Inside Vikatan’s 100-Year Journey
Storytelling across Print/TV/Streaming/Books and a Deeply Tamil Identity
In this episode of The Media Room, media journalist and author Vanita Kohli-Khandekar speaks with B. Srinivasan, Managing Director of Vikatan Group, about how one of India’s oldest and most beloved media brands continues to reinvent itself after more than a century. Srinivasan reflects on Vikatan’s evolution from its print legacy to television, digital platforms, and new ventures in events, wealth management, and election surveys. He explains why the company walked away from its 22-year partnership with Sun TV, how it adapted to the commissioned model at Star Vijay, and why holding on to IP matters in the long run. The conversation explores what it means to stay relevant when storytelling itself is being reshaped by technology, and how Vikatan is using AI to imagine new, experiential forms of content. Tune in for insights on building longevity, trust, and innovation in an era where media—and audiences—are constantly changing.
NOTE: This transcript is done by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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TRANSCRIPT
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar (Host): Hello and welcome to the media room. For a 100-year-old brand, Vicodin is pretty sprightly. The magazine publisher has taken governments to task, has informed opinion for long and it has very smoothly transitioned into TV and streaming in this period of time.
It's now, right now, about a 140 crore company and gets a bulk of its money from television production. Many of its shows like Thirumathi Selvam and I cannot pronounce this one very well, Siradiga Asai have been remade into several Indian languages and they found success in each of those languages. You know, but what fascinates me about Vicodin, its enduring strength is that it is quintessentially Tamil.
It is connected to the ground and the people it writes and reports about or it portrays in fiction in myriad ways. And also, it has this ability to connect the stories that come into the magazines, it has about seven magazines, to TV, streaming, increasingly and doing it very well. To figure out how it is feeling as it ramps up to its 100th year, I had a long chat with B.
Srinivasan, who's the managing director. He's based out of Chennai. Over to Srinivasan then.
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Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Hi Srini, welcome to The Media Room. I can't tell you how delighted I am to have somebody who I've spoken to for like 20 years and who's the one person I always meet when I go to Chennai to have you on this show. So thank you so much for being in The Media Room.
B Srinivasan: Lovely to connect with you as always, Vanita. You have been the watcher and the kind of a, you know, you're the keeper of the media from, you know, from a, what do you call, connectivity perspective. You've been seeing the media from where it was to where it is today and I've always enjoyed our conversations.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Vikatan means something. What does it mean? For a hundred years, I mean, you're going to be completing a hundred years in February next year, correct?
For a hundred years, this brand has stood for something for Tamil people all over the world. What is it about? Can you give us a quick peek into that?
B Srinivasan: We are a satirical critic of the government, the governance and society at large. That is the first thing that Vikatan actually stands for. Vikatan in Tamil actually means jester, which is like, you know, like your Birbal or people like them.
So we are a staunch critic of not just the government, but of governance and of society and the values that it holds or it doesn't. As a platform, we believe that we also are a seeker of justice for the underserved and we believe that we attempt to be a torchbearer for social reform. That is what Vikatan has always stood for.
You know, I'm talking about from pre-independence to independence and beyond. And we also believe that we've always been an interactive platform to identify and showcase change makers and influencers so that they can influence more people to go in the right direction and to do the right thing. So if you ask very broadly, this is what Vikatan kind of stands for.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: What is the shape you started with the magazine and what's the shape of the company now? Again, quickly, if you could give my readers a...
B Srinivasan: So Anand Vikatan was a single magazine. And then in between, there were a lot of magazines, which came and went within the fold. But in 1983, our chairman, Mr. Balasubramanian, who also happens to be my father, started Junior Vikatan, which is actually, that was always a confusion. Junior Vikatan, everybody thought was a children's magazine. And we had a tough time informing advertisers that it was actually a socio-political magazine. It was just Junior to Anand Vikatan.
So the name Junior came not because it was meant for kids. But it came from there. And Junior Vikatan has been the socio-political voice of the common man.
And that's through Junior Vikatan, we have always, you know, tried to seek justice in, you know, just to give you an example, in 1985, we had come out with a story on female infanticide in one of these villages in Tamil Nadu, we actually gave the entire narrative, one of our student reporters. So that's, that's, I'm sorry, I just have to digress a little bit. When we started Junior Vikatan, we found it very difficult to keep up with the news.
So we started the student journalist programme. And for the last 42 years, with few gaps in between, we have on an average been mentoring about 72 college kids into journalism. And of them, we have been absorbing three or four kids every year into our own magazine fold.
And today, more than 55% of our journalists, including my three editor publishers, who are managing seven magazines, are all from the student scheme.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: And community magazine in that sense, no, it's, it's, it's, it is within the community, and you're hiring people from within fantastic. Yeah.
B Srinivasan: The student scheme also kept us. I mean, we got our blood boys with the student scheme, right? So every year, a new crop of students come in. And one of the things that, you know, we would famously say at the introduction is that there's a student reporter programme, but what are we going to teach you?
We're not going to teach you anything. We're going to learn from you how to look at things, how to write and what is the lingo of the common person today of the youngsters today, and we are going to learn. That's what the student scheme has, you know, that's been the essence of the student scheme.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Got fresh voices in every year, you've got fresh voices in and that's what probably keeps. So if I was to break it up and say, Shrini, what's the, what are the three big milestones? What would you say?
Because I know that TV might be one, but I just want you to vocalise that.
B Srinivasan: Yeah, so the first big milestone happened in 1998, 97 and 98. Within that year, in December, 1997, we got Bigatan.com registered and we went on.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: That early?
B Srinivasan: Yeah, 1997. That by itself is a story. We were, you know, if you, if you have the time, I can just briefly talk about this.
We didn't go to the internet with our eyes wide open. We actually were supplying a lot of international subscriptions as part of our scheme. And we used to get these odd phone calls saying, oh, copies haven't come, they are late, you know, the way the Indian postal system was at that point of time, probably still is.
But, you know, when we got, we were curious about Bigatan.com and then we started this email ID called editor at Bigatan.com and we published it for the first time in December, 97. We got some 200 emails within one week saying, you know, so everything is getting delayed. It's three weeks and you know, I've got damaged copies and all of that stuff.
We said, what the hell is happening? So in, if I'm not mistaken, Jan 98, is when we decided that for at least for the subscribers, whatever we do or don't, let us upload our magazines instantly to be made available on the day that the magazine is available in Tamil Nadu for my international audiences to visit. So we published that in Bigatan and we just put our magazines out there.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Right.
B Srinivasan: So that's how we got into the internet.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Without a paywall or anything.
B Srinivasan: No paywall. At that point of time, there was no concept of paywall. So it was more to service our subscribers.
And then, you know, it went through its own journey in 2005. We saw that there was no money coming in from there and it was draining our resources. And the management had actually told me that, you know, you need to shut this down because it's not making sense.
So I went back and said, okay, let's put a paywall. And if people don't want to pay, then let's shut it by all means. By the grace of God, within a hundred days, our subscriptions lifted off so well that we were able to cover our costs for the year.
And then the rest, they say, is history. So from 2005, we have been behind the paywall.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: So you mentioned the first was N97, beginning 98.
B Srinivasan: Yeah, this was 97-98. The first thing we did was go to...
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The first milestone was registering Bigatan.com.
B Srinivasan: Similarly, the second milestone that happened in the same year, in November 1998, we went on to our first TV weekly that was called Akshaya. So we went on Sun TV with that. And, you know, the kind of twist that we gave it was everybody was doing weekly.
So what's so different in what we do? So we carried one half of the story in Ananda Bigatan. And we said, watch the rest of the story on Sun TV.
So we came out, the magazine came out on a Thursday. And on Thursday night at 9.30, you could watch it on Sun TV. So they would see this part of the story on Sun TV, then they would see a little more.
And then with that, in the next week, we would carry that second half and then a little more. So it was like a relay race between Ananda Bigatan and Sun TV on Akshaya. And yeah, that was the start in 1998.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: And the third milestone?
B Srinivasan: The third milestone? No, no, no. I'm still talking about the first milestone.
This is 1997-98, three things happened. We went digital, we went to television production. And the third is we started Aval Bigatan, which is the start of our community magazines.
Till then we were only Ananda Bigatan, Junior Bigatan, both serving a clear purpose. Then we started, you know, the women's magazine. And then from there, we started a women's magazine, children's magazine.
You know, we went into spirituality, we went into personal finance, then we went into auto, and then we went into sustainable agriculture. And, you know, most of those magazines are still there. And those community magazines are doing extraordinarily well, because they serve a purpose.
And, you know, serve an audience. So we've been able to actually nurture communities. And so that 98 was actually a very big breakout year for us.
From that perspective. The second happened in 2004-2005, where Ananda Bigatan scaled after 1964 when we lost our leadership position in ABC to Kumudam. That was due to unfortunate circumstances, labour troubles.
But in 2004, we got it back. In Jan-June 2004, we were back as number one among Tamil magazines in ABC. Aval Bigatan incidentally, which just started in 1998, when Mangayar Malar was numero uno.
We beat Mangayar Malar in 2004-05, Jan-June. So that was another peak. And we had started our daily soaps and Kolangal had become our number one daily soap on Sun TV.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: I remember Kolangal because it used to show up on the rating charts all the time.
B Srinivasan: Yeah, and only to be beaten by Thirumathi Selvam, which started in the afternoon and was moved to primetime. And the moment it moved to primetime, it beat Kolangal. So we had our number one programme, which became number two replaced by our own number one, which is Thirumathi Selvam.
This happened in 2004-05.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: I'm going to digress here, because I think the Thirumathi Selvam story is phenomenal. That's a show which I don't know how long it ran for years. And more importantly, was remade in Hindi as Pavithra Rishta remade in Malayalam.
I can't pronounce that word.
B Srinivasan: Four languages. So it was Nilavalakku in Malayalam, Jokali in Kannada, Devatha in Telugu. So these three were remade by us.
Only we had licenced it out to Balaji to remake it as Pavithra Rishta for Zee TV in Hindi. So it was also very interesting. It so happened, this is Providence.
At one point of time, at 7.30, you had Nilavalakku. At 8 o'clock, you had Thirumathi Selvam. At 8.30, you had Jokali. At 9 o'clock, you had Devatha. And at 9.30, you had Pavithra Rishta all on the same day, of course, at different parts of the story. But for two and a half hours, Thirumathi Selvam was dominating the entire Indian kind of television.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: You know, I think Thirumathi Selvam deserves a show of its own, frankly, because this show will not come. But quickly, it is the only show which got five variations, five versions of Thirumathi Selvam in five different languages, including the original in Tamil. Is that the only show or have other shows done that too?
B Srinivasan: Yeah, I'm very proud to tell you that again, when you asked me for the third milestone, I will segue into that. That happened in 24-25, which is last year, where Siragadi Ka Asai became number one not just in Star Vijay, but even in two plus beating Sun TV for a month in July of 2024. It also began when Udni Ki Asha started on January 24.
That is our joint production with Rahul Tiwari in Hindi. It's a Rolling Tales production. So, Udni Ki Asha became number one in all India between October and December of 24.
And, you know, this was and this Siragadi Ka Asai is currently being remade in seven languages. Really? We are doing Tamil and Hindi.
But it's happening in Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, and of course, Hindi.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Phenomenal. So that's this thing. And this is the thing which I find fascinating about Pickett.
And this is exactly the reason I want very few companies to manage that transition. I'm not talking about scale in terms of revenue, I know roughly, you know, what size you are. But that thing of being able to go from print and a clutch of about five magazines now to do this.
B Srinivasan: We have seven magazines in print. Yeah, five in digital. So we have a set of things out there.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: So to do that, I mean, how tough is it to scale into TV? And you know, what do you have to learn and unlearn when you do this? And now you're going on to streaming also.
I remember last year we discussed, we were in that panel, remember with Gaurav Banerjee and Co. So, you know, if I was to ask you to silo these bits and say, what is it that you're carrying from the print silo to the TV? Or are these silos at all in the first place?
B Srinivasan: So I'll tell you, with Akshaya, we started off doing this combo between print and television. But that was the start and stop of it. After that, we haven't necessarily looked at print to create content on television, because television is a completely different ballgame, especially when it comes to dailies.
The volume of screenplay that is required is sure something that is not necessarily supported by print. However, we found that niche again with OTT. So right now, Under Production is a project that shall not be named because I don't have the right to name it.
But it is on Hotstar. It is based on a serialised novel which came out in Junior Bigadan between 97 and 99. And it's about, yeah, that story was called Lingam.
And it came out as a book subsequently. And from that, we have adapted it into an eight-episode, which is going to be out on Hotstar very soon. So this is one of the projects which have come from the book.
And similarly, we have started working on more such stories. And we are pitching based on the story knowledge that we have banked in Bigadan. And we are trying to recreate them on screen for OTT.
So while it may not work for television, it will, it does work for OTT.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Why is that? Because it gives you a serialised thing, which is, or is it more expensively mounted? Or is the writing more, has more depth?
Why is it that?
B Srinivasan: So let me put it this way. TV, daily soaps require a movie's quantum of screenplay to be handled every month. So many of the characters, diversified, you know, storytelling, and it is TV that is much more social and relevant to today's communities.
But OTT, we are talking about a very peculiar character, a very peculiar backdrop, a very distinct kind of a situation. And we are talking about something extremely, you know, niche. Okay, so that's where I believe there is a connection between magazine storytelling and OTT storytelling.
It is not necessarily because of, you know, production cost or anything. It is just about the focus of character. So if you see, for example, in Lingam, there is one hero, right?
But in a daily soap, you can't have a story about one person.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Yeah, I had a movie's question, which movies have come out from the Anand Vikatan?
B Srinivasan: Oh, one hell of a lot.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: One movie, one movie.
B Srinivasan: Jayakantham, Sila Neirangalil Sila Manithargal, was based on a series in Anand Vikatan. Then there was Sirai in 1983, which had come out, which won a national award for women's, you know, liberation.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: I know that.
B Srinivasan: And then we have, in recent times, we have had, I'm sorry, I just completely blanked out, but I will, I will give you, I will give you some names, but multiple stories which have come out in our magazine have come out as, so for example, Sivala Peri Pandi was one movie which came out in 98, which was also serialised in Anand Vikatan, in June.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Have you ever attempted to make movies yourself?
B Srinivasan: Multiple and, oh, I'll give you the best example. In Tamil, there was a very, very popular film called Iruvathimun Rampalikesi, which is basically a comedy king, right? A comic king, which is placed in the old times, but he's actually a comical character.
This character was sketched by the director. His name is Chimpu Devan. He sketched that character as a cartoon character, as a joke character in Anand Vikatan and continued as a series of jokes in Anand Vikatan by the same name, Iruvathimun Rampalikesi.
And the same thing was produced by Shankar and he came out, he was the director of that film. It was starring Vadivelu and about 10 years back, it came out as a film, super duper hit, right?
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: So you never, you never wanted to get into films?
B Srinivasan: Yeah. So we did have our stint with filmmaking. So this was going back about 12 years ago.
Our first film was called Sivamanasva Shakti or in short SMS. It was a hilarious movie and it was very, very youth orientated. We barely managed to make the money that we put in. The second film that we came out with was about a relative, it was a subject of social conscience and we lost every single penny that we put into that film.
And because we don't take finance for films and we had put in our own money, you know, we told ourselves, we said, okay, this is not our cup of tea. And I realised very early about one thing about films. If you are a technician, if you are an, if you are a talent, then filmmaking, films are for you because there is money in it to be made for sure.
There is a minimum guarantee, your fees. But if you're a producer, there is no minimum guarantee and there is no guarantee that you will get back the money that you put in. And today the odds are very, very stacked up against, you know, our, the producers.
So I think production is not for us. So we stayed out of production and we are very happy to produce for television and for OTT where even though we are making our margins, we are still happy with what we make.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: No, also films, I think, A, the nature of the business is slightly dodgy because it's completely pay driven. So unless the audience walks into the theatre and B, I think single film producers will always have it tough. You need a portfolio to set one off against the other.
So if you're doing four, five films a year, it makes sense. For one film, it is a very tough game. It's a very, very tough game.
B Srinivasan: I want to complete this question about the third, 24-25. I'm actually very proud to say that we also launched on 24-25, we launched this book, which was a compendium on Ambedkar, Dr. Ambedkar. This happened on December 24 and it was presided over by Vijay.
And I also want to tell you that in recent times, I'm very proud to talk to you about this book. So when you talk about films, this is a book called Venipari. This is a story about a tribal warlord, almost 2000 years ago, who lived in Tamil Nadu, who took on all the three kings of the South, the Cheras, Choras, Kandyas, and defeated them all.
And he was only killed by, you know, by, by vengeance. He was, he was, he was literally, you know, stabbed in his back. Right.
That's how he died. But this story of valour is something which was serialised in Anandavikatan just before COVID. It came out as a book just around COVID.
And we have today sold 100,000 copies of this book. And we had that function on June 25. And just imagine a book priced at about 2000 rupees today, selling 100,000 copies in today's day and age in the last five years.
So we're very proud to say that our book publishing is also one of those segues that we have, you know, we have been very successful at. And so, you know, in a way, if you see 24, 25 has also been a kind of a watershed moment for us. But this book is only in Tamil or are you The author has got the rights, he is getting it remade in other languages.
So he's, I think he's signed up for a couple of other languages. And this book, interestingly, is going to come out as a movie. Director Shankar has got the rights for this book.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Oh, really?
B Srinivasan: Yeah.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: The second one Shankar is doing from Vikatan sources.
B Srinivasan: This one he is directing himself. So, you know, there's a there's a there's a lot. So basically, we believe that we are, you know, the way I look at Vikatan is that we are kind of Vikatan as a platform is the soil, right?
Our stories are kind of manure, right? And, you know, the kind of audiences that we bring to the table are the water, right? So you can't independently have any of these.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: But if I look at Vikatan as a company, a bulk of your revenues now comes from your television production.
B Srinivasan: Television production is the single biggest contributor to our top line and to our bottom line, followed by, of course, print is number two in terms of top line, but not in terms of bottom line. And then it is followed equally by awards and events, as well as digital. And awards and events are the second biggest contributor to the bottom line.
So it is awards and events, which actually is keeping our print magazines, you know, and is able to keep keep keep things going. So we are able to do a good job in, you know, keeping ourselves grounded and keeping ourselves attempting to stay relevant today, because we've got these awards, events and other such programmes which are, you know, happening. And the other, I just wanted to share with you a couple of other things that we've been doing in the last one year, this 2004-05, this third milestone is that we started our wealth management platform.
It's called NANI.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Yeah, you told me about that.
B Srinivasan: So from NANI and Vikatan for the last 20 years, we've been talking about personal finance and the significance of personal finance and how to balance your budget and how to, you know, make your money work for you when you are not working. But actually, now we've started providing that as a service. And now we've actually grown in terms of servicing about 450 clients in about 10 months time, we are now servicing about 450 clients.
And I'm also very, very happy to say that we have for the last 35 years, we have actually been conducting 30 years, we've been conducting surveys in Tamil Nadu, election surveys. And we have for the first time been commissioned by a client for a pan Tamil Nadu pre-election survey, which we have completed in the last one week. And I'm very proud to say that we have been able to get OTP verified 103,000 plus voters, potential voters who have polled with us.
And we have over a range of 17 questions. And we have got some very, very interesting statistics, which are district wise, constituency wise, age wise, gender wise.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Anything, any top line you can share?
B Srinivasan: No, nothing that I can share with you, because all of this we have done for a client. So it is entirely privileged and confidential. All I can tell you is that we have got into the survey business.
And it's, and, you know, the whole thing, the interesting part is the entire thing is app based. And the entire survey was online. The entire surveyed individuals have been OTP verified, as well as the survey years have been Aadhaar verified, bank account verified, OTP verified.
And the most interesting part is we asked for feedback from the survey, we got 16,000 feedback, 16% of our surveyed individuals responded with a 95% five star rating, and lots of comments, which we are doing a sentiment analysis.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Tell me one thing, when you're serving only people who can be OTP verified, are you in the process of leaving out a lot of people who may not be, who may not have smartphones, who may not. So how do you ensure that balance in that sample?
B Srinivasan: Because, sorry, OTP verification does not need a smartphone.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: Oh, yeah, it will be SMS. Okay, fair enough.
B Srinivasan: But there is no there is no Yeah, no app based is for the survey year. The respondent answers and then they tell us if they are happy with the survey or not. There is no app based for the survey.
The surveyor is the one who's using the app number one. Number two, we have a physical mapping of every survey that has been conducted. In fact, over 15 days when we conducted the survey, we have done a video grab of the entire survey.
So we will show you which surveyor went where in Tamil Nadu and took a result from whom. So the heat map of all over Tamil Nadu is available. It is entirely verifiable.
So that's the beauty of the survey that we've done.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: It's so funny now you start with a core which is Vikatan and now look at the directions in which you're going. But tell me one thing and these are my last two questions. One is you've had a long relationship with Sun TV and then you've gone on to Star VJ, which is like a direct rival, etc.
What happened? Is the economics not working out? What happened there?
B Srinivasan: We had an extraordinary working relationship with Sun TV and that lasted for almost 22 years. But, you know, the fact remains that, you know, the economics is very simple. We started in 1998.
We were given 300 seconds per half an hour and we were allowed to sell 300 seconds every half an hour. In 19, in 2020, when we ceased production with them, the last by last count, we were allowed 100 seconds at CT. So just imagine in 22 years, you know, what kind of, you know, commercials were working 22 years, it had come down by a third number.
Number two, the biggest advantage that we had with Sun TV was two advantages, very, very important advantages. Mr. Maran and Mrs. Maran were extremely benevolent in ensuring that there was no interference in storytelling. That was a beauty.
They had completely left it to us. And it was, you know, our ability to deliver that could have given us our ratings, which we were very happy to do. So we got that independence.
And with that independence also came the fact that we had IPs, we have IPs for all the programmes we produced with Sun TV. So these were the two big advantages that we had. And we made the best of it, you know, by going into YouTube and Facebook since 2011.
And we have really made some very interesting, we've used very interesting opportunities, both there as well as in licensing. So many of our programmes post-COVID were running on current TV on a licenced model. And many of our programmes which we had on Sun TV have also now been licenced in multiple platforms across the star network in other languages, you know, as remakes.
So all of that was available to us. But the commercials became so stifling that we couldn't. So I think they also had this issue.
When they started, they wanted private producers to make the investment and to be able to get the RY from it. But, you know, come after 2016, 2017, I think they wanted to get into the commissioning mode. They wanted control over programming.
That is something that was a bit oxymoronic for us. We were a little reluctant to do that. And maybe because we had grown with the platform, we were reluctant to give up that kind of control to the channel.
We didn't want to be line producers for the channel. So I think it did for both of us. Right.
So I think we parted ways in a very, very, very, very friendly and professional manner. And we took our time. And, you know, Krishan Gupti of Star Plus and Kevin Baaz, now he's heading GeoStar.
But at that point of time, Kevin Baaz was handling, you know, Star Plus South. Kevin Gupti had been talking to me for a very long time. And the moment we left Sun, then the conversations began getting steamy.
We started our first project in Star by Hotstar in 2002. That was Tamilum Saraswathiyum. It was not a successful product.
We learned our lessons from that because we also understood that the way in which we operate with Sun TV was completely 360 degree or a 180 degree polar opposite from the way we had to work with Star. Right. So there it was, we would literally give a one line and we would say, this is the cast and it would be done.
Right. It would be across a coffee. But in Star Vijay, the entire process was to give out, you know, a three month story arc.
We had to give six months, you know, timelines. And then we had to give character diamonds. And then we had to give detailed story narration.
All of that was completely different for us. It took us some time. So Tamilum Saraswathiyum was our learning curve.
But after that came Saragadika Asai. And by the grace of God, by the time it came to Saragadika Asai, we had kind of understood what works on Star Vijay and then we had adapted. So I would, I can definitely say this proudly.
We are probably the only producer who has been there, done that in Sun TV, come out of Sun TV and is doing that now on the Star platform. Right. So this has probably not happened before.
And I'm, I'm very blessed, you know, it's a team effort. And, you know, my better half Radhika is the person, you know, who's behind selling and curation.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: But she did tell me one thing, you know, Sun TV has a telecast model. That means they give you that half an hour slot and they give you free commercial time on that and you sell it and they cut that 300 seconds. But the fact is the IP remains with you.
So you'd monetise it on YouTube, you monetise it globally, wherever you want to. Now, when you shift to Star Vijay or you do OTT, it's all commission. The IP is not yours.
Is that correct?
B Srinivasan: Correct. 100%. So we were fighting this internal demon for a very long time, Manita.
And then we said, you know, when change happens, it is probably for the better. It is better we adapt. Because also it's true that Sun TV no longer continues in the private producer model.
And it is not easy to continue in the private producer model on Sun TV because they are selling all the FCT around their programme. So just us selling independently 100 seconds on Sun TV is almost a mission impossible. So we did understand that change has come and let's adapt to changing times.
So we're happy with the margin business. We're happy to do, you know, work from, yeah, from an IP model to a commission model. It is something that we have adapted ourselves to.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: So I'm glad to hear that.
B Srinivasan: And I would just like to close with what I believe could probably, you know, be a peek into the future of Vikram. Because, you know, we are now when I come when we complete 100 years, the question always comes what next, right? So at that point of time, what I would do is probably I would try to ask myself, you know, what is a magazine?
What is a brand? What is content? What is storytelling?
What are experiences? And most importantly, what is the job to be done? Right?
As far as, you know, audiences are concerned, they don't care where stories come from. They don't care for a magazine brand. They don't care, you know, just holding the print in their copy of the print in their hand.
I believe the future is all about experiences. And I think the future is all about, you know, how you get, you know, how you engage meaningfully with audiences where they are not necessarily where we come from. So I personally believe that Vigadan would need to and we are attempting to do that.
How do we, you know, utilize our AI skill sets in order to create, you know, an experiential process for an experiential experience for our audiences in the future. And that is how, you know, so if they are able to see, if they're able to hear, if they're able to feel those stories, and if they are able to relate to them from that perspective, I believe Vigadan will be there where good storytelling is. And I believe that we would definitely want to leverage AI and future technologies that come by in order to try and stay relevant.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: AI is a whole, whole show by itself, because I've done so much work around that. But, you know, I'm going to come back to you on that one. Thank you so much on that happy note, Srini.
Talk to you again soon.
B Srinivasan: Lovely connecting as always, Vanita. You take care.
