New platforms, new growth, consolidation
At 6.47 per cent share of total viewership, programming targeted at children gets more eyeballs than regional movies, Hindi news, music and sports.
SEVANTI NINAN on significant trends in the FICC-KPMG report. Pix: Kids TV is a fast growing market. Image credit- alohamindmath.com
TALKING MEDIA
Sevanti Ninan
Though most of the press it gets is for the sunny growth predictions it makes every year, the FICCI-KPMG report on the media industry released last month also points to some significant trends.
One is the rise in online and mobile platforms for television content over the past year. Zee, Star, Viacom 18, and MSM India were the networks which launched multi-screen platforms, hoping to find other ways to monetise television content. MSM’s Sony LIVE offers current and previous shows and has free mobile applications, Zee Network’s Ditto TV offered 50 channels across broadcasters and saw 100,000 downloads since its launch in February 2012. This too has a free mobile application. But the Star Network’s Star Player which has short form and long form content drawing on current and previous shows has paid mobile applications. Viacom TV meanwhile offers online platforms for Colors, MTV, Nickindia, Sonicgang as a video on demand service.
The report says that with consumption of television content across platforms rising the industry will soon need a measurement platform that integrates viewership across multiple media. But that is a premature concern. Judging by the Facebook comments these platforms are getting there are teething troubles a-plenty for users at this point. Better broadband and the 4G services rollout should help.
The second significant trend of 2012 is that in a young country, media catering to this segment is coming into its own both in terms of viewership share and revenue generation. The fourth largest television viewership genre in the latest report, after Hindi and regional general entertainment and Hindi movies, is that of TV channels for children. That Indian homes are child-centred we know, but how significant this audience is becoming for the media and entertainment industry, we don’t. At 6.47 per cent share of total viewership, programming targeted at children gets more eyeballs than regional movies, Hindi news, music and sports. That is something which leaps out of latest report.
Viewership share by genres – all India
|
Genre
|
2012 (% share)
|
|
English Entertainment
|
0.14
|
|
English News
|
0.23
|
|
English Movies
|
0.88
|
|
Hindi GEC
|
30.01
|
|
Hindi News
|
3.18
|
|
Hindi Movies
|
11.93
|
|
Regional GEC
|
20.18
|
|
Regional News
|
2.78
|
|
Regional Movies
|
3.65
|
|
Kids
|
6.47
|
|
Music
|
3.09
|
|
Infotainment
|
1.08
|
|
Others
|
16.4%
|
From FICCI-KPMF Report on Media and Entertainment, 2013
What is referred to as the Kids segment in the industry saw a 17 per cent growth in viewership in 2012, it also saw a 20 per cent growth in advertising the same year, compared to five percent in an earlier year. The increase in viewership is attributed partly to new launches, there is less and less one broad kids segment: sub segments within this genre actually have entire channels targeting them. For instance ‘Disney Junior’ and ‘Nick Junior’ launched last year were targeted specifically at pre-school kids. Then, two new channels targeted towards kids between 4 and 11 years were launched with an ‘edutainment’ positioning – Zee Q and Discovery Kids. The first three are only on digital platforms. And when you get into programming sub-segments you get into increasingly targeted advertising, hence the 15 per cent leap in ad revenue last year.
Parents will be happy to pay for more niche channels for their offspring. when BBC closed down CBeebies in 2012 (citing unviable carriage fee payouts as a reason, according to the FICCI –KPMG report) a bunch of distraught Delhi mothers apparently wrote to the channel asking for it to resume. We are only just getting to channels for children in regional languages (Sun TV’s Kochu TV), and this too will grow post digitisation.
Meanwhile, in rural india, while the general demand is for cartoons according to mothers and fathers in many villages, they also say that their kids will come home after play and watch the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet , already dubbed in some Indian languages.
While children watch what parents watch in many homes, they increasingly control the remote at certain times of day. Parents in different parts of rural and semi-urban India actually say this. And whom this has negative implications for is the public service broadcaster. Doordarshan is dull and if the children are around they don’t let us watch it in the evening when Doordarshan’s farm programmes come on, said men during a discussion on television on the outskirts of Bhilai in January.
But in other parts of the country, such as coastal Andhra Pradesh, DD’s dullness makes it the channel of choice. DD’s audience research unit in that state says that one reason the terrestrial antenna survives in many villages is because the parents don’t want television to be a distraction at exam time! Not a great reason to survive.
In rural Delhi they do it a little differently, everybody is on DTH and at exam time you simply do not recharge!
But basically, with digitisation changing the game for all, as one of the experts quoted in the report says, the public broadcaster has to think in terms of a channel for children, even as better off families will be able to afford premium children’s content. Right now DD National’s satellite channel manages barely one per cent programming time for kids.
The third trend seen last year was consolidation in different sectors of the media and entertainment industry. Companies exited non-core business, and acquired more stake in their core businesses. News Corp got out of Star News and increased its stake in ESPN-Star Sports. Networks like Network 18 and Sony Picture Television bought regional properties in Andhra Pradesh. An industry which has seenndom expansion and then a financial crunch is now seeing more strategically through out mergers, acquisitions, and exits.
Television M&A activity in 2012
|
Genre
|
Target
|
Stake
|
Acquirer
|
Comment
|
|
Broadcast
|
UTV Global Broadcasting
|
20%
|
The Walt Disney Company India
|
Expansion into multiple genres
|
|
|
Living Media India Limited
|
27.5%
|
Aditya Birla Group
|
Strategic
|
|
|
MCCS
|
26%
|
ABP Group
|
Exit from non-core genres
|
|
|
ESPN Star Sports
|
50%
|
News Corp
|
Consolidation of presence in existing genres; Disney exit from non-core genre
|
|
|
MSM
|
32%
|
Sony Pictures Television
|
Buy out of minority share holders
|
|
|
MAA TV55
|
30%
|
Sony Pictures Television
|
Regional expansion
|
|
|
Eenadu TV
|
50% (5 channels) 25.4% (2 channels)
|
Network 18 Media
|
Regional expansion
|
|
Distribution
|
DEN Networks
|
1.14%
|
Reliance Strategic Investments
|
Strategic
|
|
|
Digicable
|
90%
|
Sahara Group
|
Strategic
|
|
|
Hathway Cable & Datacom
|
17.3%
|
Providence Equity Partners
|
News Corp’s exit from non-core business
|
|
Content production
|
Endemol India61
|
49%
|
CA Media
|
Strategic
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(This is an expanded version of a column which appeared in Mint, April 4, 2013)