MUMBAI: Last month Shemaroo Entertainment joined hands with Videocon d2h to launch a 24 hour ad free devotional channel “d2h Darshan”. The channel offers the audience a wide variety of religion related content such as temple tourism, jaaps, mantras, kathas, popular bhajans, holy books etc.

Speaking on the new service, Shemaroo Entertainment director Hiren Gada said, “d2h Darshan is a service that has been started for Videocon subscribers, we felt that the television space is more advertisement driven. The slots are sold on that basis, most of the content is customized according to that. And often that is not the content subscribers want to see. We want to cater content to the audience as per its needs.”

As mentioned earlier, the content will be distributed each day based on a particular god, the songs, katha, aarti and jaap will be based on that god. The videos programmed on each day of the week will be as per the special significance of that day devoted to a god. Gada said that they already possess 2000 hours of content from across thousand shrines in the country in the form of documentary, travel monologues, etc.

“The content will be from pan-India and this is our second devotional service after Airtel iDarshan, This year we covered live from Laal Baga Cha Raja in Mumbai, oldest pandal’s live puja on Durga puja and Jaganath Puri Yatra. We want to give people the experiences of different devotional places.”

Talking about the music and content that plays in the devotional space, he added, “Music plays very important role in our spiritual prayers, it reflects on the content. The ‘Kathas’ are musical, as are the stories and chants. And what we want to cater to the audience has the best of both sides, musical and story-telling.”

Gada informed further, “The content has been created by outsourcing and in-house workforce. The teams have collaborated with audio studios, production houses, directors, producers and content creators to build the library of 2,000 hours of content. With collaborations, our effort is to bring out everyone together in the space, from both the regional and the nation level.”

He also informed they will be using different sources for marketing and distribution. He said, “We are tying up in different ways with radio, television and DTH. It all ranges from selling ringtones, uploading videos on YouTube, all to reach the audience.

Speaking about the new trends in the devotional space, Gada revealed, “We believe India has a tremendous devotional category that has great potential, television is evolving, digitization is on in full swing, with digital media emerging and the consumer evolving. Content is very much influenced with what customer needs. ”

d2h Darshan can be subscribed at Rs. 30 per month since 1 December 2015 and is available for Videocon d2h consumers on channel number 481.