Last week, Subhash Chandra promoted Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) finally launched Ten Golf, a dedicated golf channel. For a cricket-obsessed country where only the ‘men in blue’ get the eyeballs, it certainly is a brave venture for the media company, which owns India’s pioneering general entertainment channel Zee TV. Not just golf, ZEEL through its sports channel brand Ten, has dared to look at a variety of sports beyond cricket. Today Ten’s bouquet of channels consists of Ten Sports, Ten Cricket, Ten Action+, Ten HD and the newly launched Ten Golf. Ten Action + is a 24-hour football channel, whereas Ten Cricket is a dedicated cricket channel. Launched in October last year, Ten HD brings viewers live and delayed sporting events from different sports genres in high definition. While Ten Sports is a general sports channel, Ten Golf will focus on golf tournaments in India and abroad.

ZEEL?s journey in the sports arena started more than a decade back but 2006 was undoubtedly a landmark year for Zee?s sports business as it made a big investment in sports channel Ten by picking up 50% stake in its parent company, Dubai-based Taj TV, for $114 million. This was followed by complete acquisition of Taj TV in 2009. Since then Zee?s sports broadcasting business has expanded under the brand name of Ten.

?Over the years, we have grown both in terms of business and market share and know how to move towards profitability in the long run. Today we are the number one network in the non-cricket space,? says Atul Pande, CEO, sports business, ZEEL. ?As part of our research then (2009) we found that Zee as a brand was popular for general entertainment. On the other hand, Ten was already an established player in sports and so we decided to move ahead by adding to its positioning,? he adds.

To be sure, India is nowhere close to the West in terms of sports viewership. For instance, while sports viewership in the US is 62%, for India sports viewership stands at a dismal 3.4% of the total viewership pie till 2011. According to ‘Impatient Generation’, an annual study conducted by television audience measurement firm TAM Media Research, the sports genre witnessed 200 million unique viewers in the year 2011. There has been an 18% rise in sports content on TV during the year when compared to 2010. While cricket continues to remain the number one sport in the country as far as viewership is concerned, rankings of wrestling, golf, basketball, volleyball and baseball events improved during the year when compared to the previous year. Live sports coverage continued to garner over 50% of the viewing for any sports content. Also, 2011 saw 35% growth in advertising volumes for all sports channels taken together, wherein 70% of volumes continued to be garnered by cricket.

In such a scenario what made ZEEL bet on the sports broadcast business? Says Pande, ?The main idea behind breaking our sports business into various channels is to build sustainable revenue platforms. Cricket continues to give scale in terms of advertiser commitment and consumer traction even though it is struggling. While Ten Action+ makes some money, Ten Sports has been a distribution driver for us with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as one of the hot-selling properties. Our projection is that super niche offerings such as Ten HD and Ten Golf will reach profitability in 2-3 years. But the biggest challenge is to monetize sports in India.?

All the channels in the Ten bouquet are available across direct-to-home (DTH), analog and digital platforms. Ten Golf and Ten HD are, however, available only on DTH and digital.

ZEEL is looking at incremental growth in subscription revenue over the next one year on the back of strong sports programming content and digitisation. Barring Ten HD and Ten Golf, the other channels under the Ten fold are beamed across 14 countries in South Asia including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.

Sports channels in India certainly are of secondary importance in the media plans of a majority of brands from across categories. And considering the fact that globally, subscription is emerging as a bigger revenue stream for sports channels, the going will get tough for ZEEL. Apparently, Zee?s sports business is largely divided into cricket and non-cricket. Industry insiders are of the opinion that its cricket business will lose some money this year. At the same time, most of the channels under the Ten bouquet will either break even or become profitable in a year?s time period.

Competing sports channels have already lapped up the broadcasting rights of some big-ticket properties in India. While Multi Screen Media will show Indian Premier League (IPL) for a decade, ESPN Star Sports has the rights for London 2012 Olympics as well as ICC 2015 World Cup . Ten Cricket will be high on non-India Test matches, ODIs and T20s. While Ten Sports has Moto GP and US PGA Championship, Ten Action+ will show UEFA Champions League and Spanish Premier Liga. According to the latest TAM data for the week March 4-10, Star Cricket is the number one sports channel with a channel share of 61.13% followed by ESPN with a share of 14.68%. Ten Sports is at the third spot with a channel share of 14.2%. Ten Cricket is the fifth most watched sports channel with a share of 1.74%.

According to sources, while non-India cricket matches on Ten Cricket command ad rates in the range of R7000-8000 for a 10-second spot, commercial time for test matches involving the Indian team sell for more than R75,000 per 10 seconds. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) spots come for R8000 followed by football matches on Ten Action+ which sell for R2000-2500 per spot. ZEEL will strike a balance between bundling and channel specific selling to drive value. Pande is sure that five different offerings can sustain in the long run as segmentation is happening in sports in India.

Shubha George, chief operating officer (South Asia), MEC, a global media agency network, however, says that super niche or pure play channels may not be able to attract enough advertisers as the market is not mature enough and the following is too small. ?Currently, India cricket matches run 160 days or more in a year and work effectively as a frequency booster for advertisers (big or small) for a low cost. On the other hand, spot buying in non-cricket sports such as F1 or Wimbledon remains event specific,? she says.

However, Pande has his game-plan ready. ?The Indian sports market is rapidly evolving from national sports to regional leagues. One of our focus areas will be investing in Indian regional cricket leagues. While under declaration of cable connections and government regulations are a hindrance, digitisation will be another key area of investment where we will work with cable operators to improve the quality of viewer experience,? says Pande. The company is also paying attention to the emerging trend of pocket viewership of certain sports across the country. For instance, football matches garner higher ratings in Kolkata and Goa along with other metros. There are plans to start language feeds for select regions.

With Ten Golf, ZEEL seems to have done its homework well. Ask Pande on why start a super niche channel now and he is quick to get into the ?number crunching? mode. ?There are 300-plus golf courses in India with a total number of 3 lakh members. Currently, the sport is watched by 2.5 million viewers in India. The average household income of someone who plays golf in India is upwards of $50,000. There is clearly an opportunity to create a lifestyle channel on golf with half a million people buying it in the next two years,? he says. Focusing on dish and digital as distribution platforms, Ten Golf comes at a price of R200/month. The channel will pay extra attention to build India specific programming too and plans to work with various sports bodies to create tournaments and consumer initiatives to generate revenue.

?A channel like Ten Golf will be a game changer as golf is emerging in India,? says Anwesh Bose, senior vice-president, DDB MudraMax, Media, explaining that there should be a balance of power between cricket and non-cricket properties. ?There will be a few but big advertisers for whom the viewer?s mindset will be more important than just viewership numbers. Besides, golf tournaments create the much sought-after corporate networking environment and so brands will not shy away from making big investments for higher returns,? he adds.

Pande shares that advertisers? response has been encouraging so far and the channel already has luxury watch brand Rolex on board. The channel plans to rope in automobile and retail lifestyle brands as advertisers in the future. And why not? ZEEL has made significant investments in putting together an interesting programming line-up for Ten Golf. To begin with, the channel has entered into a licensing agreement with NBC Universal International Television Distribution for the exclusive basic cable rights in India to a slate of original programming from Golf Channel of US. Under the terms of the agreement, Ten Golf will be showcasing 400 hours of golf programming, including series and news, showcased as a Golf Channel branded block. Additionally, the channel will also air a collection of popular golf events, including PGA Championship, Senior PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, European Tour, and WGC HSBC Champions Tournament.

Indranil Das Blah, chief operating officer of entertainment, fashion, celebrity and sports management company KWAN, however, points out how Indian viewers are far from ready to watch golf. He says, ?Perhaps it would have made sense to launch a golf channel three years back when Indian players such as Jyoti Randhawa and Shiv Kapur made it big internationally. Today, most of the Indian players are either injured or in terrible form. The lack of Indian talent in golf has resulted in loss of viewer’s interest. How long can you be mad about Tiger Woods only?? He agrees with MEC’s George on how buying in non-cricket channels will continue to be event specific with football, F1 and tennis properties expected to garner higher viewership.