Twenty years after

In the beginning, there was Doordarshan. Prime time meant a government news bulletin, and an educational programme on dealing with the boll weevil menace in cotton crops.

Then along came satellite television. And the Indian TV viewer’s evening was changed for ever. Prime time perhaps first became a musical affair in Indian households as families hummed along with host Anu Kapoor in the music game show Antakshari . Women loved – and hated – the character Tara, one of the first soaps to focus on the modern woman’s trials and tribulations.

As satellite television made its way into Indian consumer’s homes, Zee TV became synonymous with it.

From a single channel back in 1992, Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee) has now become a 32-channel-strong bouquet with the launch of its edutainment channel ZeeQ this week. And in the two decades that it has been around, Zee may have slipped from the pre-eminent position it may have enjoyed in the entertainment TV market – but it has indelibly marked and shaped the genre.

It has many firsts to its credit: from launching the first satellite TV channel to launching the first channel for round-the-clock news. With the reach of its channels now extending to around 168 countries, the company has set big goals for itself for the coming years.

“From reaching out to over 650 million viewers, we want to expand our reach to over a billion viewers,” says Punit Goenka, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Zee. The company believes strengthening its presence in international markets is going to be key to achieving this goal.

Multi-lingual enterprise

From being an only-Hindi network to now covering English and major Indian languages, Zee has expanded as regional markets developed. A model which it now wants to duplicate overseas. “We want to focus on not just catering to the Indian audiences in these international countries but also the mainstream audiences in these countries by creating content in their language, whether it is the Middle East, Russia , Indonesia or Africa. We are already creating content in international languages like Arabic and Russian,” he adds. It has even bagged the landing rights in China which, the group believes, will open doors for Indian entertainment.

The group, which ventured into regional general entertainment with Zee Bangla and Zee Marathi as early as the late 1990s, also believes regional language channels will continue to be a key growth area in the future. It launched its Bengali movie channel in September this year, and is present in eight regional markets.

Asked if the company will look at the inorganic growth path for its future expansion plans, after it had acquired 9X in 2010, Goenka says, “We are open to inorganic growth but there is lack of quality target companies for acquisition in the broadcasting space. The opportunities that we have analysed have not been priced right and we did not find it viable, so we are focusing on the organic growth path.”

With the government focusing on mandatory digitisaton of digital cable in India, broadcasters such as Zee are also focusing keenly on launching new channels that can create a niche of their own. The company’s latest launch ZeeQ is targeted at school children and will have a mix of home-produced and acquired content.

The company has been focusing on niche offerings for some time now with its earlier launches such as Khana Khazana and Ten Golf, for which it has struck a licensing agreement for Indian rights for international golf tournaments.

While digitisation is expected to help TV channels increase subscription revenues, it will also bring the challenges of growing viewership fragmentation, making it trickier for them to hold on to their leadership positions.

Admits Goenka: “Viewership fragmentation is a reality. Even the general entertainment channels (GEC) space is expected to see a split. GEC channels, for instance, are still largely catering to female audiences. But there is a growing need to cater to the male audiences as well as the youth in this space.” Digitisation will open up opportunities to launch more and more niche products targeting various segments of the vast TV audience, he says.

Viewership patterns have changed rapidly in the past 20 years as broadcasters try and woo eyeballs. “TV viewers have short attention spans. Gone are those days when soaps ran for five years. On an average now they run for less than a year. The number of shows that GECs launch has gone up by three times and the success rate has come down by a third.”

Analysts, though, believe the strength of the bouquets with a mix of the mass channels and the niche will be important for broadcasting companies in the digitisation era.

Smita Jha, Leader - Entertainment & Media Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers India, says, “Zee has been a visionary broadcaster. From launching its bouquet with various regional language channels to expanding to the high margin international business, they have been pioneers in many areas. They have also managed to control distribution well and be a listed profit-making broadcasting company.”

Programming that works

Sanjay Chakrabarty, Managing Partner of media buying firm Zenith Optimedia, says, “Zee has been one of the first TV channels to launch branded programming with mass appeal and remains true to its core attribute of offering family entertainment.”

Whether it was Philips Top Ten or Antakshari in the old days, or the newer Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Dance India Dance , the group has managed to compete well with international format shows. Industry players believe a strong fiction line-up is what eventually sustains the GEC while non-fiction and reality shows might give it short spikes in viewership. “The reality shows and non-fiction entertainment might put a channel in the number 1 spot for a few weeks but it’s the strong fiction content line-up that helps sustains the channel in the top three slot for a longer time,” said a senior executive with a GEC channel.

In its annual report, Zee TV said it had a leading share in the Hindi GECs with an average weekly channel share of 20 per cent and average weekly Gross Rating Points (GRPs) of 186 in the fiscal year 2011-12.

But Jha points out, “Broadcasters need to move away from just being TV companies to becoming content companies and make content, which is available across platforms.”

Zee has started to move beyond the TV screen by launching Ditto TV, which brings live TV and video-on-demand services to mobile phones, tablets, laptops and other handheld devices. Goenka believes Ditto TV’s launch in international markets, wooing users with apps for its shows such as Dance India Dance or grabbing a higher share of the user base for its portal India.com are among the various steps the company has taken in this direction.

The company has been constantly innovating across segments but has clear challenges in certain areas. The fast-growing English entertainment space, for instance, has naturally got the global biggies fighting for their fair share of the growing Indian TV pie.

Goenka admits that not being affiliated to a global studio has its disadvantages but believes its channels Zee Café and Zee Studio have carved out a niche of their own and are considered competitive players in the space.

Asked if the company has lost to competitors in the cricket rights bidding battle, Goenka said, “We have a distinct sports play through our five sports channels. Besides telecast rights for various cricket boards, we have rights for exciting properties like the UEFA football cup.”

The company believes it is well poised to take on future challenges. As Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Zee, said in a statement earlier, “I believe the business of entertainment is a good one to be in and there has never been a better time than now for us.”

Analysts believe the group’s most important success has perhaps been diversifying into cable, direct-to-home and other areas of the entire value chain without getting tangled in the cross-holding quagmire, something which arch rivals have not been able to do successfully.

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