The Hindu Business Line : Taking refuge in cricket

SaharaOne hopes its telecast of the India-England cricket series will help build viewership for its regular programmes, but observers have their reservations.

"For viewers to stick on, a sound programming strategy is necessary. Cricket may just help to increase trials."

SaharaOne has launched an advertising campaign to boost viewership for the India-England cricket series

A few years ago, the top management of Sahara India Parivaar led by Subroto Roy unveiled the group's ambitious plans for the broadcast space at a news conference in Mumbai.

Industry observers voiced scepticism. Rightly so perhaps, because what followed soon after did not live up to the initial clamour. It took time. The general entertainment channel, Sahara TV, required a second name change - to SaharaOne - for better acceptance among viewers; its first foray into the renaming game - as Sahara Manoranjan - yielded little result.

Then, it struck gold. It won the telecast rights of the India-England cricket series. "That was a very good tactical move. If the channel promotes its programmes well, it could well be a winner,'' Anil Wanvari, Founder & CEO, Indiantelevision.com, said.

At the SaharaOne office, the mood is upbeat, stemming from the confidence that cricket would attract non-SaharaOne viewers to sample the channel and take its popularity to an all-time high. According to Purnendu Bose, Chief Operating Officer, SaharaOne, cricket is the appropriate ingredient for the success of any general entertainment channel. "The ingredients of cricket are quite similar to that of a show on a general entertainment channel. There is drama, entertainment, anger and cheerfulness in cricket, which is there in all our soaps too. Therefore, there is bound to be great synergy."

"And cricket to Indians is like religion. It will give us a platform to increase the sampling of our channel," he said.

There is no doubt that Sahara is serious about cricket. The group has been the team sponsor for several years. Air Sahara just won a four-year contract for team sponsorship. "With the broadcast rights, the group has taken a circular expansion into cricket,'' Wanvari said.

The channel has already launched on-air and on-ground ad campaigns to "bring out the synergy between cricket and its channel's programming philosophy'' with its ad line, `Television ke begum aur cricket ke badshah ek hi channel pe.'

"We have also got characters from our leading shows - Kittu Sab Jaanti Hai, Woh Rehne Wali Mahlon Ki and Hare Kaanch Ki Choodiyan - to talk about the cricket series during the shows," says Bose.

He believes that SaharaOne is already moving up on the viewership scale. "The change in our programming strategy has helped increase the channel's viewership by 78 per cent in the last one year, while its revenues have shot up by 425 per cent,'' he said.

But will cricket help the channel get the viewership it wants? Cricket, a senior media planner said, would definitely attract viewers to the channel, but she was not sure whether it would get them hooked to its other shows. "To get viewers to stick on, the channel has to have a sound programming strategy. Cricket may just help to increase trials."

While cricket has helped channels boost their distribution and attract more eyeballs, the post-event gains for most of them have been marginal. "The channel's viewership, in most cases, returned to pre-event level. However, if a channel can promote other shows amidst the matches, it would definitely help boost awareness. The key thing to bear in mind is the fact that cricket viewing is male-dominated while most general entertainment channel programming targets women. This might be a stumbling block," a senior media analyst said.

However, "appointment viewing will develop as a show catches on and grows on the audience."

Media experts say a major concern an advertiser or media planner would have about advertising on SaharaOne would be its reach. "Since SaharaOne is a Hindi general entertainment channel, it doesn't have a good reach in terms of distribution in the Southern markets. This is where the channel would lose numbers to Doordarshan," one of them said.

So, how is the channel perceived?

Though media planners find the channel has received positive ratings in the last few months and advertisers are now more open to advertising on it, they still complain of a missing link. "The programming change hasn't done wonders for the fate of the channel. It hasn't done what Nach Baliye and The Great Indian Laughter Show have done to Star One," a media planner said.

"Tomorrow, if the channel suddenly goes off the air, I don't think it would impact advertisers at all," added another. "The channel may have got actors such as Karisma Kapoor or Sridevi to play the lead roles in its shows but that has not been leveraged to succeed. On the other hand, a Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on Star Plus or Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin on Sony has definitely connected with the viewers as well as the advertisers."

Bose counters this argument, pointing out that the new programming strategy had worked for the channel with one of its primetime shows, Woh Rehne Wali Mahlon Ki, consistently among the top 50 TV shows.

He also rules out the `lack of connectivity' argument raised by one of the media planners. "By virtue of being an encrypted free-to-air channel, we reach almost 96 per cent of the 60 million cable viewing homes. Our connectivity is much higher than any of the sports channels," he said.

The biggest challenge, he felt, was to get people to spend more time on the channel and cricket would help do that.

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