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News channels jostle to grab attention

Nithya Subramanian

NEW DELHI, July 2

IT'S not about news breaks only, but about getting the viewer hooked. Competition among news channels is hotting up with Zee News and Star News trying to retain their shares and new ones like Bloomberg and Sahara looking at this market.

Advertising sources said that international news channel, Bloomberg, is gearing for an Indian foray and has already started sending feelers to advertising agencies. Sahara, on the other hand, has also indicated plans to launch a news and current affairs channel, while late entrant, Doordarshan, is also pulling up its socks by revamping not only its programming, but also inducting new staff. Added to all these are several regional news channels and the numerous news-based programmes on other channels.

A shakeout in this market seems imminent. "In any category there will be a leader and a close second. And that is bound to happen sooner or later," said Ms Anita Bose, senior media planner, Contract Advertising.

While currently, the Indian news channel does not have a clear-cut leader, there is a fight to the top. In the race to the top of the over Rs 100-crore news channels market, media planners said that TV Today's Aaj Tak has managed to do very well, especia lly in the Hindi belt. "The channel started with a base of zero and has managed to give Zee News a tough time," said Ms Bose.

Aaj Tak, meanwhile, claims that the channel attracts 12 million viewers everyday. According to viewership figures by AC Nielsen's TAM, viewers spend about 44 minutes on that channel compared to 28 minutes on Zee News and 18 minutes on Star News.

Mr G. Krishnan, Executive Director, TV Today, said, "There is potential to increase the viewership and that would be done by strengthening content."

Advertising continues to be the main source of revenue for news channels as most of them do not charge a subscription fee. "We are committed to being free-to-air for the next few years and therefore, advertising will be our main source of revenue," said Mr Krishnan.

Media planners said that there is an increasing shift by advertisers from English news channels to Hindi news channels. "The reach that the Hindi channel has, cannot be compared to an English channel. Hence increasingly, advertisers are moving away from international channels like CNN or BBC to Indian news channels," said a senior media planner.

BBC Worldwide India Ltd's Director, Ms Monisha Shah, shrugged off any such shift and said that BBC was way ahead of CNN in terms of performance in the Indian markets.

But channels like BBC, CNN or CNBC would continue to be niche channels and, therefore, the task of both capturing viewership as well as audiences would be tough. "CNBC, for example, may have done well, but again its appeal is limited and getting advertis ements for the channel would be far tougher than a Zee or Aaj Tak," said media planners.