Avi Himatsinghani and Sandie Lee on skilled curation at Rewind Networks and the enduring appeal of linear.
For the best in classic U.S. series, library blockbusters, and day-and-date reality, entertainment, drama, and comedy from the American broadcasters, pay-TV audiences across Asia have come to depend on Rewind Networks’ HITS-branded portfolio of networks. Challenges in the ecosystem notwithstanding, Avi Himatsinghani, founder and CEO, and Sandie Lee, executive VP, are doubling down on their belief in curated playlists for linear viewing as well as offering on-demand rights within operators’ basic tiers.
It’s been a weird year for media in general. How has the year been for Rewind Networks?
Avi: For us, it’s been a weird 12 years! When we came into this game, we were the outliers, focusing on a curated destination, a playlist of the best of. That evolved, and we now have three networks. With HITS, HITS MOVIES, and HITS NOW, we’re continuing to invest despite the challenges in the ecosystem. It’s a tough place, but with the challenges come the opportunities. We continue to see great opportunities to invest in content and curate with purpose. We’ve always curated with the brand proposition in mind. That keeps us going—from our B2B proposition to our affiliate partners to our promise to our viewers, who continue to find our playlists, content, and curation sticky and a place they keep coming back to.
We came of age during the heyday of pay TV. There was a sharp move to on-demand, lean-forward at the dawn of the streaming wars. What continues to drive your belief in linear?
Avi: It comes down to a simple understanding of consumers. Linear and on-demand are forms of curation, and both serve different types of audience needs. Some shows will work brilliantly on linear, but not on-demand. There’ll be shows that have moved to the on-demand world and won’t work on linear. We need to understand how content finds its space. If it’s a binge-worthy, new show with a cliffhanger at the end of every episode, and you can’t wait to get on to the next one, it’s a no-brainer that on-demand is the way to consume that kind of play. But there’s also a place for shared pop culture moments.
Sandie: There is choice fatigue. Viewers want something that’s been curated for them. The good thing about our channels is that the proposition is very clear. When people go to that channel, they absolutely know what they’re going to get.
Avi: The consumer has limited time and a limited wallet, which are shared among all these experiences, whether it’s free streaming on YouTube or shorts on TikTok. Curated destinations and on-demand services serve the same purpose: ease of viewing and of making the most of your limited time and wallet. Linear has a powerful space in that world. It’s a hybrid world where content sits in different places. That doesn’t mean that linear destinations and the playlist approach are going anywhere.
Sandie: For linear, the discovery of programs is more efficient. You can find what you don’t know you want to watch. When you watch on an OTT service or a streaming service, you need to know what you want to watch. You need to lean forward to read titles or synopses to decide if you want to spend time watching the show. When you scroll up and down the linear services, you might land on a show that you’re interested in and watch something new.
Avi: You have to have a very clear proposition. The linear of today is very different from the linear of previous years. The linear of today has to live up to and deliver on that brand promise. Ten or 15 years ago, you could put up a channel bug on the corner and get away with putting on something off-brand, and people would watch. That’s not going to happen today. It has to be very clear.
We’re doubling down on linear—handpicked curation and blockbuster shows paired with the simple lean-back experience.
First-run, general entertainment was not part of your initial model. How has the journey with HITS NOW been?
Avi: Around the time of COVID, a lot of big global media networks were shutting down their linear networks. We looked around and said, there’s a whole lot of unclaimed pop culture stuff, big franchises, that have not gone to the streaming services. That left a vacuum in the marketplace for all this content. The audience we are serving was missing out on these great franchises, day-and-date express from the U.S. In February 2023, we launched with our first live show, the Grammy Awards. The rest is history. HITS NOW will celebrate three years in February. We’ve become that quintessential general entertainment channel. It’s all in one place. Our north star is still the name. We can’t compromise on the franchises.
Has the curation strategy changed for HITS or HITS MOVIES?
Sandie: On the fundamental level, the proposition has not changed. We know our audience. Our audience lets us know what they like and what their favorite shows are. We can go forward in time for the movies, but we can also go very far backward in time. For HITS, it has to be a blockbuster series. We can run through the gamut of titles and relicense them. We do have some newer ones, like CSI and Law & Order: SVU, as well as [older shows such as] I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, which work very well for us. In the past, we didn’t curate for festive seasons for HITS, but this year, we decided to do it for Halloween. I had the miniseries Salem’s Lot. Miniseries are very sticky. In December, we’ll have Roots. For Christmas and Valentine’s Day, I’ve added some TV movies into the mix. Those work quite well for Indonesian, Malaysian, and Filipino audiences. We try to do some exciting stunts so people don’t get bored and can look forward to something different.
Avi: Many hit series are also being upgraded to HD and 4K. We’re looking at some of those.
You’re listening to your audiences. How do you balance data and old-fashioned gut instinct?
Avi: The first gut instinct is Sandie. She is the human form of gut feeling. It’s an art. It starts there. That’s where our curation comes from. We are beautifully guided by our brand promise. Those goalposts are always there for us. They have to be hits, beloved by audiences. Having said that, from day one, we treated social media as a listening tool, not as a push tool. We never sought likes; we always knew that the social audience is different from the linear TV audience. But it’s a great place to listen because those who love our stuff always find a way to communicate their feelings. I always joke that Sandie’s like a DJ in a retro club.
Sandie: We are one of the few channels that can do this. On current stuff, people don’t know what to ask for. For HITS and HITS MOVIES, they want to program the channel for us.
Avi: It’s another data point for us. Little House on the Prairie was not in our original acquisition target list, but we got a lot of requests for it; it turned out to be a super hit on our channel. Sometimes those hidden gems are sitting in consumers’ minds, and they’re asking us to play it, and we’ll say, Okay, let’s go out and get it.
Your platform partners are under pressure. How are you collaborating with them to support the entire channel ecosystem?
Avi: Clearly, linear is a shrunken offering in terms of just the sheer number of channels. Brands have left the market. A whole lot of content has migrated to the on-demand world. We’re seeing the approach that our pay TV operators and telco partners are taking. Many of them are broadband distributors. They have a basic bundle linked to either a basic pay-TV subscription or a broadband subscription. All of our channels serve that basic linear bundle strongly. Operators are shrinking the bundle options and the variations they had in the past, and simplifying the offering to a single, basic, linear bundle. They are moving to a place where streamers, OTT, and direct-to-consumer brands are aggregated into premium ARPU packs that are buy-throughs for specific interest groups. Many of the partners have simplified their packs in the last two to three years. Our channels are serving that simplified basic tier offering. We are also working alongside the studios. We’re trying to bring more catch-up available for [platforms]. They have all evolved their own ecosystems to serve both linear and on-demand. We aim to give them substantial on-demand catch-up rights alongside linear rights. In the case of HITS NOW, we even have stacking rights for some seasons. Our offering is not just linear. We include catch-up on demand for many of the shows we bring. Thankfully, our content providers are quite supportive of such initiatives because, at the end of the day, we’re trying to create more stickiness and more opportunities to view that same content. We’re playing stronger on the linear bundle where we serve distinct, clear-cut propositions like HITS, HITS MOVIES, and HITS NOW, and adding on to that value proposition with the catch-up on-demand, and in some cases, like in HITS NOW, stacking rights.
What are your goals for your portfolio in 2026?
Avi: We want to pursue getting into more markets quite aggressively. Some platforms that carry HITS and HITS MOVIES are not yet carrying HITS NOW. We have a slew of recent and upcoming announcements for HITS NOW launches on more platforms. So, continued geographical expansion remains a clear focus. We’ll be happy to explore some markets beyond Southeast Asia, the greater Asia markets. We would try to expand our services there. υ
