ETV Marathi in investment mode, eyes turnaround in 3 years

[Deepu]

ETV Marathi is on an investment spree as it is looking at a three-year horizon to completely turn around the channel. Like its competitors Zee Marathi and Star Pravah, ETV Marathi is targeting younger sensibilities with bigger shows, such as ‘Kon Hoeel Marathi Crorepati’ (KHMC), the Marathi version of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’. “We are in the journey of turning around the channel and are looking at a three-year horizon to turn around and earn,” Viacom18 EVP and ETV Marathi business head Anuj Poddar told TelevisionPost.com. “We are investing heavily in the channel, which will result in short-term loss, but that’s to remain ahead of the curve and to take the channel to the next level. So we are going to be in losses in the short term in order to grow the channel. That’s a conscious call,” Poddar said. ETV Marathi is No. 3 in a market which is dominated by Zee Marathi, followed by Star Pravah. There are other marginal players including Saam Marathi, Mai Boli, DD Sahyadri and Mi Marathi. ETV Marathi has close to 25 per cent share of the market and is looking at expanding with shows that match the younger sensibilities and by breaking the viewership habit. “We have increased our reach, so now we are equal to Star Pravah, but behind Zee Marathi. We earlier used to be No. 3 in reach, but we have caught up. Now our focus is on increasing time spent on the channel. If a viewer is coming for one show, I want him to watch two shows. That’s about breaking the habit. By legacy, they are watching a show on other channels. My focus is on breaking that habit by causing disruption,” Poddar said. According to Poddar, the content on Marathi GECs has improved over the past three years in terms of quality as the audience is getting younger. He said that 15–24 years and 25–34 are the two largest audience segments. He added that in absolute numbers, the channel has not lost its over 55-year-old audiences. “While our focus is on the 15–35-year group, other demographics are also growing. We are not becoming niche, just becoming more mass,” he said. “When we make shows for younger audiences, we are conscious that it should appeal to higher age groups. It also means that the content needs to be very contemporary,” he said, adding that regional content does not need to be jingoistic and focus only on culture and symbolism. “It needs to resonate with people, tell stories and be emotional but in an entertaining way. Our top-rated show is a love story—‘Majhe Man Tujhe Jhale’. It’s a love story set in a Marathi backdrop, with Marathi sensibilities, keeping in mind the young Marathi viewers,” he said. On the business side, Poddar is confident that the Marathi genre, and in particular ETV Marathi, is poised to grow. He feels that the genre is underpriced for the eyeballs it gets. “Even at the current audience levels, the genre is completely underpriced. But if we force that with better programming and better audiences, then I think the growth rate in ads will be exponential,” Poddar said. He claimed that ETV Marathi has grown faster. “We had a smart ad-rate increase over the previous year. With the second season of KHMC itself, we have seen 50–70 per cent increase in revenues, while overall we have witnessed slightly less than 50 per cent increase in the ad rates as the gap between No. 2 and us has decreased significantly.” His rationale is that the channel has been growing and as advertisers are seeing that growth, they are happy to pay. However, he thinks that ETV Marathi rates are still cheaper than its peers as the correction of the discount will happen over couple of years and not in one shot. “So over the next couple of years, we expect to outpace the revenue growth of our competitors. We are correcting that. For us, it’s an increasing pie. This and next year, we will grow higher than the Marathi genre itself,” Poddar claimed. On the content front, Poddar feels that being a regional channel, ETV Marathi has an advantage. “We can be more rooted or can cater to a particular kind of audience rather than trying to cater to the lowest common denominator like the national channel. This is because there we have to mix and match for a far more, wider set of audiences and sometimes dilute our offerings. Here, we can afford to have far more focused, edgier content,” he explained. There is scope for high drama content as there is a plethora of light-hearted drama shows on Marathi television already. “I guess now there is a little bit of overdose of that also right now. So I think there is enough reason for high drama and melodrama,” Poddar opined. However, he is not in support of dubbed content. He feels that as a mainstream GEC, dubbed shows are not a good idea, especially in a market which is a sub-segment of the HSM. “For them, dubbed Hindi shows become a bit of a re-run,” he said. He then went on to add that Star Pravah’s ‘Mahabharat’ could be an exception. “It is a super expensive show and a show like this could never be done here. So they are trying it out. But otherwise, apart from some exceptional cases, I don’t think dubbed content will work in Marathi,” he added. According to industry pundits, while ETV Marathi has one big property in ‘KHMC’, its other shows are not working. But Poddar is looking at building the channel gradually. “We have re-launched our popular comedy show ‘Comedy Express’ with some changes. There are enough legacy shows of ETV as per our research, which have high recall and are pioneered by the channel and are not copies of other shows.” He added that there are many things in the pipeline and more radical ideas, which may or may not work. He is also looking at more finite series with close to six-month run. The channel airs the Marathi remake of popular Colors property ‘Uttaran’. On the movie front, like other players, ETV Marathi has also become more selective. Poddar said that he is disappointed with the movie scene as the satellite price has gone up in the last two to three years and so is the quality of production, while the quality of the movies has not increased. “While films are being made keeping in mind satellite revenue, there is no understanding of satellite audiences. They are making movies with higher budgets, thinking that they can get Rs. 50 lakh ( Rs. 5 million) to 1 crore ( 10 million) from satellite rights. However, a lot of these films remain unsold,” he added. The number of films that gets good ratings is far lower in Marathi than the average Hindi film which gets good rating on TV. “Only good films rate well on Marathi channels so we have become very careful when it comes to choosing films that we acquire. This year also, we have acquired only a handful. I am hungry for films but not getting good films,” Poddar said.

Read more at: http://www.televisionpost.com/television/etv-marathi-in-investment-mode-eyes-turnaround-in-3-years/ | TelevisionPost.com

 

[me_saket]

Really big plan
lets see how it workes in favour of gec and movies

dont forget recently see 24taas marathi news channel also refocused to youth of 15-35 years audicene which etv marathi also trying to capture.

also in coming days more channels like zee kalinga ll be launch which give better entrainment and new with cocept of TEN Terrestrial Entrainment Network

so 3 year is really big time

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