Q&A: Manoj Padmanabhan, VP - marketing (digital), Ditto TV

Campaign India (CI): What is the TG for Ditto TV in India? Are people from small towns also downloading the app?

Manoj Padmanabhan (MP): Ditto TV is targetted to the affluent market who currently have high end phones and have 3G services activated. The channels available currently and the channels we look to add to our bouquet in the future are premium channels. We need to add premium channels as we need to provide reasons for users to download the app. We don't see users downloading our app if we have common and freely available channels.

CI: The app is available in India, US, UK, UAE, New Zealand and Australia. Where is access for Ditto coming from?

MP: Most of our downloads (80 to 90 per cent) are made in India. We are present in the app store and have launched in the US, UK, UAE, New Zealand and Australia, but we haven't begun marketing Ditto TV in those countries so far. In our three-month stint, we have around 2,00,000 users who come from urban as well as B+ towns.

CI: What challenges does Ditto TV face?

MP: The market for 3G users in India is still growing. Lots of people are still on 2G and 2.5G and want to access our content, but can't do so. Another challenge we face is that, people aren't comfortable purchasing our packs through credit cards or debit cards online. To solve this, we have made prepaid cards available in stores like Croma and Vijay Sales. If a store isn't located close to our customer, we have also started cash-on-delivery, where a customer needs to call and we deliver the card.

CI: We read about a tie-up with BSNL to launch a 'lite' version. Could throw some more light on the same?

MP: Yes, we are planning to launch an app for 2G users, which will help us reach out to more mobile phone users. Speed remains an issue in the Indian market and this tie up with BSNL addresses that issue.

CI: What are the plans for the future for Ditto TV? What channels can we see getting added on?

MP: We do want to add more channels to our bouquet, but don't want to compromise on the quality of those channels. Since we are a service for the affluent, we are only looking at associations with the premium channels. We currently have 27 channels to offer, and we want to take this number up to 50 in the next three months. Ditto TV, as an application, is available on the Apple App Store, Android market, BlackBerry Application World and Intel AppUp. Since we are present on multiple platforms, we plan to launch our services worldwide very soon.