MTV GOES GLOBAL, WITH A LOCAL ACCENT

Submitted byAkash Rawat Roll No. 08 Section - A

Case Analysis
MTV, the US-based music TV network, was established in 1981 and since then it has become a symbol of globalisation. It generates more than $ 1 billion in revenues outside US. Its success has been majorly because of its localisation strategy and focussing on its market across different countries. In 1987, MTV began expanding its presence to countries outside USA. It started giving a single feed across the whole of Europe with English speaking VJs thinking that Europeans would be eager to see more of American programs. But the people preferred local content except for few global superstars like Madonna and Michael Jackson. Most Europeans preferred local popular music than adapt to foreign music. MTV failed to understand this core principle and started to decline as local copycat stations in Europe emerged which catered to individual country music senses. Such local stations took away viewers as well as advertising revenues away from MTV. MTV looked at the world as the US and international. Instead it was US and 175 other countries. They had to respect the local cultures and reflect it in their programmes also. MTV realised its mistake and came up with the localisation strategy where they focussed on each country separately. From just one European channel in 1989 it grew to more than 200 channels in 175 countries. In different nations MTV programmes had feeds in the local languages so as to retain the regional flavour. For e.g., Hinglish (a combination of Hindi and English) in India, Mandarin feeds for China and Taiwan, etc. It even added eight separate feeds for its European consumers. Also the shows were made keeping in mind the local sensibilities of the consumers like MTV Bakra and MTV Cricket in Control in India, MTV Kitchen in Italy. But MTV made sure that it retained creative control over the shows even if the shows were made locally. This was because MTV did not want to deviate from its roots and wanted its viewers to have the same familiar frenetic feel of MTV everywhere in the world. Thus, initially it employed expatriates in new markets so that they would help in imbibing the companys culture and ethos in the new employees. Later the company would recruit local employees and the expatriates moved on. MTVs localisation strategy reaped huge benefits for the company. It was successful in capturing viewers back from local channels. Its ratings scaled more than 700% in India between 1996 and 2000. It was even successful in increasing its European advertising revenues from the local spots from 15% to 70%. There has also been a phenomenal increase in its viewership across the world.