Rewind Networks’ Avi Himatsinghani Talks HITS Movies Expansion

On the heels of securing carriage on Indonesia’s leading pay-TV player, MNC Vision, for the recently launched HITS Movies service, Rewind Networks CEO Avi Himatsinghani talks about the opportunities that still exist for linear TV channels in Asia.

TV ASIA: How has the rollout of HITS Movies gone so far?
HIMATSINGHANI: True to our mission to deliver the best in one place, we put together 40 years of the best movies on a single service to see how powerful that would become in terms of viewer stickiness and consumer love. We actioned our plan and it has beaten my wildest expectations. The ratings and numbers in our debut market, Singapore, prove it. Every month since launch, we have been in the top three out of 15 international general-entertainment channels in the basic group.

What is contributing to this? We went through every channel’s grid to see what we were up against. And we found that movies like Crocodile Dundee, Private Benjamin, Beverly Hills Cop I, II and III, RoboCop, were up against the likes of Harry Potter, Terminator 3, White House Down, Big Bang Theory, Next Top Model and America’s Got Talent and a whole lot of first-run shows on other networks. And we still delivered. That is further testament to [our strategy]: when you put great stuff together with a clear proposition, it works!

I’m now even more convinced about the playlist strategy and having a base of super-fan followers of a playlist. HITS Movies and HITS are playlists. Their clear propositions have allowed a very loyal, consistent base of followers to keep coming in and out of the playlist, recommending and requesting shows and movies they love. The more fans that come in, and the more time they spend, the better our ratings. If we consistently deliver on the selection and the curation of that playlist, they will keep coming back.

I realized that there is a reason these haven’t worked on the pure SVOD plays. If they’re available they are scattered—some on one SVOD service, some on others. And they are so deep down on the pages, even if a thumbnail pops up, people will say, I’ll watch that later, [for now] I want to watch Narcos or House of Cards or Bodyguard. On demand works best for the latest top-of-mind content. Our curation works best on a linear playlist.

I’m really excited about how we’ve done. I’ve spent 20-plus years in this ecosystem—I haven’t seen a brand come up from scratch in a fragmented world like this. It’s not like we’re a well-known brand from a global media house.

Our challenge now is to turn this success into value—we have to launch onto more platforms in more markets. Right now we’re in Singapore and Indonesia. I’d love to get onto leading operators in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines. We have already invested in multi-territory rights and since we don’t have deep pockets, these next few months are crucial for us. We have very good support from the studios; the selection of movies is looking great.

TV ASIA: What about HITS? Are you still expanding that to new markets?
HIMATSINGHANI: We launched HITS in Singapore at the end of 2013 and progressively rolled out across the region. We’ve had to bear the brunt of being a relative latecomer and had to be patient for shelf space and content budgets to open up. The consistency of our proposition and performance helped us get here. Today we are in 12 million homes across 10 countries. But there is still room to grow.

Last year we expanded in Taiwan—now we are on both CNS and Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD. We rolled out into Vietnam with K+ and VTVcab and we also want to expand further in that market. We launched in Myanmar and the Maldives. We’re working on our launch in Sri Lanka soon. There are pockets [available]: we’re still not on True or AIS in Thailand. We want to get onto platforms like myTV Super, nowTV and i-Cable in Hong Kong. So there’s still work to be done on the flagship channel as well. We’re not in Cambodia. We’re not in Laos. Smaller markets, but we’re still plugging away.

TV ASIA: You have two channels in the HOOQ linear bundle. How has the HOOQ experience been? Is it different from working with a traditional pay-TV operator?
HIMATSINGHANI: What I love about HOOQ is it’s forward-thinking in its approach and has taken a bet in aggregating linear alongside SVOD to connect with a wider OTT audience. They’ve been very successful in integrating the free-to-air channels too. Early indications are that it’s been a good start. The way you have to promote linear on OTT is very different. On a traditional platform, we’d give the partner a cross promo and say, please run it across your networks. That approach becomes less relevant on an OTT service, where it’s all about discoverability and getting people to click and watch. There is a lot of learning for them and us. It’s early days, but I’m excited.

TV ASIA: What are your goals for the year ahead?
HIMATSINGHANI: I think 2019 is a year where we’ll explore taking our flagship HITS brand beyond our Southeast Asia-Hong Kong-Taiwan region. I’d love to see how we can explore additional feeds of the service in markets like India, Korea and even Africa and Eastern Europe. I think it’s a good time to start exploring. We know the proposition of a curated playlist like HITS works, so it makes sense to take it into more markets.

TV ASIA: Have your marketing strategies evolved?
HIMATSINGHANI: We have no consumer marketing budget, so by that very nature, I have to figure out how we create maximum buzz in the marketplace. We’ve established very strong working relationships with other media groups like WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Discovery Networks, A+E Networks and Blue Ant Media. At the end of the day, we may be independent networks, but we want to keep people in the ecosystem and get them to consume more television. So we’re aggressively spending time on cross-promotion. As an independent player that is pretty scrappy and focused on how we’re going to add more tune-in to our shows, that is the best way. We also have great regional marketing partnerships with brands and leverage some of these with our affiliate partners.