To garner elusive eyeballs on weekends and to grab a bigger bite of the ad pie, English business channels have embarked on a revamping spree to impart a new look to their weekend programming. Leading the pack is CNBC- TV18, which has launched eight new programmes in the last few weeks, on market and business and lifestyle. NDTV profit has brought in seven new programmes since the start of the year.
According to TAM media research, business channels witness a clear dip in viewership during weekends. For instance the TAM data shows the business channel?s market share in TRPs suffered during weekends, as during January weekdays the business channels enjoyed a 12 % of the total news viewership, but the same dipped to 5.5% during weekends, the corresponding figures for Feb stands at 11.1 % and 5.7 % for weekdays and weekends and for March stand at 9.6 % and 5.6 %. According to Neel Chowdhury, VP marketing, CNBC-TV 18 and CNBC Awaaz, ?We don?t believe that just because the weekends are non business time, the investor stops thinking of the market. Only the psychological profile of the viewer changes who is keen on watching the larger picture, the trends rather than the news bytes. Therefore our channel has launched new programmes. We are also planning more programmes.? NDTV profit says the launch of new programmes is not just viewership driven but to provide viewers with fresh insightful programming and claims that their weekend shows content have always garnered high TRP ratings as compared to competition.
Owing to a clear fall in viewership, industry sources point out that ad rates also sink to half for business channels although the time allotted for ad spots increases during the weekend. Commenting on the difference between weekday and weekend advertisers, Kunal Jamuar, GM, Madison Media said ?Weekends see a lot of male oriented ads as the remote control is largely in the hands of man of the house?.