ITV

Tag: Group broadcasting

  • Phones haven’t stop ringing for new Zee show

    Phones haven’t stop ringing for new Zee show

    Four days into Zee Television’s journey to reinvent itself and the news is good for the Subhash Chandra-promoted channel.

     

    According to Partha Sinha director-marketing Zee Network, its new interactive programme was “Aap Jo Bolein Haan to Haan, Aap JO Bolein Naa to Naa” captured 90,000 calls on Day 3 (Wednesday) despite clogging of the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd’s exchanges. This was even after the phone lines were substantially enhanced.

     

    An obviously elated Sinha said that such was the demand on Day 2 that people were using STD lines to Mumbai because it was easier to get through. The show debuted on Monday with a staggering 50,000 calls. Zee estimates indicate at least four times that number failed to get through. Speaking on this Sandeep Goyal Zee Network’s Group broadcasting CEO was quoted as saying: “We are thrilled by the success of the show. We have a sure winner on our hands.”

     

    Touted as India’s first audience participation fiction show, the daily live drama on morals, ethics and emotions has had executives from rival channels admitting that Zee may well be onto a good thing. Produced under licence from GloboTV of Brazil, it is called “You Decide” in its English avatar.

     

    All in all, a show which appears to have potential. So long as good scripts are maintained. One complaint though. The anchor, Sohail Seth, hasn’t got quite the as enthusiastic a response as the show itself.

     

    Because of the sheer number of shows on offer some have called the new line-up a “Gujarati Thali” and how the rest of the package has been received has not been ascertained as yet. But even if four or five of the 24-show lineup hits bulls-eye then the current top gun channel Star India may well have a dogfight on its hands.

     

  • Action plan in place, new Zee line-up kicks off 27 August

    Action plan in place, new Zee line-up kicks off 27 August

    Zee TV today announced it was ready and willing to take on the best that Star had to dish out while unveiling the relaunch of the flagship channel of the group. Twenty-four new programmes, a new logo and a Rs 150-million marketing and promotional blitz will precede what is an all-out assault by Zee to regain its former status as the numero uno channel of Indian cable and satellite television.

    Monday, August 27 at 7:30 pm is when the new initiative starts beaming, says Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting CEO, Zee Telefilms

     

    The programming putsch was put together after an intensive audience research exercise conducted by Quantum Market Research. After taking into account factors like who’s watching what and when, age of viewer, male or female, rural or urban population and how new products would be benchmarked against the competition, Zee is introducing 24 new programmes covering the entire range of viewers’ choice across genres and time bands.

    Viewer feedback provided the fodder required, which had to primarily include the following ingredients: Exotic overseas locations, other marital relationships, music-based shows, tangled love stories and interactive show formats. All the 24 programmes being introduced incorporate one or more of the five factors.

    The promotional spend for the new look programmes will be a whopping Rs 150 million spread over a month, the biggest budget spent by ZEE so far for marketing. This is in addition to the promotions running on all the channels of Zee group. “Outdoors, print, radio, the internet, cross promotion on our TV channels. We will resort to everything to ensure that the shows get top of mind awareness with viewers,” marketing director Partha Sinha said.
     

     
    The piece-de-resistance of the new programming line up will be India’s first audience participation fiction show Aap jo bolein haan to haan,aap jo bole naa to naa. It is India’s first interactive show, a daily live drama on morals, ethics, emotions and gripping turning points where the audience will use online voting to determine the end of each story, Goyal said.
     
    Produced under licence from GloboTV of Brazil, is called You Decide It in its English avatar. The show will have three to four breaks with a total program running time of about 45 minutes. This program will air from 27 August, Mondays to Wednesdays at 10 pm.
     
     
    When asked as to what had happened to the reality show launched with much fanfare as part of a 17-programme initiative in March, Goyal said the rains had held up the set shoot. He however refused to set a date on when the show could be expected to air.

    The new shows are: Razzmatazz, a dance show, a musical extravaganza which will be compered by actor Arshad Warsi, premiers on Sunday 2 September at 11 am.

  • Need for addressability stressed at Entermedia 2001

    Need for addressability stressed at Entermedia 2001

    The Entermedia 2001 conference kicked off in Mumbai’s western suburb of Andheri today with the issue of addressability forming the core of discussions at the session on television and broadcasting.

     

    IN Cable’s Ashok Mansukhani, speaking for cable operators, pointed that the cable industry, like the film industry is facing difficulties with the recent announcement of a 5 per cent service tax on cable operations passed in mid-July. “Nobody exactly knows on what the sales tax is to be paid, and the interesting part the service tax is that cable operator are supposed to file a declaration and if your declaration is incorrect then you are liable for prosecution,” he pointed out.

     

    Meanwhile, Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting CEO, Zee Network, pointed out that the cost of creating content for television had escalated without a concomitant increase in revenues from advertising and this pointed to the need to bring in more addressability by way of cable operators declaring their actual subscriber base.

     

    Stating that it were the consumer who were reluctant to pay the full amount for the subscription, Mansukhani said the current rate that cable operators pay per subscriber was Rs 104 while the consumer paid only RS 100.

     

    Though much was said about problems dogging cable operators, the addressablity issue and what should be done to come to terms with it, what eventually remained unaddressed was a concrete proposal to tackle this problem.

     

    The panelists consisted of Kiran Karnik, former Discovery Channel head who recently was appointed as the president of NASSCOM, Ravi Gupta, CEO B4U; Ravina Raj Kohli, CEO, HFCL-Nine Broadcasting India Ltd; Ashok Mansukhani, Incable; Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting CEO, Zee Network; K. Kunhikrishnan, deputy director-general, DD; Rajesh Pant, Sony Entertainment Television and RK Gupta from Prasar Bharti.

     

    Karnik pointed out that if the next phase of growth in the industry was to be kickstarted, it was imperative that subscription rates be hiked to at least RS 300.

     

    Gupta said there many inefficiencies of the products that go across channels. Systems were required which would provide better utilisation of products.

     

    Is the cable industry in India going to see the size and growth that has happened in the developed countries like the US? Can we expect international cable operators pumping money into last mile connectivity? How soon is the pay market expected to develop for the broadcasters? What is the realistic number of channels the Indian industry can support – both nationally as well as regionally? Does DTH have a realistic future in India? These were some of the questions which received no satisfactory answers.

  • Zee Telefilms notches up better than expected FY 2000-2001 showing

    Zee Telefilms notches up better than expected FY 2000-2001 showing

    Zee Telefilms never ceases to surprise you. And its latest financial results for the year 2000-2001 must be surely making many an industry watcher shake their heads in disbelief. But the results are there for all to see. Still, one will have to wait for the Annual Report to make more sense of the financials.

    But for the nonce, one will have to complement the Subhash Chandra-led management for what can be called a better than expected performance at a time when everyone had been writing Zee TV’s obit.

     

    Total income for Zee Telefilms is up 68 per cent to Rs 4.35 billion (RS 2.97 billion) aided by a hefty increase in other income to RS 511.11 million (RS 100.8 million). Net profit is up 59 per cent to RS 1.38 billion (RS 822.5 million).

    A point to note is that the company’s investment in programming has risen this year by a healthy 30-odd per cent to RS 1.81 billion from RS 1.31 billion in the previous year. It shows that the company is going back to basics – focusing on content.

    A dividend of 55 per cent has been recommended by the management, which should keep shareholders – who have been bruised by the downslide in the share price – in some cheer.

     

    Zee Telefilms figures for Q4 2001 show that total income is up 57 per cent to RS 1,364.4 million (RS 780.9 million in Q4 2000) while programming costs have more than doubled to RS 647.6 million (RS 299.3 million). Net profit has more than doubled to RS 472.9 million (RS 203.9 million).

     

    The Zee Network Financial Roundup

     

    Looking at the Zee Network as a whole, total revenues have been far higher than predicted by market analysts with total income of RS 10.16 billion, an increase of 29.1 per cent over last year’s figure of RS 7.87 billion. Q4 revenues have also shown a jump to RS 2.99 billion over last year’s figure of RS 2.11 billion.

     

    Breaking down the revenues, there have been significant increases in other sales (now what’s that?) and interest earned. Looking at subscription and ad revenues separately, the increases have not been quite so significant. With Zee TV expected to go pay in the first half of June 2001, subscription revenues are expected to give a significant boost to the overall profitability of the company in the future.

     

    However, it remains to be seen how ad sales will be impacted because going pay normally results in a loss of viewership as decoder boxes are rolled out nationally – with a concomitant loss in ad revenue. And considering the depressed market scenario there may even be a bigger fall in ad sales revenues than that.

     

    Coming back to the figures. Ad revenues have gone up from RS 5.74 billion last year to RS 6.77 billion this year. Subscriptions have increased from Rs1.81 billion to RS 2.05 billion. Pretty healthy numbers for a channel that was supposedly in the dumps.

     

    Figures for other sales show an increase from RS 203 million to RS 754.5 million. Other sales in Q4 went from RS 83.9 million to RS 345.2 million, an over 400 per cent increase. Interest income also saw a big jump. It went from RS 114 million to RS 585.8 million, a fivefold increase. Income increase in Q4 was even bigger – from RS 15.4 million to RS 206.1 million, that’s 1,238 per cent more than last year.

     

    As far as the results go, market analysts HSBC Securities & Capital Markets Ltd were the closest in their predictions of how the results would pan out (see earlier report).

     

    All in all Zee seems to have done a neat number on all the naysayers who had written off its chances of making a comeback.

     

    There was some activity on another front as well. Sandeep Goyal, the freshly inducted group broadcasting CEO, is now a whole time director of the company. And Rajeev Chandrashekhar, head honcho of consumer electronics major BPL LTD (with interests in a whole slew of other ventures) and Vipin Malik, a Delhi-based chartered accountant, have been inducted as additional independent directors. According to company officials, Malik was formerly on the board of the the Reserve Bank of India.

    To read Zee Telefilms results fully as a pdf (Acrobat Reader) file click here. To download Acrobat Reader for Windows click here.

    Chandra returns RS 500 million given to Essel Group investment firms

     

    In another announcement, Zee Telefilms said that chairman Subhash Chandra said that he had returned RS 500 million of the RS 2500 million that had been transferred from ZTL to investment companies belonging to Chandra’s Essel group for acquiring stakes in B4U and AB Corp. He is supposed to return the entire sum by 30 June 2001.