, Star Movies or UTV's World Movies, channels are spending significant time and money on subtitling as a means to improve audience loyalty.

The reasons are obvious. The collective market share of English movie channels has come down to 1 per cent in 2007 from 1.7 per cent in 2002, a period in which cable and satellite viewing audience grew 40 per cent, according to audience monitoring firm TAM.

The English movie audience is already tempted to surf channels given the huge variety available today. “There has been an explosion in the number of programme formats on Indian TV that appeal to the sensibilities of an English-speaking audience. Reality shows and mythology-based serials are two key examples of such formats,” Jyotsna Viriyala of Star Movies says.

Many Indians who are either not comfortable with spoken English or are unable to follow the Western accent could be put off by movie channels. "Subtitles help them stay with the movies longer,” says country manager for HBO Shruti Bajpai.

While English movie channels claim their target audience is the well-off English-speaking viewer in cities, TAM data has shown that half of their audience is in lower socio-economic classes. Advertisers are not likely to ignore this fact and that means channels must do everything to reach out to them. Subtitling is a sure bet in this case.

While both Star Movies and HBO undertake their subtitling from their regional offices in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively, others like World Movies outsource it to vendors in India.

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The cost of subtitling an average-length English movie is in the range of Rs 40,000-50,000 with rates going up for other languages depending on the availability of translators. But none of the channels are complaining. “It’s a marginal investment, for a greater return,” says Viriyala.

The main purpose of subtitles is not to really expand the market for English or foreign language movies, but only make existing audiences stay loyal and spend more time.

TAM India CEO LV Krishnan says it is blockbuster action movies (like the Spiderman, Mummy or James Bond series) and the marketing associated with them that bring new audiences in and increase in overall viewership numbers.

Ironically, the viewer will be both better and worse off as a result of this trend. While some may be able to watch more English movies using subtitles to overcome the barrier of a foreign language or accent, some may find their movie watching experience compromised not just by the presence of on-screen text they didn’t want, but text that alters what is being said by the actors.

Atul Patil, a Pune-based entrepreneur hates having to watch English subtitles on English movie channels. “I don’t need subtitles in my movies and I try hard to ignore them wherever they appear. In many cases they aren’t even the same as what’s being said by the actors!”

Another oddity is that a profanity or an utterance considered objectionable to Indian audiences could be changed or cut out from the subtitles. Many channels have gone in for self-censoring to avoid the effects of moral policing. In 2007, AXN was banned for two months for airing The World's Sexiest Ads. Cable operators routinely black out English movies if any offended group protests.

So, while the subtitles make English movies more accessible, they make them a little sanitised too.

(Rohin Dharmakumar, is Assistant Editor at the new business magazine to be launched by Network18 in alliance with Forbes, USA)