A look at Raj Nayak’s Twitter bio and you know that you are about to meet one of the most unassuming personalities who believes in being cheerful and maintaining a positive and upbeat environment for his team.
Always on the look out to set newer benchmarks and take competition by surprise; yet remain unwavering on the revenue trajectory, this CEO of COLORS TV, one of the leading brands of Viacom18 India believes in distributing power amongst his army of generals working under him rather than weilding it himself.
Two of its prominent properties, Bigg Boss and 24 have been loved by viewers in India and UK alike. We caught up with this suauve, wise and easy going CEO whilst he was in the UK to promote 24.
Early days
Raj’s father was an enterpreneur, running a business of submersible pump sets for import and distribution.
“I’m not a Gujarati by birth but you could say Gujjuness runs in my veins in many ways. I was born in Ahmedabad and my father used to live there. And now I get to know that Asian Voice was started by a Gujarati. You see, we have already forged a connection!”
Walking down the memory lane he further reminisces, ““My father was a freedom fighter, he went to jail for six months fighting for the freedom of our country. I come from a traditional freedom fighter family.”
Career origins
“I started my career in the newspaper industry, when the private television revolution was at its nascent stage in India. I was one of the six people who launched STAR TV in India.”
Raj has watched the industry evolve over 24 years. “I started as an Area Sales Manager for STAR TV in 1993, and from then on I mounted on to a slow and gradual growth chart. I spent ten years with STAR TV and seven years with NDTV thereafter. I was one of the founding members who were the harbingers of change and evolution of the media industry in India. One morning Viacom18 knocked on my door and made me an offer. It was such a strong and vibrant brand, with such a strong mission and vision, that I could not say no.”
Turning point
Raj feels the biggest turning point in his career was moving to television. At the newspaper business he led a team of 23 people. “It was a typical Indian company, where you have a cabin with a brass name plate with your name written on it. But then when I was joining STAR, they told me, you won't have anybody reporting into you, you won't even have a secretary.”
“Some of my friends were flummoxed. They said, why are you taking that job?”
At that time Raj was just married and had a baby, so the money was important.
“I don't think I took up the job for the money but I knew that that’s where the future lies. My friends would want to come and visit me in my new office and I was ashamed to call them, because I didn't want to show them that I didn't even have a proper table to sit on. This was in Delhi, in a small room. I would go and meet them below the building in a coffee shop.”
“But the real peak of my career actually came in 1999. I was seconded to ESPN Star Sports. I used to head the Star Sports Sales and Marketing at that time and the 1999 Cricket World Cup came as one defining moment. There were certain expectations on the company. We took certain risks, we made some bold decisions which paid off rich dividends.”
Recent Challenge?
Raj says his biggest challenge is keeping pace with this industry. “There are three parametres on which you’re judged; one is the top line, one is the bottom line. They want to see the profits as well as want to see the top line grow because that shows the growth of the company and the third point to be considered is the public perception - what people perceive your channel to be.”
He further elaborates, “The viewer actually doesn't care whether we're number one, two or three, it's only the media that likes to put out flash news saying that this one has beaten that one. Our end goal is to focus on the customer and keep them engaged throughout the day with variety content.”
Maintaining the position is a challenge. “I don't look at ratings every week. You will have a heart attack if you start doing that. We are here for the long term. Some weeks we'll go up, some weeks we'll go down. That’s the nature of the business.”
24
India is the first country to get its own version of 24 outside the United States.
“Anil Kapoor holds the rights for India. We commissioned it, so it's a COLORS’ property in partnership with Anil Kapoor Productions. 24 was probably one of the biggest leap of faith that we took as an organisation. It's cutting edge to get an international format fiction show in India spending so much money, where an episode takes eight days or nine days to shoot! A regular fiction show takes one day to shoot and the cost of this is 20 times more than a regular fiction show.”
“If you want to be seen as a leader, you have to behave like a leader.
If you do a mapping of all the channels in India, I don't think any of the other channels gives the kind of variety entertainment that COLORS does. 24 has worked very well for us. There is a discerning audience for 24. We are catering to different segments. The success of Season One is what made us come back with Season Two.” Signs off the risk taker.
