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Tag: BARC India

  • Sun TV gets ‘buy’ rating from ICICI & Edelweiss

    MUMBAI: Leading brokerages in India have recommended a ‘buy’ rating for Sun TV, the television channel consistently leading across genres for weeks as per BARC India ratings.

    ICICI Direct has recommended ‘buy’ rating with a target price of Rs 830 in its research report dated 14 August, and Edelweiss too has maintained a ‘buy’ rating with Rs 1,024 target price.

    Revenues came in Rs 7863 million (up 3.4 per cent YoY) versus ICICI’s estimate of Rs 7634 million supported by higher subscription revenues, which grew 15.3 per cent YoY to Rs 2705 million (better than ICICI’s estimate of eight per cent YoY growth).

    Sun TV, ICICI says, continued to disappoint on the advertisement revenue front. Ad revenues declined approximately four per cent YoY to Rs 3260 million EBITDA came in at Rs 4484 million, up 2.7 per cent YoY, better than its estimate of Rs 4206 million supported by lower IPL losses (loss of Rs 220 million versus expected loss of Rs 550 million). Though market share erosion in Sun TV is a concern owing to intense competition from Star Vijay, Edelweiss believed it is temporary as viewership is intact. However, competition from Colors is a key monitorable.

    The near-term competitive pressures, ICICI notes, have led to concerns over the expected full throttle ad recovery. However, it has highlighted that the overall levers such as low base, the upcoming festive season and monetisation of improved rating in non-Tamil markets, would provide healthy visibility of ad growth revival ahead. A faster resolution of Chennai digitisation could also provide strong subscription revenue growth. ICICI rates well Sun TV’s strategy of revamping its content strategy and focussing on superior ad yield.

    Edelweiss notes Sun TV’s main positives of approx 29.7 per cent y-o-y growth in cable subscription supported by catch-up revenue and 9.4 per cent y-o-y jump in DTH subscription and IPL losses were stable at Rs 241 million in FY17, even though it lost the series in FY18. The main negatives, Edelweiss notes, was the 4.1 per cent y-o-y dip in ads base of 3.7 per cent y-o-y decline owning to GST.

    The company guided for 15 per cent y-o-y growth in subscriptions in FY18, led by south markets, ex-Tamil Nadu. With phase-III digitisation on track, Edelweiss estimated 15 per cent / 12.0 per cent y-o-y growth in subscriptions in FY18/FY19.

    Factoring in lower ad growth in Q1FY18, Edelweiss cut FY18E ad growth to 9.0 per cent y-o-y from 11.0 per cent earlier.

    Hit by GST, Sun’s ad revenue fell 4.1 per cent y-o-y. However, Edelweiss expects it to bounce back riding on strong content in H2FY18 following improvement in Telugu and Malayalam ratings.

    Sun’s overall subscription grew 16.1 per cent y-o-y supported by catch-up revenue and upswing in digital revenues. The content cost rose 37.6 per cent y-o-y as Sun TV shifted to commissioned model from the ad slot model. It moved entirely into the commissioned model in all its markets, except Tamil Nadu, 2 out of 18 programmes are on commissioned model.

    Sun TV now expects August and September to report better ad growth as GST impact withers away.

  • New NBA member Republic TV wants regional & web players in

    MUMBAI: Republic TV seems to have buried the hatchet with News Broadcasters Association and joined the body in what the former calls “in the larger interest of the ecosystem.” Republic TV CEO Vikas Khanchandani on Monday morning confirmed the development after the editor Arnab Goswami told Indiantelevision.com that he wanted Khanchandani to speak on the development.

    It may be recalled that Republic TV’s ratings success, soon after the 6-May launch, was not uneventful. The NBA had written to BARC India not to publish the new channel’s data until it’s cleared of wrongdoing on allegations of multiple feeds (LCNs). But, Goswami had discounted the importance of NBA, calling it a  “cabal” — a toothless body now used for lobbying and run by 4-5 people.

    However, Khanchandani now tells Indiantelevision.com: “NBA needs to be democratised with wider representation and voice from the various regional news players. We are looking forward to playing an instrumental role to make it an inclusive body. There is also a need and opportunity to expand the canvas  / scope as a leading industry body in the light of ever-increasing consumption of news content over the web.”

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    “The NBA is a toothless group,” says Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami

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    Republic TV curiosity factor wanes, NBA channels data absent in week 21

    BARC-NBA face-off: Experts feel ad agencies, TV channels will take individual call; resolution best option

  • BARC India now a case study on TV audience data at IIM Calcutta

    MUMBAI: India’s one of the premier management institute IIM Calcutta has developed a a case study on the TV viewership system in India. The case study traces the history of Television Viewership Measurement, leading up to the setting up of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India.

    The case study is based on an in-depth research done by IIM Calcutta faculty team of professors — Prashant Mishra and Chandradeep (CD) Mitra, which included interviews with former BARC India chairman and ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka, BARC India board member and GroupM CEO South Asia CVL Srinivas, Lodestar UM CEO Shashi Sinha, Marico MD & CEO Saugata Gupta, FCB Ulka Advertising Former ED & CEO Ambi Parameswaran, BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta, and BARC India CBO Romil Ramgarhia, among other.

    The case study on BARC India is aimed at helping participants of various IIM Calcutta academic programmes, as well as students of other institutes, to hone their concepts learnt in marketing, media, organisational strategy & finance courses based on recent real–life developments in the Indian media industry.

    As a prelude to launch of the case study, BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta (who is also an IIM Calcutta alumnus), participated in an open house session at the institute to analyse the case study. The discussion was attended by Prof Mishra, professor of marketing at IIM Calcutta; Prof. Chandradeep (CD) Mitra, visiting professor of marketing at IIM Calcutta and the 161 students who have enrolled for the course “Sports, Entertainment & Media Marketing” designed by Prof. Mitra.

    The case study will delve into the unique structure, financing model, state-of-the-art technologies and the multi-vendor construct of BARC India’s TV viewership measurement system, enabling it to become one of the most sophisticated and reliable TV measurement systems in the world.

    “Piloting a case study before its final publication is a format where the protagonist himself meets the students, and the interaction allows the case to be further refined before its final publication. This is an acceptable methodology globally and we are pleased to introduce the same in India,” said Prof. Mitra.

    Prof Mishra added, “BARC India’s success in designing and developing the meters is one of the finest examples of the ‘Make in India’ initiative and we’re extremely pleased to introduce a case on the company in our curriculum.”

    “I had a great time sharing BARC India’s journey with students of IIM Calcutta. Giving them insights about our genesis, our greatest challenges, how we overcame it and what the future holds for us was exciting,” said Partho Dasgupta.

  • Global digital platforms adapting locally for BARC’s EKAM

    NEW DELHI: Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC India)’s first product under EKAM brand, to be launched in the first quarter of 2018, will be measurement of video advertisements on digital platforms. Global digital platforms are being exhorted to make some quick changes in service features for adaption in the Indian environment.

    The ad measurement tool, which is part of several other such digital services, will have its findings or the data collected released on a daily basis, unlike the TV viewership and advertising-related data that BARC India puts out on a weekly basis.

    BARC India had earlier announced a phased roll-out of its digital measurement service under the brand name EKAM (Sanskrit for “One”). The EKAM suite of products will include EKAM Pulse, EKAM Beam, EKAM Stream, EKAM Ad-Scan and EKAM Integra.

    According to industry sources, the launch of the digital measurement products could get delayed as some of the global digital platforms operating in India are yet to tweak their systems to tailor them to Indian data measurement system that is being done by an industry body, unlike a private sector third party organization in western countries.

    BARC India is in dialogue with global digital platforms urging them to make some necessary changes in their features so such platforms adapt themselves quickly to the Indian data measurement environment, industry sources explained, adding the speed of making the tweaks could decide the launch of a digital measurement product. “If everything, including co-operation from global digital platforms, go as planned, an early launch could also be envisaged in late December 2017,” a source in the know of things said optimistically.

    Some of the top digital platforms, including global and India, sit on the technical committee of BARC India co-ordinating the rollout of digital measurements.

    Nielsen India, a company that had been doing TV audience measurement in India in association with WPP’s Kantar
    Media before BARC came into existence two years back, has been roped in by BARC as its primary digital measurement partner. Nielsen will fuse its global experience with India-specific adaptations to meet unique needs of the local market.
    The payment mode to become a paid subscriber of BARC India’s digital world data would also differ from that employed for TV-related data subscribers, which is about 0.8 percent of the total ad revenue generated by a company.

    EKAM Pulse will measure video ad campaigns. EKAM Beam, the next product lined up for release, will measure linear broadcast that is viewed on a digital device. EKAM Stream will measure both non-linear and pure play digital video content.

    BARC India will also provide industry with EKAM Ad-Scan, which will be a global first-of-its-kind product. It will give an overview of digital ads in India, look at where the advertising money is being spent and which sectors are producing more digital ads. The final product in the digital suite will be EKAM Integra that will help industry with common, robust and independent audience numbers giving more accurate incremental reach figures.  

    ALSO READ:

    BARC to host digital measurement roadshows in Delhi, Mumbai & Bengaluru

    BARC EKAM: Learning online behaviour & ROI from specific campaigns will be easier, industry says

     

  • Mirror Now & govt working together on public issues without yelling, says Faye D’souza

    MUMBAI: Mirror Now, one of the newest English channels, has not done any marketing since its launch around six months ago. Covering all Indian cities, Mirror Now claims to have got a good response especially from Bangalore and Chennai.

    The channel and the government are working together on public issues. “The central, Maharashtra and Karnataka government are working closely with us on public issues,” says Mirror Now executive editor Faye D’Souza.

    “Our strongest markets are — Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. And, we have beaten our internal target a lot faster — the target set for a year has already been completed.” “We don’t yell, but ask tough questions politely,” she asserted.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, she said, “We are introducing shows and working on new concepts. We are working on morning primetime from 7-10am, early evening prime time 5:30pm onwards. Our disruptive shows will be on our late prime time shows — from 11pm -1am.”

    Talking about content, D’Souza added, “Stories are coming from across India. We get 25-30 calls/hour during our prime time shows.” To a question she said, “Despite being a small team of 25, our content speaks louder than marketing, the ratio being 95:5.”

    About measuring success, the executive editor says, “I look at two yardsticks, first one is numbers from the BARC India point of view, and secondly what type of response you are getting from the social media.”

    On the marketing front, she said: “We didn’t launch it on a large platform, having marketing campaign across the country even as, being a Times group channel, everything was available to us.”

    Also Read :

    Mirrow Now aims to engage viewers in 34-36 urban cities

    Times Now will be globally ‘regional’, non-mirror HD by next quarter

     

  • BARC India hires Rohit Sarma & Kumar Rao

    MUMBAI: BARC India has expanded its leadership team with the addition of two senior resources.

    BARC India has roped in Rohit Sarma as the business head for its TV business and Kumar Rao as the chief of measurement science. Both of them will be based out of BARC India’s Mumbai office.

    “In the last two years, we built the TV measurement business by roping in talent and insights from across the globe. We are now transitioning from a start-up phase to a more process oriented company. Both Rohit and Kumar bring very relevant skills and experience for this phase of our journey, which will help us better meet the needs of the industry,” said BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta.

    “Excellence can be achieved only when people commit to constantly raising the bar. At BARC India, we are doing that by first raising the bar on talent. I am looking forward to working with them,” added BARC India chief business officer Romil Ramgarhia.

    Having worked with Nielsen, GfK and Gallup Organization, Kumar Rao brings in 17 years of global work experience in the space of research, analytics, statistics and measurement. He will be reporting to Partho Dasgupta.

    “I am happy to be joining BARC India. I hope to be able to bring in my experience in the sector from global markets into India. It is interesting times ahead for the industry and I am glad to be a part of this huge change,” said Rao.

    Sarma has spent over 20 years in the FMCG and Media sectors across India and South Asia with companies like ITC, Diageo, Turner and HT Media. He has managed leading brands as well as run large business operations and will work closely with both Partho and Romil in his new role.

    “What BARC India has been able to achieve for the TV industry in terms of viewership measurement in such a short span of time is truly outstanding. I am very excited with the opportunity to carry this momentum through the next phase of BARC’s journey,” added Sarma.

  • BARC India releases policy governing intentional watermark switch-off

    MUMBAI: BARC India has updated its policy governing intentional watermark switch-off by a subscriber. This policy, it stated, supersedes all other policies pertaining to intentional watermark switch-off by a subscriber.

    Any missing watermark for a duration greater than 12 hours, which cannot be resolved by the subscriber, would be treated as a case of intentional switch-off. In such cases, BARC India’s Technical Team would establish the same and report such cases to the Management.

    The Management would certify the incidence to be a case of intentional switch-off, and report the same to the chairman and the CEO of BARC India.

    The chairman and the CEO would then jointly decide to proceed with a response from BARC India. The response to such incidence is outlined below:

    • BMW data of the channel(s) for which the watermark has been switched off will not be released at any point for the period when the watermark is missing.

    • Subscriber login for the network would be deactivated from the moment intentional switch-off has been established

    • Once the watermark is switched on, both BMW data for the channel and subscriber login for the network would not be available for a further period of six months.

  • Doordarshan mulls reach extension in south & east markets with new regional offerings

    MUMBAI: India’s public broadcaster Doordarshan is all set to expand its viewership in non-Hindi speaking markets having drawn up plans to increase presence in the southern and eastern parts of the country by launching new TV channels.

    Quoting BARC data (and other industry figures) that DD’s satellite-based FTA service FreeDish reaches 22 million homes, Doordarshan DG Supriya Sahu told Indiantelevision.com, “We are working on a plan to expand our bouquet of channels for the southern and eastern markets by increasing the number of regional channels.”

    According to Sahu, compared to private broadcasters’ regional channels, pubcaster’s language channels like DD Punjabi, DD Sahyadri and DD Podhigai (Tamil) were “working great” and, hence, the next natural move was to “strengthen” the network by “moving deeper into rural areas”.

    Sahu, however, did not clarify or shed more light on the nature and programming of the proposed regional language channels and whether they would be totally funded by taxpayers’ money or marketing initiatives simultaneously will be undertaken to try making the new channels financially viable.

    India’s national radio and TV services, All India Radio and Doordarshan, are funded by taxpayers’ money with the federal government extending annual financial aids to bridge the gap between revenue and expenditure.

    Doordarshan is also working on a whole range of other issue, which include improving content and better cross-channel promotion and marketing of all the channels in its 30-channel+ bouquet. Sahu added that such promotions will be “high” on social media as also traditional platforms.

    However, Indian TV industry observers are of the opinion that the pubcaster should do additional due diligence of viewership trends before formally launching more Indian language channels as DD’s bouquet already consists of fairly large number of regional offerings and in most such markets DD channels are amongst the top five, but not in pole position.   

    For example, if BARC India data for Week 25 for Punjabi language channels are examined, DD Punjabi was at No. 4 having garnered 25,022 (‘000) weekly Impressions in the markets (urban+rural) of  Punjab/Haryana / Chandigarh /Himachal/ J&K (NCCS All: 2+ individuals). Private sector TV channels like PTC Punjabi, MH1 Music and Chardikala Time TV occupied the top three slots, respectively, in terms of viewership.

    Non-cricket Sports League In The Offing

    Meanwhile, Sahu also told Indiantelevision.com that Doordarshan is working on a blueprint to enter sports business with three different sports leagues — basketball, tackle football (a modified form of American football) and the indigenous kabaddi.

    “We are in the final stage of finalising various logistical aspects (of such sports leagues), including the bouquet of games, partnerships, production values and marketing initiatives for the leagues,” Sahu said, adding that help of an American company with expertise in conducting university sports could be taken.

    Though the game of kabaddi, men and women, has already been turned into a league and is promoted heavily by Star Sports, which, according to the private broadcaster, has given it good dividends in terms of revenue and viewership.

    “We are not restricted to three games (for the league model),” the DD DG said, explaining more games could be taken up as the pubcaster is working on various models to bring down the costs of holding such leagues. “The sports league is not a one-time affair and is a long-term strategy spread over four to five years that will give good returns,” she added.

    A recent report by GroupM ESP and sports business media outlet SportzPower states that sports sponsorship in India grew 19.33 per cent in 2016 touching Rs 64,000 million.

    ALSO READ:

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    FreeDish creates record, sells 11 slots for Rs 851 million

  • Movies Now tops with almost 2x ratings & Zee Cafe trumps Comedy Central

    MUMBAI: Zee Cafe climbed to the first position in the English entertainment genre in BARC India Week 22 ratings with 314 impressions (000s) sum from last week’s second slot with 269 impressions (000s) sum and Movies Now climbed

    English Entertainment

    Comedy Central HD slipped to the second slot with 219 impressions (000s) sum this week as compared to 277 impressions (000s) sum last week. FX climbed a slot and reached the third rank this week with 203 weekly impressions (000s) as compared to 139 impressions (000s) sum last week.

    While Star World bagged the third slot this week with 187 impressions (000s) sum, Colors Infinity SD, which was at the fifth rank last week, exited the Top 5 channels’ list this week. AXN slipped to the fifth position this week with 149 impressions (000s) sum from the third position last week with 179 impressions (000s) sum.

    English Movies

    Movies Now climbed a slot to the first position with 4122 impressions (000s) sum as compared to last week’s 2201 impressions (000s) sum. Sony Pix also jumped a slot to the second position this week with 2685 impressions (000s) sum as compared to last week’s 1974 impressions (000s) sum.

    Star Movies slipped two slots to the third position with 2295 impressions (000s) sum against last week’s 3253 impressions (000s) sum.

    Movies Now 2 retained its fourth position this week with a decreased 1924 impressions (000s) sum from last week’s 1970 impressions (000s) sum and HBO too stayed put at the fifth position with a reduced 1569 impressions (000s) sum as compared to last week’s 1962 impressions (000s) sum.

    Infotainment

    Discovery Channel jumped a slot to gain the first position this week with 4096 impressions (000s) sum against last week’s 3724 impressions (000s) sum dislodging History TV18 with 4041 impressions (000s) sum.

    National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo Wild and Animal Planet remained at the fourth, fifth and sixth positions, respectively, with 2843, 2374 and 2288 impressions (000s) sum against last week’s 2631, 2614 and 2600 impressions (000s) sum.

    Lifestyle

    Living Foodz dethroned the leader FYI TV18 with 1500 impressions (000s) sum climbing a slot from the last week’s with 1273 impressions (000s) sum. FYI TV18 slipped to the second spot with 1060 impressions (000s) sum against last week’s 1452 impressions (000s) sum.

    Food Food maintained its third position with 787 impressions (000s) sum against 736 impressions (000s) sum last week. TLC jumped a slot with 695  impressions (000s) sum this week from the fifth position with 524 impressions (000s) sum.

    Fox Life slipped a slot to the fifth position with 628 impressions (000s) sum as compared to last week’s 524 impressions (000s) sum.

  • HC rejects TV Today plea against publishing Republic TV’s ratings

    MUMBAI: The Delhi high court on Thursday evening rejected TV Today’s plea against Republic TV, channel sources told indiantelevision.com.

    Before pulling out of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC India), TV Today Network had approached the Delhi High Court to prevent the publication of Republic TV’s BARC ratings. In a plea under the civil extraordinary writ jurisdiction, the network sought an urgent hearing of the matter on 17 May, a day before BARC India released the data for week 19 (6 –12 May, 2017).

    The prayer had accused Republic TV of telecast on multiple logical channel numbers (LCNs) in violation of of TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) regulations.

    TV Today said the court should direct TRAI to finish its investigation in a limited time bound period. The court denied that plea too.

    The court said that this is a matter between broadcasters, MSOs and TRAI. The court did not go into maintainability of TV Today’s case. Said this is a matter for TRAI to look into and take action as per current laws.

    TRAI confirmed in court that it has received complaints against Republic TV and also several including TV Today. It will investigate and take appropriate action.