Balaji Telefilms: A Success Story

Balaji's success was attributed to its early entry into the business and presence in the regional markets. Balaji was credited for assessing the public demand properly. Its presence across the spectrum and its cordial relationship with most channels ensured it's continued growth. At the same time, its expenditure was controlled by its investment in high quality studios and equipment. Throughout the 1990s, Western-style plots had dominated Indian television soaps. Instead of following this trend, Balaji conducted research and TV shows and viewers. Balaji's research showed that the reach of fiction-based shows was about 60% and that they appealed to women across regions and languages...

Balaji was also planning serials in Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali and Gujarati. The Indian television software industry was highly competitive, comprising a few organized and many unorganized players. Padmalaya Telefilms, ATN International, Jain Studios, Galaxy Multimedia, TV18, Creative Eye, Pritish Nandy Communications and Sri Adhikari Brothers were the other major players in the sector.

The fact that some of the channels were getting into backward integration by starting their own production house did not augur well for production houses like Balaji. However, the ever-increasing number of channels was expected to help the company...