In the beginning, there was Doordarshan: Buniyaad and Nukkad in the evenings and Mahabharat on Sunday mornings. Zee came along in 1992, Sony joined the fray in 1995. In 2000, Star Plus, which till then mostly showed American soaps such as The Bold and the Beautiful, became a Hindi channel and introduced the daily soap (as opposed to weekly episodes) and the high-stakes game show Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Thus, the general entertainment channel (GEC) was born.
If we make a generational leap—the kind that is frequently seen in our chart-topping daily soaps—to 2008, we see 11 channels in the general entertainment space (
click here to see channel rankings). Two new channels, 9X and NDTV Imagine—both well-funded and led by experienced hands—are locked in a fierce battle for the No. 3 slot. They will soon face competition from Colors—to be launched in July by Viacom18, a joint venture between
Viacom Inc. and
Network18 Group.
Alva Brothers Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, the holding company of production house Miditech Pvt Ltd, has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Turner International to launch a channel by 2008-end. Reliance Entertainment Pvt. Ltd is launching a slew of regional entertainment channels, which will further fragment the audience base. The firm may also consider a Hindi GEC.
For advertisers, increased competition is a double-edged sword, says Punitha Arumugam, group CEO, Madison Media. “As the space gets more competitive, ad rates on individual channels go down as there is intense competition to get an advertiser on board. However, because there is fragmentation of audience, we have to advertise on more channels and the effective cost of a campaign goes up. The cost per 10-second spot goes down, but the cost per rating point and the cost of reaching a person goes up.”
“Fragmentation is inevitable. Even as a genre, the share of GEC has reduced over the years. But, the market is also growing,” says Rajesh Jain, who heads the entertainment practice at consulting firm KPMG. “Today, the key entry barrier for a new channel is very high distribution costs, which has pushed up the break-even point. On the content side, differentiation is not really happening. Competition will certainly increase the quality of content, as people will start experimenting a lot. We will also see channels trying to carve niches within the segment.”
Zarina Mehta is already doing that. The head of UTV Bindass is tired of hearing people refer to her channel as a GEC. “We are not a GEC, we are a youth entertainment channel,” she says, “and I can’t emphasize this enough”. Her channel targets 15-24-year-olds and, for the marketer trying to reach that age group, “there is no better platform than Bindass”, Mehta says.