In a year which has seen decelerating growth in all media platforms, television, besides internet was able to absorb the shock of the slowdown. According to the Pitch-Madison Media Advertising Outlook, TV has grown by two per cent in 2009 over the previous year. Paltry though the figure is, in a general environment of gloom and negative sentiments, is an achievement of sorts. In an ad pie worth Rs 18,670 crore, television commands the highest share of Rs 8,492 crore, a gain of Rs 173 crore. At 45.5 per cent, a gain of 5.3 percentage points in the ad pie since 2008, TV emerged as the largest player amongst mediums, which till now was led by print.

Print fell from 47.4 per cent in 2008 to 41.8 per cent in 2009. Most experts had surmised that 2009 would be a flat year for the television industry. Yet, slowdown or not, there was no dearth of activity in and around this medium in the past year. TV viewership increased as time spent on TV also went up from 135 minutes per day to 143 minutes per day on weekdays and from 154 minutes per day to 157 minutes per day on weekends (Jan-Aug'08 vs Jan-Aug'09), as per TAM data. The last year saw new programme formats and new channels fiercely competing for eyeballs, both at the national and regional levels. Some are specialised for catering to the needs of up-scale urban audiences, for example NDTV Lumiere and World Movies, while others focus on niche Indian masses, such as Star Jalsha.

The general entertainment genre has been an area of hyper activity. Colors, the GEC from Viacom 18 came into its own, upstaging Star Plus from its long held numero uno position. Post the death of old saas-bahu sagas, the top three general entertainment channels (GECs) - Colors, Star Plus and Zee TV, have been battling for eyeballs on a week to week basis and no clear number one is in sight yet. The onerous task of increasing viewership was taken on by the GECs with renewed vigour. Audience fatigue and constant desire for new content kept the channels on their toes with increasing number of high profile reality shows. Rakhi Ka Swayamwar and Sach ka Samna, for instance, were highly popular during the weeks they were aired. In fact, interestingly, the No 1 and No 10 channels were both ready to take risks in the year of slowdown.

Growing number of brands created a lot of clutter in the market and brands needed to go beyond the '30 seconder' and engage the audience through more innovative fixed commercial time. Innovative advertising became a trend that seems to stay here. According to AdEx data, overall secondages on TV grew at 30 per cent over 2008 in the January-December period. Though heavy discounting was the order of the day, increased ad volumes compensated for lower rates. "There has been pressure on media platforms to reduce rates and the dominant market leaders have managed to hold on to their rates," says G Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, TV Today. The news genre, according to him, would have witnessed a 4-5 per cent growth in advertising. Categories like real-estate and retail curtailed ad-spend significantly. From 3.3 per cent share in 2008, real estate advertising dropped to 2.8 per cent in 2009. However, FMCG, telecom, and automobile sectors increased spending significantly in the light of intense competition. FMCG and automobile, put together account for more than 62 per cent of advertising on television, where as, it was around 54 per cent in 2008. The banking industry, which cut down spends significantly in the beginning of the year, increased its ad-spends towards the end of 2009. Its share of advertising in the total TV ad pie was 5.7 per cent in 2009.

Breaking it down

The rapid growth in C&S (cable & satellite) penetration and significant improvement in the quality of content too made television the most important vehicle in terms of reach and engagement. Regional channels were not far behind in reaping the benefits of this trend. It was, in fact, quite a good year for regional channels, overall. As national brands penetrated deeper into rural markets, regional TV became increasingly important as the cost-effective reach vehicle. Regional TV gave brands the ability to do localised and targeted marketing. "The 2-3 year trend of brands penetrating deeper into the rural markets strengthened further in 2009. National and regional television, which is often the only means to reach these consumers, is beginning to reap rich dividends. This will further shift advertising spends from other media vehicles to television," says Uday Shankar, Chief Executive Officer, Star India. The regional channels of Star in West Bengal and Maharashtra, Star Jalsha and Star Pravah, respectively, did very well in terms of increasing viewership. According to Shankar, these markets have only 20 per cent local advertising today, but with economic growth and affordable prices of regional media, penetration of local advertising will increase over time to the level of Southern channels where nearly 50 per cent of the advertising is local.

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