ITV

Tag: CPRP

  • Television Audience Measurement: What next?

    Television Audience Measurement: What next?

    Yesterday, BARC took a decisive step forward. Punit Goenka in his role as Chairman, BARC announced the issuance of a Request for Information or RFI from entities worldwide who might be interested in participating in the forthcoming Request for Proposal stage.

    While the television rating system in India has shown great durability and adaptiveness, the pace of growth and change in the television landscape has consistently outstripped it. BARC is premised on finding and adopting best-in-class tools, technologies and processes that will not just close the gap, but create a constantly evolving and, thus, future ready audience measurement infrastructure.

    Here are the challenges that the new system will be expected to meet and overcome.

    1. Comprehensiveness: Television reaches very nearly two-thirds of all households in India. As economic development continues apace and more people have discretionary income, entertainment and information start assuming increasing prominence in their scheme of things. A cable-connected television is, and will remain, the least expensive single-point source of meeting this need, and new consumers waste little time in acquiring it.

    The household is now exposed to content but also to advertising that becomes a potent driver of new demand for a range of previously unknown products and services. Over the last decade, almost 10 million new households have entered the television footprint every year and the number doesn’t appear to be slowing down yet. A comprehensive measurement system must be able to recognise these burgeoning television households and keep them in the sights of broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies.

    2. Accuracy: There has been talk over the years of making broadcasters more accountable for audience deliveries. A number of deals are done on the basis of cost-per-rating-point (CPRP) but broadcasters have, rightly, complained that fair valuation of their inventory would have to be based on cost-per-thousand (CPT) or, as the print media call it, the mille rate. The current system falls some ways short of being able to facilitate the change from CPRP to CPT. Marketeers and broadcasters are looking forward to a system where actual audience deliveries in a defined target audience can be accurately quantified so that accountability for audiences can be fixed and reciprocally paid for.

    3. Adaptiveness: We still talk of single television homes as being the dominant model in India. Apparently, we are oblivious of the emergence of second and third screens that are being used by the younger demographic for consuming what was previously available exclusively on the television in the family room. The emergence of the smartphone and more recently of new devices like tablets (or even more recently, the rather inelegantly named ‘phablets’) has placed new content consumption devices in the hands of millions of young consumers. Content is now available to be consumed not just at a location but while on the move. Just like cellular telephony transformed communication from locational to personal, these screens and a constantly improving wireless broadband infrastructure are transforming television. The imminent arrival of 4G and crashing tablet prices will place highly mobile content consumption devices in millions of hands. The audience measurement system must be able to capture such mobile content consumption and stay adaptive with every future transformation of the television environment.

    4. Auditability: Being owned and managed by BARC, a joint industry body (or JIB in the pro parlance), stakeholders will have audit rights over the system that can ask searching questions about every aspect of the process, thus ensuring its integrity and ethical standards. All the key stakeholders are represented within BARC and this will ensure that the system remains always true, fair and transparent.

    These are not challenges unique to India but are faced universally by every television audience measurement system. Responses to the RFI will unearth a great body of valuable knowledge that the BARC can use to start building a gold standard system in India.

    It is good to finally say this: BARC has BITE.

  • ‘We have been growing at 9-10 per cent every year’ : Viacom18 EVP and GM Sonic and Nickelodeon India Nina Elavia Jaipuria

    ‘We have been growing at 9-10 per cent every year’ : Viacom18 EVP and GM Sonic and Nickelodeon India Nina Elavia Jaipuria

    Nina Jaipuria, the EVP and GM for Sonic and Nickelodeon India, is bullish about the kids genre despite the challenges that exist. Jaipuria, who has been at the helm of Nick for more than five years, is hopeful that the channel will bounce back to its 2009 position when it topped the genre.

     

    In an interview with Indiantelevision.com‘s Javed Farooqui, Jaipuria says that Sonic, the action and adventure channel that launched in December last year, will also witness growth. She sees the viewership of kids channels going up in the Southern market, where the local GECs still hold a stranglehold on family viewing.

     

    Excerpts:

    You have been at a GEC (Sony) and since last six years, you are handling kids channel. Which genre do you find more challenging?
    Both the genres are equally challenging. But to my mind, capturing the kids is more challenging as they get bored faster. Kids have shorter attention span. Saas-bahu serials can run for 10 years and you don’t get bored but try doing that with children. It’s impossible… which really means that you have to innovate that much more quickly and stay ahead of the curve.

     

    Unlike GEC where you need non-fiction to get the eyeballs and then the fiction takes care of your bread and butter, I think there is no such concept in kids genre. I think it’s a tougher category also because we have huge pipeline issues and the timelines. A GEC channel can produce a show in two months but for us it will take two years because it is animation. So the pipeline is so much tougher and therefore we have to plan that much in advance. Having said that, the GEC category is also difficult because we are talking about a scale that is very large and thanks to competition, the risk there only gets higher.

     

    However, if you build kids loyalty, then it is about how you keep them going. Your challenge is how you can bring them to the channel day after day.

    Despite being third in the pecking order, why does the kids genre not command the kind of ad revenues it should?
    It is hugely under-indexed and that has been going on for a long time. We were given for free and there is a CPRP benchmark that no advertiser is willing to pay that much.

     

    However, advertisers have started believing that kids have a lot of peer pressure, purchasing power and influence on family purchases. And, therefore, you see advertisers coming to the kids category. But it is growing slowly and steadily. Five years back, the market was Rs 1.4 billion and today it has grown to Rs 2.5 billion.

    Will slowdown have an impact on ad spends?
    In 2009, when there was a slowdown, we did not really witness it as much because a large portion of advertisers who advertise on kids channels are FMCGs, food & beverages and toys, which did not cut back that much compared to radio or print because they have more local advertisers and more of retail and finance.

    Coming to Nick, position wise the channel has slipped to No. 2 or 3. How do you plan to get back on top?
    We are the number two or number three player in the category. Summer has been good and thanks to all the new content that has gone on the channel, we will continue to retain our number there position.

     

    We retained the top position for two years and I think that is a long enough time. We hope to come back (to the top position). Everything that goes up has to come down, these are all cyclical vagaries of the business.
    ‘Sonic and Nick are two different brands. While Nick is humour and little of action, Sonic is a hardcore action and adventure brand‘

    Oggy and the Cockroaches was one of your tentpole properties. This has now shifted to Cartoon network. What do you think about your other properties?
    My tentpole property is Ninja Hattori and I would have also said Oggy and the Cockroaches but it has now moved to Turner (Cartoon Network). But Oggy gave us a good result for the three years that it was with us. So with all due respect, these are vagaries of the business and we are planning to build our own properties. We have Keymon Ache, of which we have already done 26 episodes and have greenlighted the second season of the show.

     

    We launched Power Rangers and now we have new Power Rangers coming back. Then after Samurai, we have Super Samurai. We have the third one as well in 2013. Thus, we will have a lot of Power Rangers as a property to build. Then there is Kung Fu Panda that we will build. So we will have a lot of solid shows post the Oggy also.

    What are the genres you are looking to build content for Nick?
    When we started, it was a mix of humour, comedy and various strands of it – slapstick comedy, silent comedy, family comedy shows and Keymon kind of shows.

     

    Kung Fu is a mix of comedy and action which according to me is the only show of its kind which had comedy and action put together. But slowly we realised that our kids are moving towards action even from a category point of view. Look at what’s happening with video games. So we believe that there is a little bit of action required on Nickelodeon. The only action show we are showing on Nick is Power Rangers Samurai so that those kids who want action don’t go anywhere.

    What about Sonic?
    Sonic and Nick are two different brands. While Nick is humour and little of action, Sonic is a hardcore action and adventure brand. So we have shows like Ultraman, Jackie Chan, Super Strikers, and Ghost at Schools.

     

    Sonic has done very well to get 8 per cent share in a difficult category as children are slow to changing habits. I think there was a gap in the market as no channel was offering 24X7 action and adventure as a proposition. So kids had to go to MTV Roadies, Fear Factor or once on a while they would go to play video games or watch movies like Dabangg. This gap we fixed with Sonic.

     

    When kids are growing up, they are shying away from watching kids’ channels. But they were not big enough to go to MTV or Vh1. So we found out a nice gap as well as target audience. In fact, Sonic is doing very well in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. We have got an eight per cent market share within six months and 22 per cent reach in 85 minutes of time spent, as of last week.

    What are your revenue expectations from the two channels?
    We have been growing at 9-10 per cent every year and I hope that we continue to grow at that range. From revenue perspective, ad sales is the big brother. Subscription is not significant at this stage but should grow post digitisation. After that comes licensing and merchandising, but they are taking only baby steps.

    How are you growing the L&M biz?
    We are increasing our character base and with that we are increasing our product range. We have 55 licensees on board this year across categories. We can grow this with depth and width. What I mean by width is that we increase characters. Every single character grows into every single product category. When I talk about depth, we look at every single category in the life of a kid.

     

    We have launched footwear with Metro shoes, we also have toys of popular characters like Dora, Ninja and Spongebob. TI Cycles is going to offer co-branded Dora The Explorer and Ninja bicycles. We also have DVDs and VCDs coming for Keymon and Dora.

    Talking about content, still most of the content on your channel remains animation. Why is it so?
    Except Power Rangers and Ultraman, almost all of our content is animation. The reason we do so much animation is because kids come to the category for two reasons: one is to get rid of boredom and second is get rid of all pressures. And animation is the only alternate universe, which allows them to enter the fictionary and imaginary world which allows them to get rid of boredom. Try to do that with live action and you can never achieve it as it is as real as it can be. Because we are a tailor-made category for children, animation will always be the fulcrum.

    But kids’ channels are experimenting with Hindi movies also.
    Even I don’t understand that. I put movies on Sonic because I think adventure as a genre is served with movies. But we put on kids’ movies like Jurassic Park that are catering to that genre.

    But is it to prevent them from shifting to other genres?
    I think they are passive viewers. They are captive audiences to what they watch and, therefore despite fragmentation, the category continues to grow. The fact is that kids continue to come back to the category because the content is tailor-made for them. The only reason why the viewership hasn’t grown to the extent it should have is because India is largely a single television household.

    To what extent did the IPL impact the genre?
    Fortunately for us, we don’t have a fixed prime time slot. And it never had much of an impact because for us we have viewership throughout the day and IPL matches were at 4 pm and 8 pm. It’s not like a GEC where 8 pm is prime time.

     

    We do have 12-3 pm and 6-8 pm as primetime slots. And the best thing about the country is that in some cities, kids go to school in the morning and in some cities in the afternoon. So somebody is watching us at all hours of the day.

    While the kids genre is seeing growth in the HSM, the same cannot be said about the South market. Why?
    That is because all of us are late entrants to the South market. We launched our Tamil and Telugu feed for Nick one year back. Also, kids in those markets have been watching the local content for very long in their own language. But it’s picking up.

    How much do you focus on digital medium for connecting with your target audience?
    To me, digital is important because our TG is more digital savvy than you and me put together. Interactivity has become a large part in the kids’ space today because they have access to mobile and internet. They communicate with us on nickindia.com or sonicgang.com. We also have Power Rangers games on both these websites, besides downloads and wallpapers. There is a lot of interactivity that is happening there. Then we have contests happening on Facebook. The Keymon game on Nokia has got two million downloads. We have over 200,000 fans for Nick on Facebook and over 100,000 fans for Sonic.

    What are your plans for the year?
    We have two big shows coming up on Nick – Cedric and Tony and Alberto. Cedric is about a boy who is mischievous and wants his grandfather to help but normally they are more in trouble than out of it. Tony and Alberto is about the story of a boy and a dog. Both are very mischievous and funny shows talking about the 9-10-year-old boys. The shows will be coming on air in July. We have two new shows coming on Sonic as well – Ghost at Schools and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • ”Absolute number watching TV has increased 50%, we should be paid for that’ : Joy Chakraborthy – Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. executive vice president, head network

    ”Absolute number watching TV has increased 50%, we should be paid for that’ : Joy Chakraborthy – Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. executive vice president, head network

    The biggest bouquet of channels on Indian television and the second largest player in the GEC space, the Zee Network has been in the limelight recently, whether it be on the receiving end of HLL’s ad spends or with big ticket events like the Zee Cine Awards.

    Joy Chakraborthy, the man spearheading ad sales for the broadcaster, agreed to offer his opinions on the current television scenario, highlighting its drawbacks of under pricing, ad revenues that exceed distribution monies and the constant debate over cricket. At the same time he lends a word of caution to new players pacing ahead to enter the broadcast space. All this and more in a free-wheeling conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Renelle Snelleksz.

    Excerpts:

    The big news currently seems to be around how Hindustan Lever is significantly increasing spends on your network. You have even been on record as saying you are looking at a growth of at least 100% on Lever spend in FY08 over FY07? How do you justify that optimism?
    Levers is the biggest client in the television space and we have channels across all genres, Levers is a good client for consumption also because they are perennial clients. There has been rate correction but we have also given them big properties. At the same time, Levers buying process over the last two years has changed, initially they used to buy slots that appeared at a particular time band but now they have started buying quality as well so they would necessarily have to pay for that. Therefore, there has been a jump in ad sales rates this year over the previous year.

    When you say ‘rate correction’ – what do you mean?
    The Zee network itself is very under-priced, so we are continuously correcting our rates. I have over my tenure here (which is two years) revised my rates three times, but no rate correction is very drastic, it’s really a gradual correction.

    After all we are still in a World Cup year and although India is out of the tournament, we will see loads of other cricket action as well?
    As a network, we haven’t suffered at the hands of cricket. However a lot of money is diverted there. But thanks to cricket and sport, I believe that the overall PUT (people utilizing television) will also increase, because of World Cup TV sales will also increase, so the whole space is only going to expand.

    It will eventually benefit us also, but my only concern and what I see as a challenge this year is that the unofficial currency is cost per rating point (CPRP), which has to move cost per thousand (CPT). CPT is more important and with Tam’s expanded panel the absolute number of people watching has increased by 50 per cent and we as an industry should be paid for that. Even more, if you are a listed body you also should subscribe to the CPT model, which will happen sooner or later.

    But how soon do you think the transition from a CPRP model to CPT model will take to materialize?
    The IBF and AAAI have already met on two occasions, the next one is in April. But at the end of the day this shift will benefit all of us. It’s not that it is unfortunate for the client alone, as the television medium continues to grow the cost of programming, distribution, marketing and manpower is increasing every day. With the CPT model the ad rates will go up, infact most agencies buy on CPRP and give it to the client on CPT, but after expansion the minimum rate has increased. The recommendations of these two industry body’s should materialize within a month’s time.

    It has been previously stated that Cas impact only accounts for a 1- 1.5% drop in C&S 4+ level across TV. However, with moves to extend Cas to cover the full metros and then possibly go into other cities and towns this argument cannot be sustained for much longer. How does Zee view this situation and how do you plan to use it to your advantage?
    Cas is here to stay but the thing is that Cas growth was marginal, across the Zee network the drop accounted for 2.5 per cent, which is very less in comparison to the kind of growth that we are experiencing.

    With Cas rolling out further, the pressure from media buyers on rates is only going to go up? Do you see the possibility of many channels, including entertainment channels, going FTA to protect advertising revenues? For instance, Peter Mukerjea’s Hindi entertainment channels will be FTA when it launches…?
    Sometime we really wonder whom the media buyers really work for, the channel or the client. They will always pressurize us. Do you think they deal with rate hikes easily? They will fight for each rupee just as we fight for the same. But that is what makes our relationship so lasting.

    India is the only market where ad revenues are more than distribution revenues, ideally it should be the other way round. It will be better for the industry if distribution revenue picks up. Worldwide the distribution versus ad revenue model is 70:30, but in India it’s about 35:65.

    What’s the viewership growth that Zee network has seen in 2006 over 2005?
    It’s not only about Zee TV, but all our channels across the network have done well. In Marathi and Bangla we are number one, even Zee TV from Monday to Friday is delivering for us, as it is not just about one show alone. We have such a spread across our network and as a sales head I would rather have a couple of shows delivering 4 – 5 per cent ratings rather than one show delivering 10 per cent, as it helps my inventory giving us a properly defined FPC (fix point chart), because all our shows deliver within numbers in this region providing a complete media plan.

    Sa Re Ga Ma Pa has been the mantra for the network, not only did Zee TV come back with the show but also Marathi and Bangla. I believe Zee Café is number one right now and with Zee Studio we are getting back to where we belong, which means we are getting close to HBO and Star Movies. Etc and Zee Music combined gives us better numbers than even MTV and Channel [V]. Therefore, we are trying to find ways of selling together.

    In Zee TV you now have a strong number two position sewn up? Which are the channels that you have achieved a clear leadership position with?
    Percentage wise all the channels have seen growth, but in the cinema genre there has been a significant correction in GRP’s with the number of people watching cinema drastically increasing. Today 155 -160 GRP’s is equivalent to 210 GRP’s in the past, which is an absolute number of people. Movies generally give an average of 0.8 – 1.3 ratings, which points to the number of people sampling the channel.

    What’s the current order of importance of channels on the Zee network in terms of ad sales and how does it stack up percentage wise?
    Zee TV is operating on GEC where the maximum revenue lies, it will always remain the top most from an ad sales point, followed by Cinema, Marathi, Bangla, then Café, Studio, Music and Etc will stack up accordingly. But value-wise and outlay-wise these four are the ones that deliver the maximum.

    For example percentage wise Zee TV would range between 50 – 60 per cent, Cinema would be roughly around 25 per cent, while the others will corner the remaining share of the pie.
    ‘Our differentiator is that we don’t compromise on the big channels just to accommodate weaker ones‘

    How is the selling done across the network? Is it broken up into Hindi entertainment, news, cinema, English entertainment and regional channels? Or is there some other formula you apply?
    We work on a matrix, for which we have all India heads and branch heads. The obvious thing is to present one face of the network to the media buyer without losing the immediate focus. The differentiation in the way we work is that we don’t compromise on the big channels just to accommodate weaker channels. As part of our strategy we also do network deals with clients like HLL, Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, L’Oreal for which we provide a bouquet offer. In fact, we can replace a lot of other networks because we have a range of channel genres to offer from GEC, music, cinema, regional etc. Each of the channels within the bouquet has its own respective teams which go out and meet the market and keep updating media agencies and through SMS we inform the trade of current GRP’s.

    From a programming perspective, Zee TV has gained a strong foothold between the 8 and 10:30 prime time, and even with the arrival of KBC you have managed to hold your ground to an extent. Are there any strategies in place to really get into programming overdrive once KBC completes its run?
    If you see, we did not panic at all when KBC was launching and didn’t resort to doing anything drastically different. We have a very close knit team for programming and marketing that evaluates the market and competition. Infact our primetime is not just 8-10.30 pm, we start at 7 pm and 7 – 11.30 pm is what we like to call primetime. All our properties are Monday – Friday that gives us a weekday skew of scheduling spots, which has been consistent in delivering an average rating between 2.5 – 8 per cent. Besides we also do plug repeats of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Shabash India and Johhny Aala Re.

    But what about the afternoon prime time? That is a band that Sony is actively looking at as well we’re told?
    This is a place we are not currently at, but would like to be in the future depending on the decisions taken by the programming team. With KBC and cricket we noticed that suddenly the afternoon was doing well for us, causing the time band to grow big time across all out channels. We have plans that will be unveiled once budgets are approved by the management for the financial year April – March.

    As for Sony, there seems to be confusion as to whether to go with reality or not. I strongly feel that soaps are the most important thing for a GEC because it gives you consistent viewers. I enter the fiscal in April with 60 per cent of my deals done in advance, on an assumption of X, that only soaps can deliver. As reality picks up only towards the end, you should have an ideal mix of soaps and reality, which as a network we currently have. This ultimately helps me sell well as I have more properties to offer to a client.
    Any significant weaknesses? And how do you propose to get it sorted out?
    As a network the year has been very good but we still have miles to go. For Zee TV alone, its just been a year since we started doing well, besides there is so much to be done within this genre.
    Also, the type of selling methodology is changing and we have to understand the move from CPRP to CPT. Going forward we would also like to focus on training people with skill sets because until now it was just fire fighting to grab the money that was lying in the market.

    What has been the growth like over FY06 and has it been in line with the targets you set? What are the revenues you are expecting to close this fiscal at?
    I can’t reveal growth figures but the growth has exceeded my predictions.

    We have infact exceed our revenue target by 30 per cent. However, we keep revising our targets depending upon demand and supply, channel performance which are fixed standards for us. But usually these floating targets usually go up.

    And what about Zee Next? There was talk that it would launch by mid-year. Is that plan still on track or is the current view that another channel might be a distraction as far as Zee TV’s focus on getting further ahead is concerned?
    It is still in the planning stage as there are various factors to be considered before launching a channel and we want to be fully prepared. But it is on our radar for this year. To say we are ‘on track’ largely depends on the market conditions and with KBC and so many channels actually coming in, it depends on how and when to launch.

    Yes, currently the focus is on Zee TV because our FPC has changed slightly. We also have programme launches, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa will return at the end of April and a few more strategies that will help sales.

    The Zee Cine Awards in Malaysia are obviously a headline event for you. Could you offer a picture as to the big properties Zee will have in the coming months?
    We are probably the only broadcasters that can say we own an award. In fact, the client gets lots of exposure by tying up with it across the network, that’s why there is a demand for it. It was within four days from the day we started selling, that we were sold out.

    How do you view the coming onslaught of channel launches? Wouldn’t the increased clutter only lead to further pressure on price points?
    It will affect the TV space causing further fragmentation but with so many channels coming in the number of people watching TV will increase. The only bad side to this is that new entrants will spoil the market, causing marketing and distribution costs to go up. Additionally, discounting rates will also get affected. But please note, it’s not easy to launch a channel as after launch it is difficult to maintain, because how long can you bleed? You’re basically into business and not into charity, so lets see how many will last?

    Yes, there will be pressure on price points. A situation will arise where there will be a lot of buying out of people as well as offering different credit periods to suppliers and this will ultimately spoil the market.

    If you were asked to offer a view on how the broadcast landscape will look over the coming year, what would that be?
    My only request would be that people should be very careful and do their homework before launching a channel. We have a big bouquet of channels and we know what it’s like.

    Just because somebody says GEC has got so much money and if I launch I will eat some of that pie, but at the end of the day it must make business sense.

    Competition will always keep you on your toes, you can’t be complacent and you can’t take people for granted. Even if the channel is performing, you have to be there out in the market.