For the first time since 2000, when Amitabh Bachchan’s deep baritone welcomed audiences to a gripping quiz show with a prize money of Rs1 crore in the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Star Plus has slipped to the second slot in the general entertainment ratings chart. Colors, broadcast by a JV between Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA), and India’s Network18 Group, has pipped News Corp.’s Star Plus to the post, breaking the latter’s nearly decade-long domination in Indian living rooms and advertisers’ media plans.
“We are of course delighted with the performance of Colors, particularly in view of the fact that the channel has not yet rolled out all its programming, which we will be doing in phases,” said Network18 Group CEO Haresh Chawla. Colors is yet to launch its afternoon band and weekend programming. The channel went from free-to-air to subscription mode two weeks ago. When asked about colors’ revenues and when the channel will break even, Chawla said: “We are running well ahead of our business plan and we have now also added pay revenue to our income line. We are grateful for the kind of support we got from advertisers.” He declined to offer any figures or further details.
The results of the latest week doesn’t come as a surprise, as Colors, launched in July 2008, grew steadily to reach the No.2 slot, riding high on a nifty mix of expensive reality shows and soaps that trod a very different path from the Saas-Bahu formulae that Star had perfected. For many months now, it has been a neck-and-neck race, and it was expected that if Star doesn’t pull a winning trick out of its hat, Colors would one day top the chart.
For the week ended 11 April, Colors had 292 gross rating points, or GRPs, while Star Plus had 267. Zee, which had come just 4 GRPs away from Star in February 2008, is at 236 GRPs this week. A GRP is a function of reach as well as time spent by viewers.
Turner’s India venture, Real, has grown from its opening week GRP of 9 to 19, but still remains at the bottom of the ratings chart, as the 12th channel.
“Well, congratulations are due to Colors for their achievement. I’m happy that somebody dared to try differentiated programming and happier that it worked. It’s beneficial to everyone that people are not just hooked to two shows for four years. As media planners, we have more options now. Colors has become an important part of all media plans, and they deserve to be there,” said Nandini Dias, COO at media agency Lodestar universal. According to Dias, GECs get some Rs2,500 crore of the Rs8,000 crore ad spends on television.
Of the global entertainment players that entered recently into the Indian market, Viacom perhaps has the most reason to cheer. In less than a year of launch, its GEC has gone straight to the top, while NBC Universal-backed NDTV Imagine is at a healthy No.4 and Turner-backed Real, at the bottom of the heap. News Corp (NYSE: NWS). and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Entertainment has been in the Indian broadcasting space for years now and in a rare instance of a global media firm’s investment in India achieveing immediate success, Viacom has beaten them all. Well, at least for a week, for sure.
Important to note, however, that while Star Plus is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp., the rest are all joint ventures.
And if Colors consolidates its position on top, it will form no small part in Network18 promoter Raghav Behl’s ambitious bid to create a full play media conglomerate from the group’s humble beginnings as a production house.
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