Week 42: Zee @ No.4 with 178 GRPs - Page 2

rajsri, i think PR would have delivered lesser ratings had bigg boss4 not been banned in a lot of places in mumbai due to shiv sena. Zee is now totally dependant on PR. Funny that a channel which delivered 280 GRPs with 6 daily shows is now delivering 178. You can sense how their upcoming shows are going to be- cliched &melodramatic with no emphasis on content. It was the total opp last year. Their shortsighted approach towards trps as u rightly said is the main thing leading to their downfall among others. They get panicky if their shows don't get trps in the 1st few weeks and start pressurising the PHs to show "twists & turns". U r trying to sell a story to the audience...how can there be any proper story if the characters behave diff in each and every epi? I think why ppl say KBC has failed to raise sony's position much is that when KBC 1st started on star, star was not a biggie. But with KBC they became no1 and this helped their fiction shows in getting good ratings. Maybe they're expecting the same with sony. But tv was diff then with not many shows as it is now. seema: Lol.... I also want SAB to overtake zee . They have much much better shows.

priyanka ... thanks for pointing that out abt Big boss ... i too was wondering abt it bcos for a few days it seemed to be ahead of PR and then suddenly dropped out ... am also waiting for the bidaai replacement ... to see how much of a dent that makes in the PR TRPs

As for Zee ... from being a very strong contender for No.1 or No.2 their TRPs are now half that of Star Plus ... what a fall from just a few months back ... even a couple of months back they were not so bad. For all of their focus on TRPs they do not strategize and plan for the longer haul ... it is basically one gimmick after the other tried out every week to see if raises their TRPs. They do not seem to do their own research ... but instead are blindly following the leader ... and hoping that since something worked for Star Plus, it should work for them also

Originally posted by: rajsri

They do not seem to do their own research ... but instead are blindly following the leader ... and hoping that since something worked for Star Plus, it should work for them also

Swarup Chakraborty / Mumbai October 21, 2010, 0:44 IST

After a poor experience in 2001, the channel has steered clear of big-bang spends and is focusing on profits rather than stars.

At a time when leading Hindi general entertainment channels such as Star Plus, Colors and Sony have roped in big Bollywood stars to grab eyeballs, only one among the top five – Zee TV — has remained firm on its decision to go off the beaten track.

The flagship channel of one of the few profitable TV networks in the country says it does not believe in spending lavishly on stars' salaries. Some of these costs are impossible to recover, Zee says. "Signing big Bollywood names and purchasing movie rights at unrealistic costs do not necessarily convert into more revenues. Bollywood celebrities create buzz and capture eyeballs only in their launch week but are not able to sustain it for the entire season," says a spokesperson of Zee TV. Many observers, however, say Zee is being once bitten, twice shy. The channel had a bad experience with its first big budget celebrity reality show, Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, featuring Manisha Koirala and Anupam Kher, in 2001. The show had to be pulled out as it did not find favour with viewers. "The channel tried to emulate the success of Kaun Banega Crorepati in 2000. However, the show was a poor imitation and sunk without a trace even though the prize money was 10 times what was being offered on KBC," says an executive of a rival network. Zee TV has never taken that route after that. Market observers say the channel is making a virtue out of necessity as it seems to be quite content with its number 3 position in the ratings chart (it slipped to number 4 this week after KBC started airing on Sony).

Star Plus and Colors say celebrity driven shows are excellent buzz marketing tools. "We are constantly innovating with our reality show formats. This year we have MasterChef India with Akshay Kumar and we are confident that the show will do well as the format is a hit globally and Kumar has a huge fan following,"says Star India CEO Uday Shankar. Ashvini Yardi, programming head of Colors, says not only do celebrity reality shows create a buzz, they also drive sampling. "With celebrity reality shows like Fear Factor, Khatron Ke Khiladi and Bigg Boss we get newer viewers. It is true that these are high budget shows, but they are necessary as a marketing tool."

To its credit, some of Zee's reality shows have got great ratings without "star power". For instance, Zee TV's song reality show Saregamapa (formerly known as Saregama before singer Shaan hosted the show) has been on air for 15 years now and the show continues to get better ratings than other shows in the same genre. Over a period of time, the show has become so popular that in February 2007, Real Media - Zee TV in Dubai produced and started airing Saregamapa Middle East - Pakistan Challenge 2007 for contestants in West Asia and Pakistan. Zee TV also produces the show in regional languages like Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and Telugu.

"With our dance reality show Dance India Dance (DID) too, we got loyal viewers. It's not that we are against celebrity judges, but it should make commercial sense," a Zee TV executive says, adding DID and Saregamapa are Rs 100-crore brands for us. The channel says it is more interested in profitable groW*H rather than running after eyeballs. One of the strategies for profitability that the channel has employed is to focus more on fiction content and expand its reach beyond India. The channel is present in 167 countries and in FY 10, nearly 20 per cent of its top line was contributed by its international business.

"We have built a mechanism to understand the preference and taste of Asian audience across the globe," says Bharat Ranga, COO, international operations, Zee. Experts say that only Sun and Zee make money, while others are in the red.

Not just stopping at healthy subscription revenues from markets outside India, Zee TV is also pushing the envelope to generate advertisement revenues from these territories. Recently it tied up with TV rating agency Nielsen in the US to get better deals from advertisers. Nielsen will track the channel's performance in the US. It is the only South Asian network to be monitored by Nielsen.

In FY 10, Zee Entertainment Network posted a net profit of Rs 429.16 crore on a revenue of Rs 1276 crore

Originally posted by: misti73

[Market observers say the channel is making a virtue out of necessity as it seems to be quite content with its number 3 position in the ratings chart (it slipped to number 4 this week after KBC started airing on Sony).

"We have built a mechanism to understand the preference and taste of Asian audience across the globe," says Bharat Ranga, COO, international operations, Zee. Experts say that only Sun and Zee make money, while others are in the red.

Not just stopping at healthy subscription revenues from markets outside India, Zee TV is also pushing the envelope to generate advertisement revenues from these territories. Recently it tied up with TV rating agency Nielsen in the US to get better deals from advertisers. Nielsen will track the channel's performance in the US. It is the only South Asian network to be monitored by Nielsen.

In FY 10, Zee Entertainment Network posted a net profit of Rs 429.16 crore on a revenue of Rs 1276 crore

Thanks for the article, Misti ... it is very well written

I pulled out the pieces from the article that were very interesting for me

- I do agree that the channel seems very content to stay in its No.3 slot ... however, they seem to be in danger of losing that to Sony now ... and who knows, pretty soon it may be hard for them to be No.4

- Their strategy of not going after celebrities is fine, but they have to invest in good quality fiction shows as an alternative ... and they have to invest in good, established actors to bring in their audience. The dynamics in the TV industry seem to be changing ... and when there are so many shows to choose from, the audience will gravitate towards shows that have their favorite actors in them and stay on only if the story line is interesting

- I have to agree that they seem to be one of the few profitable entertainment companies ... and it is great that they focus on overall profitability than just revenue ... but there has to be a balance between the two ... and their non-attention to revenue and market research will cost them dearly both in terms of revenue and profit margins in the longer term

- Subscription revenue is a big part of their revenue ... i dont understand how they can claim to have developed a mechanism to understand the preference and taste of Asian audience across the globe ... it is not reflected in the shows that they produce or the story lines they have been thrusting on all their shows ...