25 years of Teleview: A case study

By Deepal Sooriyaarachchi

In the village when everyone is a farmer you do not need superstars. Everyone needs everyone. They help each other to cultivate, harvest and in every other event in life. If a person is sick, everyone in the village will run about to find medicinal herbs. To repair the roof of a house or to clean a well, all that is needed is making the “hooo” sound.

This strong interdependency perhaps prevented someone becoming extremely successful for it would disturb the equilibrium of the social system. Perhaps it is this village thinking that we carry to date that we are shy to celebrate the success of others.

The stories of most local entrepreneurs are marked with an enormous number of “pulling from the leg” incidents by fellow citizens and those who were supposed to help them. It is in that context that I wish to reflect on the celebration of 25 years of Teleview, the leading television production house founded by Sunil Ratnayake.

When Sunil came to television commercial production the market was lead by the pioneer Telecine and Donalds, if I remember correct. Telecine is no more into TVC productions and so is Donalds if my recollection is right. Teleview, on the other hand, from very humble beginnings has come a long way.

The story of Teleview is the story of Sunil, an entrepreneur whose roots are in the south, but he identifies himself more with Badulla. Both areas are tough terrains, hence that must be the reason for many successful people to hail from these two areas.

What I would like to explore is the unique business model Sunil has adopted that has given Televeiw sustainability.

Managing the technology lifecycle

One feature of the technology related to audio visual production is the speed with which they become obsolete. One piece of hardware or software used to generate a particular special effect on one hand becomes obsolete the moment it being used by one or two productions. Hence in a small market like Sri Lanka it is difficult to explore the full potential of such facilities.

On the other hand, various production methodologies and technologies used in equipments such as cameras and editing facilities are replaced very soon by more advanced technology. This is a critical challenge for any television commercial production facility.

Managing human resources

Television productions are labour intensive. The list of credits given to various functional contributors at the end of a tele film gives us a flavour of this reality. The need to have a large number of staff, an experienced staff and to keep them engaged even when the production schedules are not regular can become a challenge to any producer.

Support services

As much as human resources, a large number of various support services are also needed to make a project successful, especially when a production involves multiple locations and various props to give the desired impact of a scene.

Teleview’s ability to progress over the years is very much dependent on the creative manner in which Sunil had built various components of the business model into a cohesive model. This must be credited to his ingenuity and the ability to see opportunities in problems.

The main components of his business are:

nTelevision Commercial Production Unit

nTeledrama Production Unit

nTelevision Technical Training Institute

nEditing facility and the related training modules

nTelevision Production Village

nLogistical Supply Division

nReaching home market globally

nUsing the barter system to get reciprocal advantage

nRural communications programme

nEvent management capability

nBPO in digital editing

The TVC production demands the highest quality of equipment and precision as it involves a massive communication effort compacted into very small time segments, usually 30 seconds. The equipment used in TVC production, having served the initial lifespan, are then moved to the production of tele-dramas; from there they are transferred to the television schools, where hundreds of young men and women who under normal circumstances do not get a chance to lay their hands on such equipment get the opportunity to use them during the training programmes.

Training institute

The training institute focuses on the development of middle level technician development. Once they complete theoretical aspects in the classroom, many of them get opportunities to work on real life projects in tele productions.

Some end up getting permanently recruited by Teleview and at the same time Teleview had been a regular supplier of technicians to the industry. There is hardly a television organisation, whether that is broadcasting or production, without a few from the Teleview Training Institute. The institute was possible because of Sunil’s passion to learn and to share.

When Sunil ventured into the production of a full length animated science fiction tele-drama, Bhavathra, a large number of youngsters got the opportunity to work on real-life animation projects which eventually hit the television screen.

Sunil has very correctly identified tele-drama as an industry. The need to be reliable in delivery with acceptable quality has become a critical success factor in this industry. The mega tele series that are being made popular in the recent years has proven this beyond doubt.

Based on his experiences by visiting places like Universal Studios, Teleview set up a tele village in Badullla, thus providing a single location for many scenes and reducing cost while increasing effectiveness. Sunil had built his own house too to become a multiple location rather than just a house.

Various logistical support such as costumes, furniture, etc., is another headache to any tele producer. At Teleview this too is a separate business unit. They purchase possible items from various sources including auctions, improve them and store them carefully. As a result this unit operates as a separate business unit, renting these items to other tele producers as well.

Targeting expatriates

Once a tele-drama is shown over a major channel, it usually goes to cold storage for at least a few years and most tele-dramas get telecast only once on any channel. Having identified the very large expatriate Sri Lankan community across the globe, Teleview had started releasing the tele-dramas targeting the home entertainment market.

Rather than worrying about duplication and pirating, Sunil has made his tele-dramas available to Sri Lankans in many parts of the world through a network of part time agents who distribute them in the respective markets, thus earning much needed exchange income for Teleview.

Being a small Sri Lankan company cash is a challenge. Teleview as a policy has been using, wherever possible, the barter system through contra deals to get various services for the company such as advertising and promotion exposure.

When developing tele-dramas, one capability that is developed is project management and technology management. This is being used as a source of revenue by providing event management services, leveraging the resources of the different aspects of the business. In addition, by leveraging the large stock of filmed material not used for final productions, Teleview offers various rural communication solutions.

With the increasing BPO trend, Televeiw has already entered into the space by undertaking labour incentive animation and similar functions for overseas clients. This business model in some ways resembles that of Mathsushita of Japan, who founded Panasonic Corporation. The common belief is that a company should stick to its core and build on the core capability.

Strength in diversification

However, in the case of Teleview, when we link the dots in reverse, it is this diversification that has given it the much-required resilience, especially by way of cash flow when things are not right in the external environment for its core business areas such as TVC and tele-drama production.

When large corporates use outsourcing as a way of focusing on core competency and reaching greater efficiency and effectiveness, small and mid size companies use diversification or backward and forward integration as a survival technique.

Teleview provides us a good case study to explore applicability of diversification and backward and forward integration as a strategy to survive for SMEs.

This article I hope can be a series to discovering various success stories that are found outside the traditional corporate business arena.