Roma Khanna

World Screen Weekly, November 15, 2007

President of Global Networks

and Digital initiatives

NBC Universal International

Roma Khanna has always been fascinated by the connection that media—old and new—can create with consumers. For several years she was in charge of content and new media initiatives for Canada’s CHUM Television and was seeking new ways to reach viewers in today’s cluttered multiplatform media landscape.

Today she has a much broader playing field to work with. She has crossed the Atlantic and moved to London to take the position of president of global networks and digital initiatives at NBC Universal International. In this role she oversees a diverse portfolio of channels starting with NBC Universal’s own SCI FI, 13th Street, Studio Universal and Universal Channel, and since NBC Universal’s acquisition of Sparrowhawk Holdings, Khanna is also responsible for the Hallmark Channels outside the U.S.—seen in some 152 territories around the world—as well as Movies 24 and Diva TV, currently available in the U.K, and a share in the KidsCo joint venture.

Khanna’s mandate is to extend the geographic reach of these channels and to create new digital businesses and content for NBC Universal. This is quite a full plate, but Khanna welcomes the challenge. At the top of her To Do list is integrating the Sparrowhawk team with NBC Universal’s. “The priority for me is to create a new global networks company that looks, feels and operates like one company and one group of channels with a very deep and rich portfolio of brands,” explains Khanna. “So this means taking two teams of people who do a great job, but do it somewhat differently and do it with different brands and bring them together to create one team.”

While with one eye Khanna is looking at the details and ensuring that everyone on this new team is working with the same tools and is following the same processes, which range from phones and IT to email and invoicing, she has the other eye focused on the big picture, extending this portfolio of some 50 channels into new territories.

As she explains, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe are “priority territories,” because of the growth opportunities they offer. She mentions the recent deal made in Japan which sees NBC Universal acquiring Jupiter Telecommunications’ subsidiary company, JSBC2, and launching SCI FI Channel on the SkyPerfecTV platform via a carriage contract with J:COM.

The real strength of the NBC Universal stable of channels is the brands it contains. “They certainly give us the tools we need to deliver on our growth plans,” explains Khanna. “What we have is a really complete portfolio of brands with SCI FI, which skews a little bit male, and Universal Channel which is general entertainment but depending on the movies and content can be more male sometimes. And then you have Hallmark Channel and Diva TV, which are female-skewing channels and KidsCo, which reaches the younger generation. It’s an exciting portfolio for me because we’re covering all our bases and we have a complete offering.

“My very [firm] belief,” continues Khanna, “is that in this world of choice for the consumer, especially in the pay-TV world where there are hundreds of channels in some markets, what gives a TV channel a competitive edge and what will help us win on our plan is strong brands that really resonate with the audience."

As Khanna points out, “a strong brand in this day and age does not mean a strong television brand it’s just a strong brand. Television can be the central way that you communicate that brand, but at the end of the day, it’s about touching consumers and reaching them on the platforms that they are using—the Internet, wireless, television—and it can be a lot of other platforms when you look at kids’ products and many other types of products.”

In order to help create a coordinated multiplatform strategy for all these brands, NBC Universal International has hired Kevin Obi, the senior VP of digital assets who reports to Khanna. “If we are going to build SCI FI to be a truly world class brand, we can’t do that without a multi-platform approach,” she says. “So stayed tuned, because I think you’ll see us do some interesting things in that space!”

Khanna relocated to London in September but because she’s on the road most of the time, she quips that only now can she finally remember the color of the sofa in her flat. Despite the travel, she loves what she’s doing. “It’s been a really exciting learning curve to go in to our channel business [and meet the heads] of those channels and learn what’s the difference between Spain and Italy or France or Latin America or Poland,” she says. “It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to do business looking completely across borders all the time. I think everybody should do it once in their career because you learn so much and you gain so much perspective on how people consume entertainment, whereas in North America sometimes it was easy for me to fall into the trap of, ‘This is how TV is done.’ But it’s not, it’s how TV is done in North America, which is not, incidentally, the entire world.”

She is also noticing that regardless of the country she is in, “there is more that brings us together than pulls us apart. The shows that are hits in the U.S. like House and Heroes are hits everywhere in the world. People want to see these stories, there is something universal about that human drama that keeps people coming in.” And while quality content is essential, Khanna comes back to the basics that are so important to her. “But brands are the things that connect people to content through that emotional experience.”

—By Anna Carugati