“If plan A fails, remember there are 25 more letters.”
Chris Guillebeau
Introduction
Starting from a rejection to now the most loved digital content creator of young millennial’s in India . TVF has proved Content is the King if you have good content then no need to think about anything else . The company was started back in 2010 by a vision of its founder Arunabh Kumar creating Digital content for people in the underserved 18-35 age group. By referring to their current problems and their life .This content appealed to internet-savvy Indian millennials and, as the name suggests, went really viral. Arunabh understood that the new generation was bored with the traditional entertainment medium .New entertainment media are needed in the digital world. Because of this, he has chosen to make videos through his channel that focus on the younger generation and related issues.
The beginnings of creating parody videos gradually changed over time to the themes of country, society, people, politics, lifestyle, cinema. After that, the world of TVF videos changed as resources increased and viewer demand increased. In India, the time from 2005 to 2010 was very important in terms of internet. During this time, video and online content took shape and expanded. Online video streaming platform YouTube was first launched in India in 2008. UTV, MTV, and Zoom Channel played major roles in its launch. At that time, YouTube was emerging as a new entertainment medium for viewers who were bored of watching daily shows on TV.
About The Founder
From IIT to the most loved digital content creator and founder of TVF is Arunabh Kumar .He was born on November 26, 1982. The creation of content was started in his college Arunabh wrote short films and worked on documentaries in his college. After completing his engineering education at IIT Kharagpur He has worked as the position of assistant director on Deepika Padukone’s debut film Om Shanti Om . He soon recognized a gap in content from a commercial break in the 1930s to a 3 hour film for 18-35 that he can fill with his content. So he gathered his friends including Amit Golani, Deepak Mishra and Biswapati Sarkar who had the same way for storytelling and pitched MTV with the idea of creating short videos relevant to Indian youth. When MTV rejected the proposal, the team decided to parody the popular MTV show Roadies.
In 2012, Team released Rowdies, TVF’s first original video.it went viral and had 1.1 million views in just 5 days.
Business & Revenue Model of TVF
The Main source of revenue of The company is YouTube and apart from Monetisation main source of revenue is brand sponsorship of various brands which feature in the video and also ads via YouTube as mentioned above If you’ve watched some TVF web series, you might have noticed the Unacademy references in Kota Factory Season 1. The company also has its own app, which also generates revenue for them to have something of their own. They made it possible by hosting numerous funny videos which were their goal for today’s youth. Part of the revenue model. TVF’s estimated annual revenue is “$32.7Million”.1 With more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube. The company earns revenue when someone clicks on its ads. Accordingly TVF has uploaded 387 videos to YouTube till now .
The company also owns five other business units :TVF Branded Entertainment, TVF Production Labs, TVF Live, TVF TV Production and TVF ONE Online Network for Entertainment, which offers services such as internet branded content, production services, live events, web series to diverse its content .
TVF has also created a precise segmentation of the content offering by introducing different verticals to target different audience segments: Qtiyapa (comedy), The Timeliners (news and lifestyle), Girliyapa (female content), The Screenpatti ( teenage humor) .
Investment and Funding
The Company has raised $23M till now after 5 rounds of funding . The latest funding was raised on Nov. 2021 it was a debt financing funding of $2M from a Mumbai based firm BlackSoil with an aim to help in short-age of working capital and production of OTT content . In these 5 rounds TVF is funded by only 2 companies till now i.e. Tiger Global Management , BlackSoil .
What does Future Hold for TVF ?
With web series like Permanent roommates , Kota factory , Gullak , Panchayat . TVF has always proved itself as the best sources of Content That includes both Entertainment and Knowledgeable which help them to keep their audience loyal towards them which also helps them to get more brands and work with platforms like Amazon prime , Netflix .
In past few years TVF has faced some setbacks, from harassment charges Arunabh Kumar which led to resign him from the company and also internal Matters of Company fights over equity and quitting the company. However with the New film launched by TVF on Netflix “Jaadugar” Shows the company is Stable and working hard .
References
- https://leanbrow.com/success-story-of-tvf-that-makes-known-webseries-like-panchayat-and-gullak/
- https://startuptalky.com/tvfplay-success-story/
- https://thestrategystory.com/2022/02/08/tvf-business-model/
- https://www.thetvfreak.com/biswapati-sarkar-life-and-tvf-success-story/
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