Can we create a space for alternative films in the mainstream?

In 2007, while travelling to Docedge in Kolkata from Colombo, I stopped over in Chennai to spend some time with friends. I was narrating to one of them the problems documentary filmmakers face in India - little access to funds, and worse still, even less access to an audience - when she said, why don't you guys start your own channel. It doesn't take much to lease a transponder, the problem is in creating content. And since documentary filmmakers already have a body of work that's waiting for an audience, it makes sense for them to get together and start a channel of their own.

At that time, I wasn't really convinced it would work. I made some vague arguments against it, but unknowingly a seed had been planted in my head.

A year later, I was at Docedge again. At a discussion about the future of documentaries, a fellow documentary filmmaker said that finding funds to make a documentary was not as difficult as finding avenues to show the documentary.

Suddenly, Vasantha's idea of documentary filmmakers starting a documentary channel seemed feasible to me.

A couple of weeks later, I was at MIFF, and there was another discussion of starting a documentary channel. A few filmmakers felt the government should do it, others thought an association of documentary filmmakers should do it. I was sceptical either would. And even if they did, they would suffer from all the problems that committee-run institutions suffer from. The government channel would be tepid and uncompetitive; the filmmakers' channel would have a collection of excellent films, but would not have the resources to effectively sustain it. Mainstream media groups, I knew, had been toying with the idea of starting a documentary channel too, or having documentary slots, but to make them commercially viable, they were giving documentary filmmakers a raw deal.

The only way out, I thought, was a kind of venture that's part co-operative, part corporate. I spoke to a friend who's into M&A about the viability of such a venture. He wasn't too enthusiastic about my amateur attempts to take on the Stars and Zees and UTVs of the world, but I still thought the idea was worth pursuing. For the moment though, I kept it on the backburner.

About a month back, an invigorating discussion on a note by Batul called 'The David and Goliath of filmmaking' motivated me to give the idea a public hearing. I'm posting what I wrote in that discussion to share the idea with a more disparate audience here, to see if we can bring this idea to fruition together. Here is the post:

"I had a long read at all the posts here, and I think this is the right forum to pitch an idea a friend and I have been toying with for a long time.

I agree there is a large audience for the kind of films we want to make. The problem is, the audience is too widespread to efficiently target through regular film distribution channels. But our own TV channel might just be the answer. An alternative TV channel that shows anything and everything mainstream has no room for.

I haven't done all my homework regarding the viability of this, it's not something I can do alone, but I gather that transponder costs are not much, what kills a channel are acquiring the software to keep it going, getting cable operators to carry it, and advertising the channel to the target audience.... See More

To avoid these pitfalls, we thought of a business model that's part corporate, part co-operative. It works like this. The channel is a proper business entity. We need to secure some initial funding from venture capital funds to set it up and for operating costs. We will definitely need to do a lot of number-crunching to prove the audience exists, that they are more than willing to watch this channel over other general entertainment channels, etc to attract this funding, for which we need to business and marketing people who think like we do

This venture capitalist gets part of the stake for the capital they bring in. The rest of the stake belongs to filmmakers who get a share in the company in proportion to the running time of the films they bring in. The software acquisition cost therefore becomes zero, which is what makes this idea plausibly viable. And as and when the channel picks up an audience and advertisers, and starts making profits, the filmmakers will get dividends on their investments.

Now for distribution. Going through the regular cable distribution set-up is going to be bloody expensive, and the channel will fold up even before it starts. But there is now the option of DTH. If we can tie up with one of the DTH platforms, charge a reasonable monthly subscriber fee, we might be able to attract an initial audience from those who watch World Movies and NDTV Lumiere.

About the only expense we will have is promoting the channel.

Is this idea practical or utopian? We need to discuss this with some business and marketing heads to find out."