Competition may bring new evaluation pattern for GECs

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With the emergence of new general entertainment channels (GECs) like 9X and NDTV Imagine in 2007 and with Viacom 18 waiting to enter the space in the coming months, competition is sure to intensify even further. According to broking firm Sharekhan, though these are early days, the fragmentation in viewership seems inevitable with strong contenders challenging the incumbents. This would also impact the rate of growth in the advertising rack rates, especially for Zee TV and Star Plus. Though the overall industry size is expected to witness strong growth traction, media professionals and analysts feel that this will give birth to new evaluation pattern of GECs in terms of ad rates.

A senior official in Star TV, who didn’t want to be quoted, said, “Even though the number of GECs will increase in the coming months, the capacity and the market share will remain the same. It will not change arbitrarily but gradually. With increasing options for investors, advertisers’ media planning will be more targeted. What may eventually happen is that new platforms of evaluation can emerge to calculate ad rack rates. GECs, in due course of time, will be divided into two groups - mainstream GECs like Star, Zee and Sony, and GEC 2, which will include all the new channels.”

Currently, Star Plus captures the maximum market share by 28% followed by Zee TV with 25%. Sony, DD1 and NDTV Imagine have the same market share of 8%. Star One and Sahara One capture about 6%. 9X captures about 5%. Star Utsav, SAB and Zee Next shares about 2%, 3% and 1% respectively. The current approximate gross rating points (GRP) are in the tune of Star Plus - 340, Zee TV - 240, Sony-100, 9X-80, NDTV Imagine-90. During prime time, that is, between 7-11 pm, the per 10 second ad rate of Star Plus is between Rs 70,000-80,000, Zee TV is between Rs 40,000-45,000, and Sony is around Rs 25,000-30,000. With improved GRP, on an average, 9X charges about Rs 5,000-10,000 for per 10-second ad slot and NDTV Imagines rate is between Rs 15, 000-20, 000.