Rewind 2021: Television holds fort amid the aggressive march of OTT

In 2021, the arrival of OTT platforms did not diminish the importance and relevance of TV, especially with regard to the family audience. The BARC data reveals that, as of 2021, around 210 million Indian families own a television set, a 6.9% rise from 197 million in 2018. There has also been an increase in the number of people watching TV. According to the FICCI-EY report, the TV households base in the country could continue to grow at over 5 per cent till 2025, driven by connected TVs which could cross 40 million by 2025; DD Free Dish could cross 50 million, the report says.

The year 2021 saw the emergence of DD Free Dish, Prasar Bharati’s free-to-air DTH service, scripting its own success story in India’s TV landscape. The FTA service crossed 40 million subscribers during the first quarter of 2021. Many factors have contributed to the growth, the prominent one being the fact that people turned to free services during the pandemic. The launch of DD Retro channel was another important reason for its popularity. According to the FICCI-EY report, DD Free Dish will surpass 50 million by 2025, the report says.

Ad volumes

Advertising volumes on TV bounced back by 43% during the January-June of this year as against the same period last year, according to AdEx India, a division of TAM Media Research. The festive season brought cheers to the TV with ad volumes soaring to the highest levels in 2021.

Advertising revenues during the year registered a robust growth rate of 14%, rising from Rs 577 billion to Rs 657 billion, according to forecasts by Magna’s Global Advertising Forecast. In 2022, says the Magna report, the strongest advertising growth in the APAC region will come from India. Categories like retail, e-commerce, beverages, pharma, education, finance, real estate, finance, education, consumer durables, and education were active spenders.

The Magna’s forecast further says that notwithstanding the drawbacks brought about by the pandemic, television registered robust growth in 2021 riding on a slew of audience-favorite and revenue-generating programmes and live sports events such as ICC T20 World Cup and the IPL.

NTO 2.0

The uncertainty caused by the new tariff order continued throughout the year. An outcome can only be expected next year with the Supreme Court postponing the final verdict to the second week of February 2022 and TRAI extending the implantation date to April 1, 2022.

The tariff order putting a cap of Rs 12 on the price of TV channels provided as part of a bouquet was scheduled to be implemented by broadcasters from December 1 prior to the apex court giving a verdict on the same on November 30.

As mandated by TRAI, leading broadcasters such as Star, Viacom18, Zee, and Sony submitted their reference interconnect offer (RIO), containing revised channel pricing, before the apex court was to deliver its verdict on November 30.

The decision to increase the MRP of marquee channels by these broadcasters has prompted cable operators to request the TRAI to delay the implementation of NTO 2.0 further.

Programmes

Data by Twitter has shown that ‘Bigg Boss’ was the most popular TV show on the platform in 2021.

Programmes like ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ saw popular brands flocking to Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI). The popular quiz show was an advertiser-favourite, with sponsorship interest soaring season after season.

BARC

The BARC scam involving the alleged rigging of TRPs that shocked the broadcast sector in 2020 had its ripple effects. The news genre was out of the BARC ratings. However, despite the suspension of BARC in the measurement of viewership ratings for news channels, TV news did not witness any drastic drop in ad revenues. In fact, they showed the biggest growth with advertising volumes growing to 456 million seconds during the January-March period of this year alone, the highest for any quarter since 2018, according to the BARC. Analysts attributed this to the fact that ad spends are not directly dependent on ratings alone and that many other aspects play a role.

ZEEL-Sony merger and sports

The year also saw the merger of ZEE and Sony. The Zee-Sony combine is poised to be India’s biggest media company straddling as a clear leader across languages and genres, with estimated revenues of $2 billion. The combined entity, with 100 channels in the kitty and 26 per cent viewership share, is now the second-largest media company in the country. While the merged entity will have an expected share of 51 percent in the Hindi GEC category, it will have a viewership share of 63 percent in the Hindi movie category.

Zee’s promoter family can increase its shareholding from the current 4 per cent to up to 20 per cent, prompting its largest shareholder Invesco raising objection to the idea. The tussle between Invesco and Zee imbroglio remains unsolved with the matter being heard at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), and Bombay High Court.

The sports genre will definitely see some big action in 2022. Sony-ZEE will be actively targeting sports as a post-merger growth strategy. The combined media company will pose a formidable competition to Disney-owner Star. The joined entity will likely make an earnest bid for the IPL media rights in 2022 with the BCCI intending to double its existing US$510 million per-year rights fee. An increase in the number of matches and teams means that valuation will be higher. According to Magna Advertising forecast, this factor, along with some major state elections in 2022, will help the TV medium keep the momentum and grow by 11% to reach Rs 294 billion by the end of 2022.

In November, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) signed as the broadcast partner for the second edition of Lanka Premier League (LPL). SONY SIX and SONY TEN 2 will broadcast the matches live.

ZEEL’s acquisition of the broadcast rights for the Emirates Cricket Board's UAE T20 League for a ten-year period is another major development in the sports arena during the year.

In other developments, Viacom18, as part of building a strong sports content slate before launching its sports channels in 2022, has obtained the telecast and streaming rights for all tournaments of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) used to own the rights of NBA since 2012; but the deal was not renewed last year.

The dwindling fear of coronavirus, in addition to the improved business sentiments due to the opening up of various economic activities, means that television will be able to keep up the growth momentum in 2022 as well.