Tag: TV TRAIL

By Shailesh Kapoor

In many ways, the 1982 Asian Games (also called Asiad) in New Delhi had a major role to play in India’s television history. They marked the advent of colour broadcasting in India, and also initiated a culture of viewing live sports broadcast, a pleasure unknown to most Indians till that point of time.

The 17^th Asiad is currently underway in Incheon, Korea. But you would be excused for not knowing much about them. The Asiad event, which India once gave great importance to, has progressively lost significance over the last two decades. There is little media coverage, and virtually no viewership.

Even the Olympics, which have gained more prominence over the last few years thanks to India’s medal count moving from a zero for many years to a record five in 2012, record scant viewership.

Even if we look at the comfort territory, i.e., cricket, viewership has moved away from Tests and even ODIs, to the IPL. Evidently, we are becoming a country of leagues. With a high-investment property in Indian Super League (ISL) lined up, this trend would further consolidate in the coming year.

But the shift is not from nation-vs-nation sport to sporting leagues. It is fundamentally a shift from sports to sports entertainment. Consumer research in the sports category reveals the insight that watching sport, per se, is not always an entertainment experience. Purists, who follow sports to the last detail, are a handful in number, ranging from less than 15% of the total viewer base for cricket to less than 5% for most other sports.

For everyone else, tuning into a sports channel is primarily an entertainment-seeking activity. You are hoping to be dazzled by some high-octane action, a twist in the tale, some humour and even some song-and-dance. And yes, while you are at it, you will also like a particular team to win.

A purist (and I am one, when it comes to sports) may scoff at the state of affairs, but in what has been a one-sport nation so far, if this is what we need to build any kind of sports awareness, then so be it.

Where that leaves our handful of sporting heroes, who win laurels for us at International meets, is questionable. Saina Nehwal is arguably India’s greatest sportsman in the 2010-14 period. Yet, her awareness and popularity remains abysmal in mass India. Badminton is not an entertaining sport to watch, and to make matters worse, it is considered by many viewers as a fairly easy sport to play (and hence, no big deal in winning top honors in it!).

We are the crossroads of a sporting revolution of some kind. While a section of the sports fraternity is busy developing genuine talent in boxing, badminton, shooting and the likes, a large section of viewers are happy watching sports like popcorn fare.

Only time will decide which of these two directions will we head in. Both of them, however, are a major improvement on being a cricket-crazy one-sport nation.

By Shailesh Kapoor

SAB TV launched a show called Chandrakant Chiplunkar Seedi Bambawala last month. The long, tongue-twister of a name is now the longest show title for an Indian TV programme in my memory (I have discounted inconsequential taglines while considering titles). Star Plus broke its mould by titling their new show Nisha Aur Uske Cousins. At the box-office two weeks ago, a film released with a title that made it virtually impossible for the film to be taken seriously – Raja Natwarlal.

As the environment gets more distractive and options increase, the impact of content titling on its success has started to increase too. A title may not be the most important determinant of a show’s success. That comes from characters, plot and treatment, of course. But a title can be an entry ticket or an entry barrier, depending on how it is perceived.

Very little understanding of what’s a good title is available. It’s one of the least-researched areas in content. Which is odd, given that it’s the first introduction of the content to its target audience. Titling is still seen as a vague creative exercise. It is nothing but that. It is a marketing variable, but one that marketing departments in channels have very little say in.

It’s easy to justify a ‘bad’ title, because there will always be enough examples of shows that worked with a certain kind of title and vice versa. That they worked despite the title and not because of it is a point that’s rarely understood.

There may not be any tenets cast in stone, but there certainly are guidelines for good show titles, that we sense over many years of content and communication research in the Indian market. Here are five of them. Unfortunately, work ethic demands that I stay away from giving examples for them. But you should get the drift.

1. The marriage of simple and catchy: Keep it simple and stupid? In the entertainment business, that won’t necessarily be a recommendation. There needs to be a sense of attractiveness (commonly can “catchy”). But, the catchiness should not come at the cost of simplicity.

2. Avoid homilies and random musings: It’s amazing how some titles can be so “creative” that they communicate nothing. Innumerable TV and film titles fit this category.

3. Enough of song names, please: It may have worked for some shows, more memorably for Bade Achhe Lagte Hain. But the excuse to use a song name for a TV show title is now simply an excuse of being lazy. Songs that were never even popular in their own time are now being used as titles. And in some cases, this “own time” happens to be the 50s and the 60s!

4. Communicate the genre: The biggest marketing task a title can do is to communicate its show’s genre effectively. Choice of words in a title can be critical to communicate the heaviness or light-heartedness of treatment, the emotional tenor and the content bucket the show broadly falls in. I’ve often seen misleading titles being justified by that very standard and very lame explanation: It will be taken care in the treatment of the promos.

5. When in doubt, use character names: In fact, you can make that: Unless in doubt, use character names. Over five years of show tracking (Ormax Showbuzz), we’ve seen that shows with character names (lead or the lead pair) generate 35% higher unaided recall in their pre-launch week on an average, compared to those without one. Importantly, such titles force the promo writer to write character-building promos. For fiction content, that’s pure gold.

By Shailesh Kapoor

MC Mary Kom’s biopic releases today. After the success of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag last year, the film, succinctly titled Mary Kom, is hot property in Bollywood trade. After all, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was the first 100cr film that did not feature a big star in the lead. It was also the most-appreciated Hindi film in terms of audience word-of-mouth since 3 Idiots.

In a different and yet not-so-different world, Sachin Tendulkar will be releasing his autobiography, in November. Co-authored by Boria Majumdar, the book, titled Playing It My Way, is sure to make at least some young Indians read beyond Chetan Bhagat.

Evidently, the impact of sport on other media has increased in the last year or two. Traditionally, “sports” meant restricted live telecasts and news coverage of the same. Everything else around it was strictly ancillary. The only other place where sportspeople featured was the gossip column, when they dated a film star (at times, starlet).

While Bollywood has found sports in its attempt to find new stories, Indian television seems to have ignored this recent development. We are not a sporting country by any means, but that does not mean that we don’t have sporting heroes. Yet, no stories on television have covered them, their lives or the drama associated with sport in general. The last attempt of any sorts was back in 2009, when Sony aired a daily called Palampur Express. The show was based on a fictional character, not a real story, and had severe story-telling concerns, none of which were about “sports” as such. It went off-air within weeks.

In my growing up years, I remember watching the Bodyline miniseries with awe. The idea of recreating real sporting action with such authenticity was fascinating. Hollywood has also captured sporting drama in dozens of films, including the behind-the-scenes action in films like Jerry Maguire and Moneyball.

I understand that the economics of sports channels may not allow them to invest in fiction series around sports. But isn’t sports drama a part of the wider umbrella called “general entertainment”? We dish out talent shows by the day, but there haven’t been any that search for the next potential Indian cricket team member or the next potential Saina Nehwal or Sushil Kumar.

Sports drama can be excellent viewing for weekend audiences. It ticks most weekend boxes – it is male-skewed, it is kids-inclusive, it has a rush of adrenaline, and certainly a big scoop of inspiration.

A big network like Star, with equal interest in both sports and general entertainment, is best aligned today to bridge this need gap. A crackling sports drama or sports reality show can open up a new area of television programming in India. Otherwise, like it took a Richard Attenborough to tell Gandhi’s story, it would take another Brit or American to tell Dhyanchand’s story on TV or celluloid.

Bollywood has taken the first step. It’s time for television to follow and embrace the world of sport outside of live action. Anyone listening?

By Shailesh Kapoor

It has been an action-packed week for Hindi GECs. Three shows launched in the same slot on the same day, earlier this week. Monday, August 18, 2014 saw the action unfolding at 8.30pm, with the simultaneous launch of KBC on Sony, Nisha Aur Uske Cousins on Star Plus and Udaan on Colors. Zee TV had launched a new show in the same slot (Jamai Raja) two weeks ago.

We have had instances of a channel launching upto six new shows on the same day. But three big channels launching new properties on the same day in the same slot has to be a first in the nearly 25 years history of Hindi GECs. In a category where new launches have increasingly struggled to open well, this has to be counted as a very odd happening.

The equivalent of this would be three big movies releasing on the same Friday. Or three cola brands launching a new campaign in the same week. Can you remember either of that happening ever? Probably not. Which brings me to the point of this piece: Are we an under-coordinated industry?

Anyone who knows the way information flows in the Indian television industry would tell you that it needs no spy work to find out launch dates of new shows. The information is available everywhere, at the junior-most levels in channels and production houses. In any case, coming-soon promos for these shows have been running for weeks. That would be enough time to find things out.

Yet, when I see channels taking each other head-on, it indicates a certain insular approach towards the business environment. As it is, getting sampling on new shows is a tough task. If three new launches happen at the same time the same night, all are bound to feel the pinch, though some more than others. Building from a low base of viewership is possible, but lower the base, the more challenging is the build-up task.

There’s a lot of FPC planning that’s going on in GECs all the time. But it’s taking a more tactical form in recent years. Launching head-on against another well-promoted show is a strategic blunder, especially when an extra week would not make any discernable difference whatsoever.

But one can imagine why it’s happening. To understand this, let’s look at the probable outcome next Thursday, when the ratings are out. At least two, if not all three, shows may open below expectations, because of the fragmentation of new viewers in a highly unpredictable slot. However, show openings are marketing and communication KRAs, I understand. And that’s a department that’s likely to have the least say in the decision to launch head-on. In the end, all you can do to resolve this anomaly is a corridor discussion that borders on pontification.

52 weeks a year, six channels and at least eight daily fiction slots in a day gives us total of 2,496 possible launch day-slot options. The number of fiction launches in a year are only about 50. What are the chances even two, let alone three, fall on the same day-slot combination? It’s a version of the classical ‘Birthday Problem’ (visit the Wiki to know more). The answer would be very low, less than 1% for two shows and close to 0% for three shows.

Yet, it happened. Only in India!

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

In channels with original content (which accounts for 70% of all channels on-air), launch periods of new shows can be full of nervous energy. You can sense the vibe around the office. You see busy people all around you. Episodes have to be delivered, marketing campaigns are being planned and executed, media plans are being firmed up, cast members are on city tours and the PR team is in high-action mode, episodic promos are being planned for the post-launch week, etc. Urgency is the operating word.

An average launch would witness this cycle for about three weeks. With about 10-12 launches a year, a channel is in “launch mode” for about 35 weeks every year. That’s more than two-thirds of calendar time, and about 80% of actual working hours time, given that the other 17 weeks would tend to be slightly relaxed.

At the root of deciding whether this 80% share of annual effort delivers or not is, of course, the choice of content itself. Production, branding and communication are important, but marketing axioms tell us that no marketing or execution, however brilliant, can save a bad or an irrelevant product. Hence, spending time, effort and money on trying to make poorly selected content work is like hiring the best pilot to fly a faulty plane and hoping it won’t crash.

Content selection, then, is the all-important starting point around which the 80% effort (and indeed 80% results) pivots. Prudent selection of themes and ideas, when backed by good execution, can deliver magic. But reckless and thoughtless selection of content is bound to create failures.

Having observed various channel cultures closely over the last six years, my estimate of the proportion of total time and effort that actually goes into content selection would be a generous 15%. Money-wise, it would be less than 3% (Here, I talk about money spent on content selection decision process, not on the content itself).

A rational mind would struggle to justify this dysfunctional scenario. It’s like the 80:20 rule with a twist, whereby what has 80% impact of your business gets less than 20% of your resources, while what has only 20% impact on your business gets 80% resources. Why should this be happening?

The umbrella reason comes down to the much-misunderstood notion of “gut-feel”. There is a general sense (and even broad agreement) in the industry that gut-feel should prevail while selecting content. And applying gut feel takes neither time, nor effort or money. Gut-feel is about key people having the ability to take the right decisions, based on their experience and understanding of the category and its consumers.

There is an evident problem with this argument. It is well known that 70% of all new content fails to deliver. So that’s the report card on gut-feel at an industry level. Some of the biggest blunders in our television history have been commissioned by the same creative directors and channel heads who were responsible for some of the biggest success stories. That says a thing or two about the ability of gut-feel to consistently deliver.

That’s where the notion of “informed gut” comes in. Discounting gut, especially in a creative business, is neither recommended nor realistic. But gut, when combined with good evidence, can create an environment where content selection thrives on solid principles that combine creative instincts and business (consumer insights and financial) truths.

Channels tend to sometimes take one of the two extremes – either go only by gut, or when failure rates peak, set a process where gut is given no credence and the entire selection process is driven by business truths alone.

Ideally, gut itself should be seen a part of the business truth. Creative heads with an open mind and a penchant for business deliverables should be able to espouse the idea of informed gut, given its inclusive nature and its essential win-win premise.

Informed gut can be spoken about, even understood. But to make it a principle of running a channel business in India is a tough challenge today. Hope the times to come show us some evolution in this direction.

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

If you have been watching Star Plus’ Mahabharat, you would know that the worthy show is nearing a worthy conclusion soon. The story is currently in the latter half of the epic Kurukshetra war, though the mindgames off the battlefield are equally, if not more, intriguing.

The sudden and decisive jump in Mahabharat’s ratings over the last two weeks has been heartening to see. From averaging 3.1 TVR in Week 25-28, the show jumped to 4.4 TVR in Week 29, and has held onto that number in Week 30 too. This is the period when the battle has gathered steam, and stalwarts like Abhimanyu, Bhishma and Drona have been killed, but not before providing high drama and excitement.

Conventional television wisdom may suggest that war scenes are not the most TV-friendly content, especially in the Indian context, where GEC viewing is still largely family-led. I’m not sure if Indian parents would want their children to see Bheem drinking Dushasana’s blood. Wars are essentially violent, and that female audiences have low thresholds for violence is a universally proven fact, both via research and science.

Yet, war is working. Not just in Mahabharat, but recent war sequences in Jodha Akbar and Maharana Pratap too have managed to pull in new audiences, and engage the existing audiences better. There could be several reasons for this, but the one I find particularly strong resonance in is: Adrenaline.

Several years ago, I heard a channel programming head remark: “Television is all about hormones”. The line has stayed with me ever since. It has eternal relevance, because it is based on how we, the human beings, are made.

Some recent work made me read up more on various hormones and their functions. I was seeking correlation with their impact on television and film content. Essentially, almost all the explanation came down to three hormones – oxytocin (the love hormone), endorphins (stress-reducing or the happy hormone) and adrenaline.

More than 90% of successful television and film content can be explained using one (or a combination) of these three hormones. Oxytocin gets its due when we speak of romance, chemistry and falling in love. Its impact extends to love that may not be “romantic” in nature, like a warm hug given by a mother to her child.

Endorphins reduce stress, and the comedy genre is known to activate the release of this set of hormones. Indian audiences have even coined a phrase for it, something that everyone who works with us is familiar with: Mind Fresh.

But adrenaline has been generally ignored. Being more “outdoorsy” in nature, this hormone tends to link closely to male content preferences, than those of female audiences in India. But increasingly, its impact is being observed in our work. This impact was strong enough for us to include the impact of adrenaline as a separate parameter in our content testing tool Ormax True Value earlier this year.

If you have been following the Commonwealth Games closely, you would have noticed that weightlifters are given a sniff of adrenaline by their coaches just before they step forward to make their lift. A battle scene, if executed well, can provide a milder form of that rush to the audience at home. (I have never sniffed that adrenaline, so not quite sure of the comparison. Wonder why it is even legal for lifters to do that!)

Indian content makers and analysts have ignored adrenaline for a while now, probably because execution capabilities to deliver the rush were missing in this marketplace. But that may be changing fast.

It’s time the ‘josh’ hormone got its due!

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

When I first learnt that Star Sports are investing in Kabaddi, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. A wrestling league, or even a boxing league, would seem like a good idea, given the talk value around these sports in recent years, especially in the wake of India’s creditable performance at the global stage, including the 2012 London Olympics. But Kabaddi?

India has monopolized the sport at the Asian Games, winning all seven golds since its introduction in the event in 1990. But the primarily sub-continental sport has not found many takers outside South Asia. Awareness of the sport is very low amongst young audiences, many of who confuse it with the traditional Indian (dying) sport of Kho Kho.

Star’s decision to invest in Kabaddi, then, can be labeled as ‘high-risk’, a decision that would have to rely on exceptional execution to even find a critical audience in its first season. To their credit, having taken the decision, they have gone all guns blazing, with some good advertising and high media visibility. The simulcast on Star Sports and Star Gold will also help in widening the reach in the first year.

But you can’t “buy” relevance and appeal for a media property. It needs to be intrinsic to the content. Hence, it was with great curiosity that I tuned into the first four games.

My skepticism about the league has reduced considerably, say from 9/10 to 5/10, having watched the first two days of action. The last I watched Kabaddi was probably back in mid-90s. What I saw this time was strikingly different and several notches higher in entertainment than the sport I had imagined Kabaddi to be. Here’s why:

1. Shifting from mud to mat makes the sport visually cleaner and colorful. It is far more appetizing for TV than the ‘brown sport’ I remember from the 90s.

2. The rules have been changed to make the sport fast-moving and contemporary. There is less scope for time-wasting and the speed of action is higher than most other contact sports.

3. Hindi and English commentary are both available. The quality of commentary is very acceptable, and there’s a lot of focus on explaining the rules in the early games, while maintaining the energy of the event.

4. The celebrity quotient is present in good value. If it is only a function of the opening matches being in Mumbai, we will know soon. But if it sustains, the celebs would generate a lot of chatter around the league, a critical aspect in the first year.

It’s difficult to say if these steps will be enough to make the league work. But they at least give it a chance. I believe there’s definite entertainment on offer in the league, but the ratings would tell us over the next few weeks if the young audiences across India connect with this form of entertainment.

Even a moderately successful first year should encourage the organizers and Star to come back stronger in the second year. Other sporting leagues, including the much-hyped hockey league, have struggled to sustain themselves after a season or two. Star Sports Pro Kabaddi will hope to buck that trend.

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

Two decades of satellite television in India have seen many changes, including some watershed ones. But the more things change, the more they remain the same. Sometimes, there can be greater insight hidden in what has remained the same, than what has changed. For the television business, it is their love for the outdoor media that has stood like a rock for two decades now.

This love started as a natural fallout of the reverence the television industry had for Bollywood in the early ’90s. Anything films would do for promotions was seen as cool and even effective. Never mind if measures existed or not, or if the target audience of the TV show in question had any connection with theatre audience profile or not. That being the context, “how many hoardings” was a very important question.

In one of my early assignments in 2000, I was in charge of launching a new weekly fiction series. Working with frugal marketing spends, we decided to stay away from the outdoor media. Little did we know what was in store for us. About two weeks before the launch, the producers decided to hold back episode deliveries because they felt their show was not being promoted well. “We don’t see any banners”.

An executive producer in the week before a show launch can be a bundle of raw nerves and hence a mess to deal with. “They are saying we don’t see any banners”. After decoding the terminology in my head (banners, hoardings, billboards, posters… all used interchangeably in India, I now know) I replied: “If they could see any, it won’t be short of a miracle. I don’t have a budget to take any outdoor on this launch.”

A day later though, I was at the producer’s office, showing them outdoor creative, and taking them through the Mumbai outdoor plan, which included about five hoardings, out of which at least two were in Juhu, within a couple of miles from the producer’s home-cum-office. I had been sanctioned an additional budget the previous evening to make this happen.

Conversations around buying strategic outdoor sites that senior management encounters on the way from or to their home are not uncommon. “It will be very visible to the MD when he goes for his morning walk,” I was once told.

Several channels invest in an outdoor plan to create buzz amongst the trade – the advertisers and the media planners. Perhaps that principle was valid in the ’90s. But today, non-digital media being used for trade marketing in the media industry can only be seen as a wasteful expense.

Regarding the impact of outdoor on consumer awareness or sampling of a new launch, the less said the better. We have conclusive large-sample evidence to prove that general outdoor media contributes (make that NOTHING) in a film’s marketing plan. But point-of-sales OOH, i.e., advertising in the theatre, is highly effective. For television though, ‘point-of-sale’ is at home. The closest outdoor media to it is the mode of transport that brings a person home – the local trains, the metros, the local buses, etc. Even for them, effectiveness is limited, given that many launches target an audience that hardly steps out of home. In smaller towns (<1 lac population), the medium delivers better results as 3-4 sites can cover a sizeable proportion of the city at a fairly low cost.

But the Mumbai story is one of indulgence and prestige, than one of intelligence and prudence. Upto 10-15% of marketing budgets of some launches are spent on just the Mumbai outdoor budget. There is no measurement of the impact. But by extension of that argument, there is no measurement of the wastage either. Little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, right?

This is a classic case of the “If I see my own campaign a lot, I feel my campaign is very visible” syndrome. The syndrome has stayed with the industry for two decades. Bollywood has nurtured it for more than five decades, though they are now questioning it more than ever before.

Hope television follows suit!

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

Those who attend movie trial shows would relate to the predicament I’m about to share. Have you seen a movie at a trial, sat tortuously through it wondering what they were thinking when they were making it, and thenfaced with with the question you would pay anything to avoid: “How did you like it?”

Seasoned industry folk have mastered the art of responding to such questions. They would tend to say all the good things first, and then point out the big issue as an appendage: “But I just felt that if you spend some time explaining the story, the film would work better.”

This infectious living-in-a-bubble-at-launch-time disease has fast passed onto the television industry as well. Whenever a new show goes on air, I try and sample it for a couple of episodes, purely out of a disciplined habit inculcated over more than a decade. Seventy-eighty percent such experiences are excruciatingly boring. Mediocre writing and direction is rampant, and there’s only that odd show that stands out as being smartly made.

Whenever I liked something new, I used to make it a point to call or message my friends at the relevant channel about how it made me feel. Silence meant ‘not liked’, not ‘haven’t watched yet’.

But of late, this formula has stopped working. Imagine that you get a message from a channel friend, who has put his heart and soul into a new project, at 8.45pm, only 15 minutes before the new project goes on air for the first time ever. His message is brimming with excitement, requesting you to watch and give your feedback, because “it really matters”.

This scenario forces me to reply at 9.30 or 10pm, whatever the end time is. And my option to reply with my true thoughts (which could be “your team has killed the spirit of the concept you tested with us” or “sack the director now! NOW!”) can be limiting at times.

Hence, out of no choice, and actually with a baggage of guilt, I started behaving like the filmi guy at the trial, who would slip in the big negative as an inconsequential by-the-way. But the more I thought of this behaviour, I found it dishonest on every count, both to the client and to myself.

What’s the big issue about criticism, especially when it comes with a constructive solution-oriented approach? Can Indians stop being less touchy and more objective about their work? Can they not get that just because they have produced or marketed something, it need not blow everybody’s mind?

We have all been on the other side at some point or the other. Listening to appreciation about our labor of love can be a high, while criticism, especially when coming from trusted parties, can deflate you. But the ratings or the box office will deflate you anyway within a week. A bubble is never a stable place to live in.So, at some point of time in the recent past, I decided to shed the fear and the inhibition, and decide to say it like it is.

I would urge others in the business to consider liberating themselves of the responsibility of being polite and dishonest, within and outside the organization. You will discover how it can empower you from within. Not to speak of the respect you are likely to win over time!

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

The Football World Cup kicked off last night in Brazil. The month-long tournament is the only sporting event besides the Olympics that truly unites sports fans across the world. All other sports have their catchment areas, but soccer is the world’s favorite sport by a safe distance.

All that being said, the craze for the FIFA World Cup in India amuses me every four years. Yes, football is the second most popular sport in India after cricket. Both television ratings and consumer research show that besides WWE-style wrestling entertainment, no other sport has the potential to challenge football’s number two position over the next decade in India.

So my amusement is not so much about the following or viewership of the World Cup. That is logical and even expected. My amusement is about following of specific teams.

Every four years, we see news footage and newspaper stories about fans of certain teams, often the ‘third-world’ teams such as Brazil and Argentina, gathering at public places in India to watch World Cup games. These “fans” can give local fans of the respective nations a run for their money. They wear the team colours, know their team inside out and some even carry the nation’s flag on them.

How does an Indian, who has virtually no interest in nation-vs-nation football for four years, become an ardent fan of a soccer-playing national team? There is no rational explanation to this bizarre phenomenon. But we are not the most rational country in the world, are we?

I have two hypotheses. The first one says that the choice to support a team is to spice up the viewing of the World Cup. So you first take the decision “I must watch the Football World Cup”. The reasons for that could range from entertainment to social expectations. You then wonder: “Now that I’m watching the World Cup, I must decide whom I am supporting”. Making a favorite team choice is critical because it would create higher engagement with the tournament, and also create volatile water cooler conversations at office.

The second hypothesis is about the choice of the team itself. Most Indians tend to go for Brazil traditionally, for the strong third-world or brown-skin connect, I believe. Argentina has been a strong second favorite. The post-colonial effect ensures most European teams are ignored, though the ones that are not-so-British (such as Spain) have found some traction over time.

These choices having been made, the real amusement lies in the journey over the month of the World Cup. From being a forced fan to a natural fan can be some transition. But we Indians can make that transition within days, even hours. From “I choose to support Brazil” to “I love Brazil” to “Brazil BrazilBrazil” is a quick turnaround.

And if your chosen team indeed loses, you can behave as if the world has come crashing down. Though I suspect the hurt would last far shorter than that of India losing the final of a Cricket World Cup, a la 2003.

So, be prepared for bleary-eyed colleagues in your office for the next one month, behave like they were born and brought up in Argentina (or Brazil), and that Maradona (or Pele) is the biggest influence on their lives. And if you spot some foreign-looking flags on the streets, just remind yourself that you are still in India!

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor