Saturday, March 14, 2009

The content blackout on GECs is over, at least for now. But the after effects will remain. 4Ps B&M's Pallavi Srivastava finds out more...


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For the past one year General Entertainment Channels (GECs) have been the talk of the television town for some reason or the other. And last week the blackout of fresh content on GECs, owing to the scuffle between the TV producers and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), has given everyone a reason to burn midnight lamps to find out the action on the teletube. Although the 10-day long standoff had been called off even as the magazine was going for print, yet after effects may remain for some time...

Sample this: GECs lost an average 35-55% GRPs during the first three days of the content blackout (aMap, for November 10-13). The advertisers, on the other hand, stood by in solidarity with broadcasters. They did not pull out their ads as per a decision taken by the Advertising Agency Association of India. “Advertisers are supportive of our stand against increasing cost of content, which in turn leads to increase in ad rates,” says Keertan Adyanthaya, EVP & GM, Star Plus. Industry insiders however feel that the strike was called off just in time or advertisers would have started pressing the panic buttons. Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, believes that had the content blackout continued, "the advertising revenues of GECs would obviously have started falling because of stagnating viewership.” Take a look: During November 10-14, Star Plus’ GRPs have fallen by 52.9% to 107.19 points as against 227.9 during November 3-7. Similarly Zee TV has seen a fall of 49.53% (see table). Nayyar adds, “The advertisers may have pulled out some ads and negotiated rates for some.” Admits Tarun Mehra, Business Head, Zee TV, “Revenues would have been affected, but I can’t say how much.”

However, for channels at this juncture, more crucial than advertisers and their potential reactions are perhaps the viewers. After all, the soaring popularity of GECs is an out-and-out eyeball game. If viewers come back, advertisers will easily follow suit. But once migrated to other channels and genres, it becomes difficult to get audiences hooked back to programmes. As Naresh Gupta, EVP, Planning, Publicis India warns, “It is a dangerous scenario for many serials. Once the viewer gets out of the habit of watching daily dose of soaps and gets used to other programmes, it can lead to a long term change in habits.” And TV viewing is all about habits! But this does not literally means that the future of GECs is in peril. As Nayyar argues, “A week or two is too short a period to break TV watching habits," but get ready to see some huge advertising – billboards, in-TV placements etc – from broadcasters to entice every last viewer back and then some more.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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