Sony, the flagship channel of Sony Pictures Networks (SPN), fell from the 10th position on the BARC India list of the most watched Hindi general entertainment channels. BARC or Broadcast Audience Research Council, releases a weekly list of popular channels and programmes on television based on their viewership numbers. The data published by BARC last week was for the period between 27 February and 4 March, or week 9. The data for week 10 will be available on 17 March.
It is sad to see one of the country's earliest Hindi TV channels" launched in 1995"ranked below so many others, several of which started much later. For week 9, Star Plus was number one followed by Colors, Zee TV, Zee Anmol and DD National, in that order. Interestingly, SPN's two other channels, Sony Pal (ranked 6) and Sony SAB (at number 10), were also ahead of its flagship brand Sony.
To be sure, up until some years ago, Sony used to be the second most-watched channel. It was popular even when it began life under Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India Pvt. Ltd. (The promoter company has since changed its name twice"from SET to Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd and now Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd.) However, over the years, the channel has slipped in terms of total viewership and ranking. It's not difficult to see why the channel is a laggard compared with its mainline competitors like Star Plus, Zee TV and Colors as well as some of the flanking channels of these broadcasting companies.
In the television business, the brand philosophy of a channel is crucial. It helps you define your target audience and makes you decide who you make programmes for. What is more important than defining your target audience is the role that you play in the life of your target audience. Sony doesn't seem to have cracked that yet. Frankly, viewers chase programmes and not channels, and unfortunately none of Sony's shows are among the top programmes in BARC's listing currently, the way Naagin is for Colors or Kumkum Bhagya is for Zee TV.
What may have gone against Sony is its oscillating positioning" sometimes the channel targeted mass audiences and at others it became metro-centric. The shifts in positioning may have affected its viewership. Also, while the channel may be catering to young, metro-centric audiences, the bitter truth is that this audience isn't very sticky. It is the lady of the house from the middle-class home who sticks to shows and plays a crucial role in determining the success of a Hindi entertainment channel. Star Plus, Zee TV and Colors have all been able to reach out to this lady.
When Colors launched in 2008, for instance, it targeted the urban audiences with its reality shows Khatron Ke Khiladiand Bigg Boss, but it did not forget the woman of the house who was hooked to Balika Vadhu and Uttaran. Its programming schedules were also planned according to both rural and urban audiences tuning in at different times.
Twenty-five years after private television came to India, the stories that work on Hindi channels are still those that are on the conservative side. "Even now if the jeans-clad lady of the house is shown to be having an affair, the serial will be short-lived. It will have to be scrapped," says an entertainment television veteran. So what continues to fetch audiences is something like Diya Aur Baati Hum on Star Plus, where the daughter-in-law of the house is a cop but is still a dutiful bahu at home. It maintains the balance between new age and old. In 2010, Star India smartly tweaked the positioning for Star Plus to suit its new taglineRishta Wahi, Soch Nayi. And while it wasn't a dramatic shift from the tried and tested, the programming became slightly positive.
What pushed the viewership for Star India's second channel Life OK, launched in 2011, was mythology"the story of Lord Shiva in Devon Ke Dev...Mahadev. It may be recalled that Life OK replaced Star One, the broadcaster's floundering urban, metro-centric channel. Launched in 2009, even Real TV by Alva Brothers and Turner International had to down shutters. Its stories were aimed at the neo-Indians defined as being outward-looking and progressive.
To be sure, the first screen (television) still seems to be dominated by conservative audiences. The younger audiences may be found on the second and third screens such as tablets and mobile phones.
What Sony may also need to remember is that BARC now captures rural viewership information as well. In fact, there is a finer audience and programming segmentation today than there was earlier. The audience composition is so much more semi-urban and rural today that even the stories are being set in much smaller places. It is no longer about Patna. It is about Begusarai. However, if a channel still insists on sticking to programming for the upwardly mobile, urban youth, the shows better be cutting edge.
Apart from programming issues, Sony may be struggling with people issues as well. Critics argue that the channel needs fresh blood as there has been little change in the team that founded it 20 years ago. But N.P. Singh, chief executive at SPN, doesn't agree. In a conversation with Mintin Mumbai he said that last year, the channel brought in a strong and brand new team to implement the content and communication strategy.
This year it will be launching new shows. Kapil Sharma's comedy show will go on air in April. Very soon, another hour-long daily show will be launched. A couple of weeks ago, it introduced two new fiction shows on the channel.
Singh argued that Sony has a very strong positioning in the mind of the viewer and every time the broadcaster brings content which is in line with that positioning, it has worked. However, he agreed that the channel, in its attempt to appeal to a wider mass of audiences, changed its content strategy a little bit. And that did not work for it. The core viewers of Sony are in the large and small urban towns. These viewers look for contemporary, progressive programming and content which is full of hope and happiness, and is aspirational, said Singh. "That is what we are now trying to go back to and I am very confident that in a few months' time, we will see a significant growth in our viewership," he added.
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