Discovery JEET opened with lot of promise with its differentiated flavor of shows, however, it never really managed to hit the right chord with the Indian audiences, raking in dismal ratings.
Its shows, Baba Ramdev: Ek Sangharsh being flagship project, sunk without a trace.
“The channel initially had longer plans, however, owing to a ‘not so encouraging’ opening response, they went on a defensive mode and cut down its programming plans. It stopped commissioning new projects and even cut down the number of episodes of its ongoing shows. Some of its announced products did not even find screen time,” says a source.
We are further informed that due to certain programming commitment towards its OTT partner Netflix, the channel continued to create content ‘which was only necessary’ as per the deal.
“So, lot of reshuffling is happening internally and many have also moved on. JEET’s operations officially will cease on 15 May,” the source ends.
Indeed, a channel not succeeding in its plan is a dent in business and growth for the entire industry.
We have been told that JEET as an entity will not produce original content and run dubbed versions of their international shows.
What will happen to already created shows? Will there be re runs?
“Nothing is decided yet. As of now, no such plans,” ends the source.
To corroborate on the information we reached out to the channel spokesperson who said in a statement exclusively to IWMBuzz: ” Discovery Communications India has experienced an impressive double-digit growth in Q1 of 2018 riding on multiple new initiatives including the launch of new digital products and the revamp of Discovery Kids. We remain bullish about our growth path in India and ambitious to continue to scale in this important market.
Our attempt to create a new category in the GEC space with Discovery JEET’s ‘purpose-driven, fact-inspired entertainment’ has not resonated with linear audiences in the way we had hoped. We remain very proud of the channel and undeterred by the inevitable challenges that come with driving an ambitious growth strategy in a market such as India. With Scripps pipeline, we now have double the size of content and formats at our disposal to help find the right formula of locally relevant programming for our portfolio.
True to one of the core attributes of its brand, Discovery has always and will continue to drive innovation and disruption around the world.”
We wish the network success in its upcoming initiatives.
