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Vashi2Panvel.com: Navi Mumbai: April 13: The trend began when the Big B marked a grand entry on the small screen and asked charmingly ‘Lock kar diya jaye?’ That was Kaun Banega Crorepati, the first ever successful reality television show in India, launched by Star Plus. Soon other rival channels soon followed suit and with the success of Sony’s Indian idol and Fame Gurukul and Zee’s Saa Re Ga Ma Pa reality TV shows appear to have made a irreplaceable niche for itself on the small screen. Their soaring popularity, judging by the huge amount of live sms-es they receive and the money they spend on advertising in print and on outdoors, may lead one to believe that television channels and their programmers are working overtime to devise newer concepts and formats of reality shows, but the reality is a little different.

Several programmers have already written off reality game shows as a mere temporary phenomenon.

Says Shreshta Arya of Rose Movies (of Remix and Lipstick fame), “It’s the drama in reality that holds the audience attention. In my opinion reality shows are like steroids that give an instant kick to the TRPs which we all look for but in the long run it’s only the soaps that can give sustained TRP which is required.” Ashish Kaul, Vice President-Corporate Communication agrees with Arya. According to him News channels are the most prominent reality content providers, but they are nowhere in competition with the GECs. “The reason for reality shows to be a success is that it’s something unusual that catches your attention. Ratings of the popular soaps remain steady unlike reality shows. Reality shows can never eat away the popularity of soap operas and their TRPs speak for themselves. One cannot really bank on a reality show to earn revenues. It’s the soaps that serve as our cash cows!” he opines.

Reality shows had become a bit thanda after KBC and it’s competitors went off the air in its first season but when Amitabh Bachchan appeared again in the second season of KBC there was a spurt of reality shows on the television again. Tarun Katial Executive Vice President & Business Head, Sony Entertainment Television commented on the conceptualization of Deal Ya No Deal on its launch, “We can feel the pulse of the Indian viewers, which are right now yearning for excitement and drama and that too which they can easily relate to.” Yet, a few weeks down the line, would you say that Deal Ya No Deal is scaling the heights of popularity?

But avers Kaul, “Reality shows have stabilized and have carved a niche for themselves. They are popular in their own way. Besides, we must show something different to our viewers than just soaps, soaps and soaps…”

Though all GECs try and provide a good blend of reality and soap operas to entice the viewers it’s the undaunted success of Star Plus that’s giving sleepless nights to the CEOs of the other channels. According to the TAM ratings (C&S homes, TG 4+, Hindi speaking areas), off late Zee has moved up from the third position where it had been languishing since many years and Sony has replaced Zee’s previous spot.

Amongst Entertainment channels, another popular variety is the movie channels. With Zee Cinema boasting to be the big boss of all movie channels there’s cut-throat competition aided by another entrant Sahara’s new channel ‘Filmy’ and Star’s revamped ‘Star Gold’? The fight for the TRPs continue unabated. According to indiantelevision.com’s adex ratings Zee Cinema’s revenue last year was Rs.500 million. For the movie channels, the evening and the prime time slots are the most crucial. After that’s established they identify the afternoon slot and build it via movie titles that would please the female audiences.

According to Albert Almeida, executive vice president & business head, SET Max, the second half of 2005 was a huge success. “We had launched the Madhuri Dixit Film festival to attract the homemakers. Now we have established this slot and we are coming up with regular festivals every alternative month. ‘Sunday Houseful’, where we show the latest movies between 9am to 9pm is also a huge revenue churner for us. Change is the spice of life so yesterday’s hit formula might not be a hit today. You need to revise your plans every now and then.” The GECs had been the apple cart of the CEOs but now the scene appears to be changing a bit. The whole movie genre is moving towards a better commercial exploitation of GRPs. In fact, movie channels are being expressed as ‘mass channels’.

In the run for entertainment channels there’s another competitor- the Music channels. Currently there are as many as six popular music channels in India viz. V, MTV, Etc, B4U Music, Zee Music and CMM. According to the latest Tam Adex ratings, MTV is ruling the roost gobbling 39% of the advertising pie with Channel V a close second at 24%. Also in the run are Etc and B4U Music with 18% and 13% respectively. Music channels attract a different set of audience as compared to other channel genres. Hence, advertising too is quite different. Categories like footwear and writing instruments, which do not rank high amongst all TV channel advertising, rank third and fourth respectively for music channel advertising.

Swati Pandey
India News Feature Service