Sports ofmovie channels

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On one hand where the television viewing is becoming more niche, the co-viewing, on the other hand, hasn’t really come down. Explaining further, while we have channels like Magicbricks Now for core real estate business, SAB TV for comedy only content and Ten Golf for Golf events only, there’s another trend which is creeping in.There is a mismatch of content and channel genres at times, when movies are telecast on GECs and more recently, sports simulcast on Hindi Movie channels along with the sports channels. But these mixed surprises do very well if you look at the the viewership ratings.One example is Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’s telecast on Star Plus, which pulled the channel to the top of the GEC flock and helped the genre gain additional viewership. The second one is Pro KabaddiLeague, which is fairing quite well on Hindimovie channel Star Gold compared to Star Sports where the event was simulcast.To explore the phenomenon of Sports working really well on the movie channels, let’s analyse examples like Indian PremiereLeague (IPL) and Indian Super League (ISL). IPL was launched on Sony Pictures Network’s movie channel Set Max, as the network lacked presence in the sports genre at that moment. However, even today, the cricketing tournament works much better on the Set Max than the sports channel Sony Six and Six HD.Divya RadhakrishnanThe media experts clearly state the reason to be deeper and better penetration of the Hindi movie channels, in comparison to sports channels. “Especially in small towns and India beyond the metros, availability and reach of Hindi movie channels is huge. Very few sports channels are generally present on the cable network, which is still covering close to 70 percent of the Indian televisionhomes. Plus, the sports channels have had long standing issues with the MSOs which also hamper their availability,” opined Divya Radhakrishnan of Helios Media.Partho DasguptaPartho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC, said, “Movie channels already have regular viewers on the channel, which makes it easier for a broadcaster to catch their attention with a sports property like IPL, ISL or Pro KabaddiLeague.”When quipped about whether the airtime gets wasted by duplication of content on different channels, Dasgupta denies. “In fact it is improving the viewership of the sports programme as simulcasts ensure that viewers are captured using all platforms available with the broadcaster. The broadcaster can also look at striking a better deal with advertisers by putting a sports property on several available channels.”
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