With
all the hype surrounding the Entertainment industry,
it seemed just the business that could rake in the
moolah. The spirit of the Entrepreneur within me decided
to embark on the task to accomplish the baron status
in broadcasting. I assumed the distant reality that
the only thing I had to do was to cultivate a few
good programmes and put it on air. Like any other
organized industry, media has a universal currency,
called Television Rating points.
Unfortunately, the first task that I did was to collect
a whole host of excuses to rubbish this system in
the case that the ratings were adverse for my programmes.
“sample size too less”, “error levels…ridiculous”
and the most effective among these being “rigged”.
With this in mind, I embarked upon my mission, but
little did I know that this would lead me to a path,
which would be too sinewy to travel. “Which programmes
do I make?”, “ What properties do I acquire?”,
“How do I strategize for my channel?” …questions
like this were challenging my whole existence as a
successful businessman.
It was on one such rainy, thought provoking evening
that in a very Harry Potterish style, God decided
to bless me with a genie, who would preach me the
12 commandments of successful broadcasting.
And sitting on top of a cloud of smoke he thundered,
“The first commandment is to approach broadcasting
as any other business in a commonsensical manner”.
Big help, I retorted. “Think”, he goes on.
“Like a product category such as soaps or shampoos
has a market share, similarly, it would be interesting
to study the shares of the various genres in TV. This
would help to understand the genre-preference of the
audiences and hence would be a ready basis for a category
of programme selection.”
Diagram 1:
Indeed. With such wisdom,I felt a bit enlightened.
Genre preferences seemed to be a ready guide to help
let me know the shift in audience preferences and
help solve some basic questions like, ”Are movies
doing better than sports?”. The genre now decided,
I can now focus on the programme content within the
genre.
The genie now seems to be pleased with himself and
avered the second commandment. “The term segmentation,
if used wisely, could help decide the audiences that
the programme has to be targetted to.” I am sure
that now will come the research jargon of SEC’s
and age-groups etc. that will go a long way in making
me get an inferiority complex of a humongous magnitude.
“The characters within the programme have to
have a connect with the target audiences. Right from
costumes of the starcast, the language, the places/houses,
accessories like bindies, phones, sunglasses, etc.
– everything has to confirm with the taste of
the target audience. This would help to achieve that
emotional connect that is of utmost importance in
a competitive scenario. ”Huh! And I thought that
just a rented bungalow and a few change in dresses
would do the trick. Give me an example to help me
understand better”, says I to the genie.
And Boom!!!
Diagram 2
“In the above example the SEC dispersion of individuals
in that market was SEC A: SEC B: SEC C: SEC D = 19:
22: 28: 30. This should help you realise that all
programmes do not attract the same kind of audiences
and one has to be very focussed at the conceptualising
stage itself whether you want the programme to be
positioned as a Dove or a Lifebuoy.”
Confidence now building within me, I decided to relax
and buy my new friend a drink. I went to a nearby
store and asked for a bottle of brand X (The name
of the brand has been cut by the censors). This brand
was not available and I therefore conciled with a
brand Y. Not too satisfied with this other drink,
I said to myself, “If brand X was available here,
I would have never opted for this.”. Taking a
long sip, the genie smiled and remarked, ”Imagine
that after doing all the hard work for programme creation,
what if, like this product, the distribution of the
channel was not in place?” With 68% of television
owners in India owning Black & White TV sets and
the urban markets too having as much as 43% Black
& White TV penetration, the distribution is one
of the prime functions. Like, various brands vie for
shelf space in a departmental store, so do the channels
to get transmitted buy a cable operator on a frequency
that is accessible by more people. ”Wow!This
has to be the third commandment!” The cable operator
transmits channels on various ‘bands’. These
are Prime Band, Colour Band, S-Band, Hyper band and
UHF band. The prime band carries only 12 channels
and can be accessed by any TV set whether old or the
new, hyper band TV sets”.
Diagram 3
“In diagram 3, one can see that as connectivity
in the top 2 bands, Prime + Colour band, improved
for Channel A in week 8 of 2001 from around 11% in
the Prime + Colour band to 71%, the reach figures
improved dramatically from 31% to 50%. ”Hmmm!
Let me just sum this up. To clarify this concept,
connectivity would drive availability, and availability
would drive trials.”
“You seem to be learning fast”, my new friend
remarked. “This means that the product is now
in place. The push has now been created among the
trade channels. Now is the time to synergise the trade
push with consumer push. This can be done through
effective promotions”. This to me appeared to
be very commonsensical and not ‘genieish’
at all. “Even advertising within your own channel
or bouquet of channels, every promotion spot actually
entails an opportunity cost that you could have earned
had you sold that spot to an advertiser. Hence, it
becomes necessary to get the most optimum yield from
your promotion plan and maximize trials.
Diagram 4
“In the above matrix, the objective should be
to maximise the number people who have seen the promo
and also seen the programme. In other words, if the
promos do not induce the people to trial the programme,
the promo plan will culminate into a high opportunity
cost”. The genie was beginning to instill a thought
process in me that I knew would make me venture into
the unknown. I decided to voice the intrepid seeker
of knowledge within me and asked the genie, “All
of this would generate the trials for my programme.
But should I not make the people who have come to
the programme spend more time within the programme?”
The smile on its face said it all. “I see that
now you are raking your greycells a bit. This is the
fifth commandment”, said he.
Diagram 5
“If the horizontal bars represent the number
of people reached by the programme, the width of the
bar reduces when the people who were reached for atleast
a minute was compared to the people who were reached
for 5 minutes etc. The more the stickiness, the more
the proof of the quality of the programme, the better
the rating.”
The jumbled pieces were now beginning to fit well
and I was even analysing graphs that seemed to have
been prepared by a scientist at ISRO. But all that
I thought now was needed, was common sense.
“The time spent may also be a function of the
scheduling of the programme. For example, a viewer
may spend more time on one channel in the afternoon
but in the prime time, the viewing may be fragmented
across a higher number of channels leading to the
viewer spending lesser time on one channel.”
But will not the number of viewers be more in the
prime time than in the afternoon? “Hey, not bad”
says the genie.
Diagram 6
“This is the sixth commandment. You will have
to take a business decision here – Whether a
big fish on a small pond or a small fish in a big
pond.” he preaches.
“Tell me”, the genie asks, “If you
go in a restaurant and the ambience is good, does
it not want to make you go back to it again?”
Well, that’s no secret, is it.” In the same
way, the channel environment plays a big role in viewer
retention”, he propagates.
Diagram 7
“The above graph is a good way to understand
channel dynamics. Channel A has 14% more secondages
of advertising per hour during prime time compared
to the full day while channel C has as high as 52%
more secondages of advertising.” Therefore, make
the channel environment conducive for the viewers.
“A phenomena as microscopic as the ownership
of remote control could lead to a complete transformation
of television viewership. Let me give you the example
of the recent FIFA World Cup finals on Ten Sports.
The parallel telecast was the Natwest cricket match
featuring India. Notice the undecided ball-by-ball
movement of remote owning audiences between two channels”,
I am apprised.
Diagram 8
“Compare this with the stable and non-obtrusive
behaviour of non-remote owning audiences”, the
genie smirked.
Diagram 9
One has to restrict this weaning away of the audiences
so that the advertiser gets the maximum returns on
his investment, I complete the eighth commandment.
Let me pre-empt the genie this time. Having got the
viewers with the above commandments, the next thing
should be to make them loyal to my brand.
Diagram 10
A higher loyalty index is an indicator of the trials
being converted into brand loyalists.
“The whole environment being so competitive,
though you have done all the right things as I have
told you above, keep a sharp lookout on the competitors”,
suggests the genie. “This is the next commandment
– Capitalise on market opportunities.”
Diagram 11
“The above chart (Diagram 11) dispels the notion
that people do not watch as much television on weekdays
as compared to weekends.” explains the genie.
“Dispelling myths and unlocking realities opens
the doors of success.” completes my savior from
heaven.
I was sure that this complete guide would help me
to give my best efforts to my new passion for broadcasting.
“Do not forget the last commandment”, says
the evangelist.” Always keep an eye out for new
jewels. Audiences may have a penchant for serials
in one year but their preference may shift to comedies
in the next year. One should also keep an eye on the
events occurring in the overseas markets as the trend
may be replicated in your market. Take the case of
“Friends” or “Ally Mcbeal” that
are big successes in USA and now also in India. In
such cases, your business sense will prove your maturity
in the business”.
The genie had shown me the way with the 12 priceless
commandments. He waits for the feedback of all readers
– to put into effect The 12 commandments –
Feedback and Evaluation.
*All
viewership figures above are courtesy TAM Peoplemeter
System
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