Zee Tvs Viewership Soars But Stars Languishes

In the game of audience base, being played by various television channels, including Doordarshan, the greatest gainer has been Zee Network, on which the audiences currently spend slightly over 12 per cent of their viewing time.

In 1995, the corresponding figure for the Zee family of channels was about 5 per cent, says the latest edition of Cable Waves, a trade magazine dealing in broadcasting and telecommunications issues.

The analysis by Cable Waves, carried out on the basis of Indian Marketing Research Bureau figures, states: The viewership for STAR Plus in June 1997 (about 2 per cent) remains the same as in June 1995 (about 1.71 per cent), while the viewership for Zee TV still remains three times that of STAR Plus. Zee TVs audience share in June 1995 was about 4.12 per cent and it remains unchanged.

According to the Cable Waves cover story Battle For The Same (audience) Pie with enough number of channels already available in May 1995, those which started later have added no new audience and, instead, carved out a share from the existing audience.

English channels still remain niche products and the three entertainment channels from the STAR stable STAR Plus, STAR Movies and Channel V collectively account for only half of the audience share currently accounted for by the Zee family.

Eight months after STAR Plus diluted its identity and introduced Hindi programming on its main channel, the strategy has still to translate into greater viewership, the story states, adding: Even more worrisome for the group is the fact that this audience has largely been in decline over the last two years.

In contrast, the rise in viewership share of Zee family of channels is a result of strategic additions of newer channels to complement the existing channel a flotilla strategy to diffuse the threat of an attack.

However, Zees success has not been replicated by other pre-dominantly Hindi-language channels like Sony Entertainment Television, Home TV, ATN and DD 3 plus Movieclub. These channels collectively could manage an audience share between 3 and 16 per cent for most of the period (May 1995-June 1997) under study, the Cable Waves story states. Zee TVs viewership share has largely stayed constant between 5 and 7 per cent in the last two years. After two years of operation, Cable Waves says, ESPN has little to show in terms of audience. In contrast, STAR Sports has compiled a viewership that has been able to withstand the fluctuations in an event-driven channel.With the time spent watching television remaining unchanged in the last two years despite new channels described by Cable Waves as viewership fatigue the impact may be felt on the rate of growth of television advertising as well as the ability to establish newer channels in a free-to-air, advertising-supporting mode. The pressure to attract viewership thus remains on the broadcasters, Cable Waves concludes.