MUMBAI: Leading broadcasters will continue to post strong ad revenue growth while the long tail will be severely hurt as advertisers tend to consolidate their spends in a cautionary environment, said Star India president ad sales Kevin Vaz in an interview with Indiantelevision.com.

The television sector will see a 13-15 per cent growth in ad revenue this fiscal while print will be pushed back in a slowing economy.

“The ad market is not as buoyant as it was in January. We will not see a 20-25 per cent growth as was forecasted earlier. But the leaders in any genre will benefit as advertising monies get rejigged. The long tail will not find support from advertisers,” said Vaz.

Star India, which has leader channels in most genres, has done more annual and network deals this year. “Our top 10 clients, for instance, have done deals stretching from a minimum of 12 months to 36 months. We will beat the trend and grow much faster than the industry. Being in leadership position has helped stitch long term deals,” averred Vaz.

In an earlier interview, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd executive director revenue and niche channels Joy Chakraborthy had stated that advertisers were looking at shorter term and quarterly deals.

The Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) genre, pegged at Rs 37-40 billion, will grow at 12-15 per cent this year. “Cricket is hit in a big way. GECs are on an upswing even as ad monies are moving away from cricket,” stated Vaz.

The Hindi movie channel genre is set to grow at 15-20 per cent. “Star Gold will capitalise heavily as the channel is performing very well. We have cut the ad inventory time by 33 per cent to give it a Hindi GEC environment and ramped up our investment on movie acquisitions,” said Vaz.

The news genre will continue to struggle this year. “With the resurgence of GECs, the news genre has stagnated for the last few years,” Vaz said.