Festive season will be stimulus for bigger recovery in TV advertising: Siju Prabhakaran

The Zee Network accounts for 20 per cent of all TV viewership in India and a third of the viewership comes from its South Cluster of channels. The peak pandemic months of April and May had an impact on advertising revenues and channels could not monetise the surge in viewership. Zee Kannada and Zee Keralam were the first channels to begin production of original content in the first week of June. Zee Telugu came back with original content during the end of June. Zee Tamil came back with fresh content from July 27.

The South cluster channels are seeing a stable growth month on month and expect to reach average monthly revenue of last year by September-October. If the upward trend continues till Pongal festival (December-January), then the portfolio channels expect a strong recovery buoyed by festive 2021.

On the viewership front, all South channels enjoyed a strong viewership, however, Zee South Cluster’s movie channels Zee Thirai (Tamil), Zee Picchar (Kannada) and Zee Cinemalu (Telugu) gained a significant share of movie viewership in their respective markets. At No. 3 position in Tamil Nadu, Zee Thirai has a 20 per cent share in Chennai and 17 per cent in Urban markets. Zee Cinemalu (Telugu) increased market share from 22 per cent to 27 per cent and became a strong No. 2 player. Zee Picchar is also at No. 2 in its respective genre.

In terms of festive plans, during October-November, each channel will launch 3-5 new shows in their own markets in fiction and non-fiction. In conversation with Adgully, Siju Prabhakaran, EVP and Cluster Head South Business, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), speaks about the strategy for the festive season and new content in the pipeline.

What was your programming strategy during the lockdown?

For four months, viewers were deprived of their favourite characters and serials. There was this concern about how will the viewers respond once we begin airing original content. Some channels went very heavy with movies. We as a channel felt we needed to take care of our core viewers who come every day to watch their favourite characters and serials, and focused more on that. This is a habit driven category and the characters have made a mark over the years on the viewer. We launched quite a few network initiatives like ‘SaReGaMaPa 25 Years’, where all the network channels under ZEEL came together to celebrate this iconic show.

What is the viewership that you are seeing for your shows during primetime?

Over the years, we have observed that fiction viewership that the channels have built across Southern markets and all India markets, continues to remain steady. There may be slight variation for some shows here and there, but by and large it is stable. Last year, we observed that Zee Tamil viewership was only slightly affected by the Indian Premier League.

Zee Kannada is a slot leader during the primetime band. During the festive season, we have great offerings for our viewers, with our marquee property ‘Zee Kudumba Awards’ and this weekend we are also launching ‘Comedy Kiladigalu’. In addition, we had launched new season of ‘SaReGaMaPa’ on Zee Kannada recently with 9.8 TVR. In terms of market share, Zee Kannada has around 36-37 per cent market share and is a strong No. 1 channel in Karnataka.

After Zee Kannda, Zee Keralam was among the first channels within the south cluster to come back with original content. The most heartening piece is that our new channel Zee Keralam gained significant share within one and half years of its launch and has around 13 per cent share in the Kerala market, building on the back of fiction shows, which are the pillars of any GEC channel. The forthcoming weeks will see Zee Keralam launching two non-fiction shows.

In Andhra Pradesh (AP), Zee Telugu was on a recovery path prior to the lockdown, but growing strongly. We are the 1st channel in the AP market within the GEC (general entertainment channel) space to come back with originals post lockdown. We launched all the 14 fiction shows in a single day with a powerful brand campaign of the comeback called “Vinodaniki Aahvanam”, meaning “Welcoming back the entertainment”, through our brand ambassadors from our prime time shows. There was demand for original content and we wanted to capitalise this through this campaign.

The channel launched a new fiction show recently, titled ‘Hitler Gari Pellam’ with an impressive 8.0+ TVR. We will be soon launching our marquee property ‘Zee Kutumba Awards’ and world television premiere of ‘Saaho’ and two new fiction shows during the upcoming festive season.

In Zee Tamil, the market was most affected in the initial phases. However, post comeback, we are strong No. 2 channel, gaining slot leadership, two shows amongst top 5, four shows amongst Top 10, No.1 channel in primetime and leaders in the fiction genre.

We also have a very interesting line-up for the festival season with the Zee Kutumba awards, world television premiere of interesting movies like ‘Ennai Nooki Payum Thotta’, ‘Saaho’ (Dub). Zee Tamil is also launching two new fiction shows – ‘Suryavamsam’ and ‘Dr Ambedkar’s Story’ during the third week of September.

What was the growth in viewership of your South movie channels, especially ones that launched recently?

During lockdown, Zee Cinemalu witnessed a surge of 21% and post lockdown the channel witnessed 46% growth compared to pre lockdown GRP numbers. The market share increased from 22.4% to 27.2% post lockdown within the movie genres.

Zee Thirai opened with 28 GRPs during the launch with a 4.6% share in movie genres in TN U+R market and with 32 GRPs and 5.2% share in TN Urban market.  In Chennai the channel opened with 52 GRPs and 7.6% market share. The channel moved upwards ever since the launch and currently occupies a market share of 14.4% in U+R, 16.7% in Urban and 19.3% in Chennai, all this within 7 months of launch.

Zee Picchar opened with great reception from audiences. As per the recently released BARC weekly data (Urban + Rural), for the first month since the launch, Zee Picchar has claimed the second position in the Kannada television market and continues to be at No. 2 within the movie genre

We've seen viewership growth led by non-primetime viewership. Are you planning fresh content in your programming for afternoon daypart or other non-primetime slots?

Yes. We are looking at original & a few dubbed content in the afternoon time bands.

In Zee Tamil, we are launching our network’s very popular show Kundali Bhagya in Tamil. We already have a number of original contents across the markets like in Telugu, we have 5 fiction shows in the afternoon & 1 Non-fiction show. While in Tamil, we have 3 originals fiction shows already.

Spread of audience and time consumed by the audience in these markets being high, we look at non-primetime as a very potent slot to capitalise. 

How were ad rates and revenue impacted during the lockdown? What’s the recovery that have you seen?

A lot of networks have put out anywhere between 60 per cent and 75 per cent impact in the first two months, depending on the genre. If you were a GEC, the impact was more and if you were movies or news, then the impact was lesser. Since the April and May months, the recovery has been volume driven, but from July-August we are seeing that ad rates are coming back with demand for inventory. Due to uncertainty, a lot of advertisers did not advertise in Q1 and Q2 and have postponed their advertisements to Q3 and Q4. I think the festival period will be the start point for the bigger recovery that will happen because it will create momentum for advertisers that was there in the pre-COVID times.

What’s your marketing strategy for the launch of new shows?

When we launch a new show, we rely on our network to create awareness. Compared to previous years, we have changed our approach and look strongly at digital to engage viewers, because you have heavy viewers and light viewers who are on digital while watching TV. The whole social media and digital advertising we see at this point in time is a great complementary medium to what we do. We do print tactically for announcements. We are looking at digital activations as another big space during this period, because a lot of social influencers have come around and our own categories are very popular. In this rapid period of change, we keep evaluating the best approach to reachaudiences. Different channels and different shows could have a tailored approach. Ground activations which used to be a strong tool to target urban audiences is not being actively used now. From a marketing mix standpoint, the scenario is changing.

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