Warc, 11 July 2013
NEW DELHI: Indian TV news channels are already being
adversely affected by October's impending advertising cap, as revenues and ad
rates have fallen during their preparations for a limit of 12 minutes of
advertising an hour.
Since the beginning of July, around 100 news channels have
cut their commercial airtime from 25-30 minutes an hour to 20 minutes and
executives are now reporting revenue down by 15-20%.
"The situation for news channels is indeed very grave.
This [the cap] will reduce the saleable inventory to less than half of the
current levels for news channels," Ashok Venkatramani, chief executive of
Media Content and Communications Services, told Livemint.
The vice chairman of NDTV Group was even more blunt.
"From 1st of October, the situation may be disastrous," said KVL
Narayan Rao, adding that while inventory would be halved, ad rates could not be
doubled.
The past two quarters have seen a 20% fall in advertising
across news channels on some estimates. The reasons include the general
economic slowdown, which has affected the financial services, real estate and
auto companies that typically advertise on news channels, and the diversion of
advertising to sports channels during the Indian Premier League and Champions
Trophy cricketing events.
Advertising executives also said the viewing market share of
news channels had almost halved in recent months, from 7% to 4%, and suggested
that in the wake of digitisation fewer households were opting for news
channels.
Venkatramani did not think decline was so sharp and noted
that digitisation "is throwing up numbers which are fluctuating wildly and
are clearly erroneous", raising once again the ongoing issue of audience
ratings which has seen broadcasters and measurement company locked in a
standoff.
Whatever the actual figures, news channels are no longer as
well regarded by agencies.
"A few years ago, news channels were the darling of
media planners for the kind of reach they delivered, but their advantage has
worn off," remarked Basabdutta Chowdhury, chief executive of Platinum
Media, part of the Madison World integrated communications agency.
"They are not as efficient and there has hardly been
any incremental reach," he added.
Data sourced from Livemint; additional content by Warc staff
No comments:
Post a Comment