Can Sony Make It To The Top 3 GECs?

Pallavi Srivastava May 17, 2010

With the new management and new strategies in place, Sony Entertainment channel has bounced back in the general entertainment space. The channel has registered more than 100% growth in ratings in past twelve months. But the million dollar (or may be million eyeball) question is can the channel conquer the GEC space or at least make it to top 3 once again? MediaWorldBuzz’s Pallavi Srivastava delves further…

Circa 2009: Once a popular brand in the television entertainment space, Sony is almost written off by the TV industry. The channel is declared an also rans and lags far behind in the GEC race with less than hundred GRPs a week.. Kunal Dasgupta, who has been Multi Screen Media’s (MSM- which was earlier Sony Entertainment Television) top honcho since its launch, resigns amidst controversies. The company brings in a new management and goes for a repositioning of the channel with a slew of new launches in the month of May. The channel’s all day GRPs then were at 79 per week and Prime Time weekly GRPs at 32.

Circa 2010: The new top brass at the Sony’s office in Malad West (in Mumbai) is in an extra ordinarily cheerful disposition.  Reason? The general entertainment channel which was written off by everyone just an year ago, has more than doubled its GRPs in the past 12 months period. The management team at the channel is busy working on the road map to take the channel to the top three GECs and eventually capture the number one crown! Easier said than done! Undoubtedly the channel has steadily grown over the last one year and has established itself as a clear number four. But can Sony beat the three GEC giants (viz Star, Zee and Colors) and grab the number one spot? Even before that, can the channel cross the first major hurdle and make a place for itself in the top 3?

Naresh Gupta, Dentsu Marcom
“It all depends on programming....

Naresh Gupta, Director- Strategy and Planning, Dentsu Marcom feels, “It all depends on programming. If they can create shows they will make it to the top.” Sample this:  In the last 12 months the All Day Weekly Channel GRPs of Sony have increased to 177 GRPs (as of May 2010) as compared to 79 GRPs (as of May 2009). Even the Weekly Prime Time GRPs have jumped to 79 GRPs (as of May 2010) from 32 GRPs (as of May 2009; source TAM, Market: Hindi Speaking Markets, TG: 4+yrs). The numbers assert the fact that the channel has more than doubled its weekly all day and prime time GRPs. This clearly is an indication of the channel’s footing getting stronger, once again, in the GEC space.

Commenting on the channels’ revival, Surbhi C. Murthy, Deputy GM, Allied Media says, “The change of management has clearly worked for them.” N.P. Singh, COO, MSM explains, “One thing that really brought us back on track was our strategy to sharply define the positioning of the channel followed by a very focused approach on programming, scheduling and marketing.” Singh is right indeed! On one hand new shows launched in May 2009 helped Sony improve its ratings by 40-50%, on the other hand smart scheduling of old properties like CID too has given significant jump to its TRPs. The re runs of this 13 years old crime thriller (CID) alone has boosted the channel’s ratings by 30-35% in the last one year time span. Another major scheduling and programming experiment has been the launch of seven new shows of YRF in January this year. Not just the content (of the YRF shows) has been completely different from what other GECs are offering, the deliberate scheduling of the shows on weekend has been a bold yet smart move. “The YRF shows on Sony are completely different and target a different set of audience which is youth and urban centric. Thus, scheduling these six fiction (and one non fiction) shows on weekend, which looked like an outrageous move on the surface, actually made perfect sense keeping in mind the target audience,” says a Delhi based media analyst.

A more recent scheduling experiment on Sony’s part has been the channel’s decision to battle the other GECs with a pack of reality shows on weekday prime time programming (during 9-10 p.m. slot). The channel recently launched Indian Idol on weekdays 9-10 p.m. slot. Soon, it is launching Boogie Woogie and Comedy Circus on the rest of the weekday in the same slot. Thus, it is putting its best foot forward, i.e. reality, against the top rated shows on Star, Zee and Colors.

However, a major area of concern for Sony remains its fiction programming. This is clearly reflected in the its top 10 properties(highest rating grosser) in the last one year viz. - Indian Idol – Season 5,  C.I.D.,  Dus Ka Dum Season 2,  Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao, Dance Premier League, Aahat – Season 4, Comedy Circus, Boogie Woogie,  Filmfare Awards (Event) and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (Movie). The only fiction shows in the list are C.I.D. and Aaha, which are again very old shows and were having many re-runs during the period. And to strengthen its fiction content the channel roped in Ajay Bhalwankar as its programming head, a few months back. Bhalwankar brings with himself an expertise on fiction programming with his impressive experience at Zee. 

Bhalwankar clearly indicated Sony’s intent to strengthen its fiction line up as he stated, “In the coming times the focus on fictional content will be extremely high from my side.” The channel will be soon launching two new fiction shows: ‘Pitaah’ and ‘Toh Baat Hamari Pakki Hai’. The nearing YRF shows too an end and will be over by the end of June. Sources confirm that in July, there will be a slew of new YRF shows launched on the channel.

Though fiction will be a major area of focus for Sony but the channel will continue to have fair amount of non-fiction shows too. Two very bold talk shows are already in the pipeline but when quizzed the sources in the company refused to comment. Apart from that, a third season of Dus Ka Dum will go on-air in September or October. But the channels biggest non-fiction show will be aired around year end. The channel maintained complete silence about the show. But the sources hint that Sony is betting really big on this reality show and expecting it to be the country’s biggest show ever!

But one major challenge that this GEC has to deal with is its weak performance in the small towns of the country, which are a very important market for the category. Ajit Thakur, Business Head, Sony says, “Going forward the biggest challenge for us will be to grow ourselves in the heartland of the country. We are already very popular in the urban areas… we have to grow in smaller towns.” The channel doesn’t have a strong hold in markets like UP which is a very strong market for any entertainment channel. However, Allied Media’s Murthy has another perspective on this. She feels, “Every other GEC except Sony has been ignoring the biggest spending audience that is in bigger cities. Except for the FMCG sector, all the other categories get their monies mainly from metros and mini metros. So why not cater to them?”

The channel’s Marketing Head Danish Khan shared with us that they have rolled out a marketing plan named ‘Sony Ka Aangan’ to reach out to audiences which are not easily accessible through mass media platforms. Khan says, “Lots of women especially in tier 3 and tier 4 cities of the country aren’t accessible through the mass media. So the best way to reach them is by directly reaching them. Through Sony ka Aangan we will be going to cities like Gorakhpur, Bareiley, Jaipur etc. and organize events like Jagran. And while these women come there and  spend time doing something that interests them, we will gently put our message across to them.” A lot of forthcoming shows on the channel will be riding on ‘Sony ka Aangan’. In Khan’s words ‘It is a pretty ambitious plan’. In the next one year Sony aims at organizing around 600 such events across six critical markets: Delhi, MP, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Rajasthan and UP.

With all its strategies in place and warchest armed up, Sony is gearing up to close the Gap of 100 odd GRPs with the top three GECs (while Sony has all day 179 GRPs in  a week, the top three entertainment channels hover around somewhere between 270-300 GRPs).