Zee gears up to beat Star plus

After spending years being number 3, (after being beaten off the number 1 position by Star in 2000) Zee has pulled up its socks, beaten Sony to number two position and since the last six months is challenging Star Plus for the number one slot on television. Though the all day share of Star Plus continues to be twice that of Zee's daily share, Zee however, scored points over the market leader on its 9 to 10 pm time band in the week of May, 37.3 per cent against Star Plus' 37.2 per cent. Though the 0.1 per cent difference is marginal and Star did manage to regain its number one slot, Zee is still celebrating its one-week of glory.

However, Ajay Vidyasagar, Star India's senior vice-president, marketing has a different take on the facts and figures. He explains, "For the week May 28, 06, Star Plus's GRP was 57.25 against Zee's 57.65. However, the right way to look at this is that Star Plus reached 21.3 million people in the Hindi speaking markets in the above-mentioned daytime schedule while Zee reached only 17.9 million people." According to him, Star Plus in reality leads the 9 to 10 pm slot with average ratings of 4.86 against the 3.38 TVR of Zee TV.

But one can't deny the fact that for the last six months, according to TAM data, Zee's day share has gone up from 13.1 to 20 plus. Between 8 and 11 pm, Zee's channel share has almost trebled from 7.2 to around 21. What's more, according to Ashish Kaul, Zee's senior vice-president, corporate brand development, between December 2005 and June 2006, Zee's GRPs (group rating points) have gone up from 136 to 230 whereas Star Plus' GRPs have dwindled from 500-plus to around 480-490.

"A few months ago Zee and Sony were neck-to-neck but we left them behind due to shows like Saath Phere, Kasamh Se and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa." Ajay though denies that Star's GRPs have taken a beating. He says, "If we look at the last eight-week period Star Plus' all-day reach has increased from 38.6 million viewers to 40.3 million.

Ashish doesn't disagree that Star Plus is the leader, but says, "After being the leader to be number 2 is humiliating for us. We have beaten Star Plus once in the 9 to 10 band and we will beat them again." In his opinion Star Plus' prime time strength comes from its 10 to 11 pm band. "It has a formidable presence there, but people are watching Kahani and Kyunki out of sheer habit. We have to create new properties but it can't be done overnight," he admits

Although Star Plus continues to lead the pack of general entertainment channels with overall prime time share, the fact that Zee scored a lead by a whisker for one week has certainly given rise to a lot of speculation regarding the leader's sustaining power.