BackDownturn for only some
News media is in trouble, television entertainment and sports programming is not
Premium(A still from Mahabharat, the mythological TV series that is currently on air and is being made at a cost of `80 lakh or more per episode for Star Plus.)
In one media sector, the headlines are about restructuring, layoffs, buyouts, belt-tightening, closures. A new media honcho has just bought an old magazine title like Businessworld; another magazine stable, the Outlook Group, shut down three franchised titles a couple of months ago and laid off a variety of workers across the country, and subsequently merged two other magazines. TV channels such as CNN-IBN and Bloomberg TV India announced layoffs and, in the east and north-east of the country, non-traditional media owners are shutting down channels and newspapers they started a few years ago.
But, in another media sector, entertainment, the story is one of unprecedented spending on programmes, increased ratings for television viewership in thousands, increased advertising rates, and stoic advertisers who are biting the bullet even with the increase in rates. News media is in trouble, entertainment and sports programming is not. The spending here is getting bigger. New serials are being able to command advertising rates that rival those of the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches. What then does that tell us about the state of the economy, India’s media consumers, and the industry that caters to them?
If there is a downturn and it is belt-tightening time, why are per episode costs in television entertainment now touching levels never reached before? A crore per episode in some cases, and nearly ₹ 2 crore in the case of Kaun Banega Crorepati, currently on air on Sony. Two weeks ago, yet another daily mythological series was launched, and the media reported it as a programming triumph, as if there has never been a Mahabharat on television before. Adjectives flowed, and breathless viewership statistics were cited to show that even the latest season of Bigg Boss with Salman Khan and hordes of lesser celebrities is challenged by this new version of the old epic.
This Mahabharat is being made at a cost of ₹ 80 lakh or more per episode for Star Plus. It has gloss, beatific male heroes and television heroines in a more glamorized avatar of their recent roles in television soaps. The epic quality that the home screen box office demands in India is more about fantasy and special effects and manufactured backdrops than about authentic recreation. Gallons of flowers, ferns, whizzing fishes, and animated fantasy figures fill the screen. A TV spectacle made for children, to be consumed by entire families across the land.
Its other high-cost rival, Bigg Boss on Colors, which is reportedly costing ₹ 1.2 crore per episode, doubtless owes its somewhat inane appeal to the Indian appetite for showbiz. It’s a nice house, there are TV stars flopping around, and there is Salman Khan. The next big thing on Colors, the Indian version of the US thriller series called 24, will reportedly cost something in the region of ₹ 3 crore per episode.
Obviously the money is being spent because the channels are confident that advertisers will bite. For consumer goods makers, TV entertainment remains the primary marketing platform. Perhaps the reason is that the Indian television market across classes sees no substitute for daily entertainment unlike the news market, which is transiting rapidly to mobile and the Internet. As Mint reported this week, there has been a 34% increase over last year in traffic to news and information websites.
The advertising for print and TV news is just not there in the same measure. There are too many news channels, the primary TV audience is still composed of women and children who prefer to spend their viewing time on entertainment, and of men who would rather watch sports. Which genre too TV companies like Star are now investing heavily in.
It is curious but there does not seem to be that much class difference in audience preferences for these TV genres. The market for sports, serials and good quality non-fiction dubbed in Indian languages is as much in the low income groups as in middle and upper, and as much in rural direct-to-home TV households, even poorer ones, as in urban ones. The evidence is there. If Discovery Tamil invested recently in a new look and 20 new shows, it is surely because it knows what a solid following it has across income groups.
Similarly, if Big Magic in Bihar and Jharkhand recently put in five hours of devotional and mythological programming into its morning programme schedule, it is because it knows there is a solid unchanging market for this across income groups. It has even bunged in a teleshopping slot where you can buy spiritual products. After all, even back in 1988-90 Doordarshan made ₹ 65 crore from its telecast of Mahabharat.
The big loser today, ironically, is the same public service broadcaster whose entire annual programme budgets for each of its regional channels are no more than what the big private channels spend on one or two daily episodes. And some English and Hindi news outlets whose audiences, and therefore budgets, are shrinking.
Sevanti Ninan is a media critic, author and editor of the media watch website thehoot.org. She examines the larger issues related to the media in a fortnightly column.
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