A saffron-clad, bearded guru twisting his body to effortless poses of yoga has become a talking point among teenagers. With 24-hour religious TV channels airing the live darshan of holy deities or even discourses on pranayam and yoga, spirituality has traversed millions of living rooms. People are tuning in to spiritual channels almost any time of the day, often substituting it for a temple visit.

Explains Arvind Joshi, general manager, distribution & marketing, Aastha TV: ?A socio-spiritual channel has a huge potential in India. Almost 76% of our audience comprises youth in the age group of 25 to 46 and almost 15% is in the 4 to 15 years age group.?

The fast-growing spiritual channel industry is worth around Rs 60 crore, with channels like Aastha and Sanskar leading the pack. The viewer loyalty of these channels is also strong, as they enjoy consistent viewership from male and female audiences throughout the year.

According to television rating agency aMap, the target group share of male and female viewers is estimated at 54% and 46%, respectively. These channels, say experts, have no gender bias and appeal to everyone.

A spiritual organisation called World Oneness Centre airs a series of health episodes on Aastha TV. According to Acharya Samardarshiniji, director, Oneness Univercity: ?Good health should be a way of life, irrespective of the age of a viewer. Our show focuses on the various aspects of care and nourishment that a person must keep in mind to stay healthy.? She says the appeal for the show would have been higher had it been aired on a Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC). But a religious channel is far cheaper than a GEC.

Jagjit Singh Kohli, managing director, Digicable, mentions, ?Earlier most of these channels were free-to-air. Since there was a huge demand for these channels, cable operators began monetising on their popularity.? While Hindi channels like NDTV Imagine and 9X paid around Rs 60 to Rs 70 crore as carriage fees, spiritual channels also pay a heavy carriage fee as per the frequency and the band that they want to be available on.

Aastha TV?s Joshi says, ?Almost 70% slots on Aastha TV are sponsored by advertisers while almost 30% is obtained from ad sales.?

Points out Navin Khemka, senior vice-president, Zenith Optimedia India: ?Initially, there was no advertising on these channels, but over a period these channels found enough advertising to sustain themselves. These channels mainly cater to a slightly older age group. Since not many brands want to restrict themselves to a particular religion, these channels have a very niche audience because of their unique content.?

As most of these channels are free-to-air, there is a huge demand for them across towns and cities, which proves beneficial for cable operators. The price of a ten second ad spot on these channels may be as low as Rs 300, which is a tenth of a Hindi GEC spot. Aastha TV, market leader with 2.4 group-rating points (GRPs) in February 2009, demands between Rs 650 and Rs 4,500 for a ten second ad spot. Early morning is a time-band that generally does not find many viewers, but there are exceptions. The highest rated programme in Punjab is the Gurubani on ETC that is aired live at 6 am.

Direct-to-home (DTH) company Tata Sky, along with VSNL, telecast the live darshan of Lord Shiva to its viewers last year on DTH as well as the Internet. Reportedly, both VSNL and Tata Sky paid nearly Rs 36 lakh a year to the Kashi Vishwanath trust for the exclusive telecast rights of the live darshan. Through this service, Tata Communications installed live video setup at six revered religious sites in India and integrated the live feed with all major mobile operators and premium content providers. The service provides subscribers?national and international?access to major religious services.

The success of such shows has prompted the channels to extend their brand equity to other products and target NRI markets, where cultural products are in demand. Thus, while channels Sadhna and Sanskar are already on air in the US and the UK, Zee Jagran intends to capitalise on its strong overseas presence. Aastha TV sells customised items like prayer books, while spiritual channels have an option to sell high-end merchandise like gift items, magazines and meditation aids to tap another stream of revenue.

According to media buyer, ?In terms of content, the scope of innovation for these channels is quite limited, and thus, distribution costs often escalate. The cost of carriage and distribution is mainly where GECs surpass religious channels.?

Zee Jagaran enjoys a market share of 9% to 10% with a net reach of almost 5.5 million, 8 million and almost 10 million viewers pan-India through platforms like Dish TV (Zee Group?s DTH service), DD Plus and the channels own viewerbase. Anil Anand, business head, Zee Jagaran, says, ?The programming of spiritual channels consists mainly of live telecast of the aartis and bhajans from temples like Tirupati, Balaji and Shirdi. The viewership of such shows shoots up automatically during festivals. However, if the programming is conceptualised innovatively by showcasing documentaries on religious communities like the Jain community or the Nirankars, the TRPs increase subsequently.? Moreover, in a bid to attract the younger audience, Zee Jagaran had also aired the animated series of various folk tales like the Panchatantra.

Though teenagers may be talking about Baba Ramdev and his yoga, Anand says religious channels have a low involvement from the youth. ?The effective rate of advertising in a spiritual channel is far lower than that of a GEC. Since the average viewer of a channel is in the age group of 55 to 60 mostly advertisers like financial institutions, insurance companies, pharmaceutical and FMCG brands like Dabur buy airtime for airing commercials.?

As a company policy, Aastha TV does not air commercials of multinational companies on their channel. This often restricts its revenue. Joshi concludes, ?Earlier there was a huge vacuum in this category of channels but with the increase in the number of channels every year, the popularity of these channels is truly evident.?

Spiritual channels may be popular as of now, but analysts say that isn?t enough to sustain the business.