SONY-ZEE TV IN TRENCH WAR OVER MARKET LEADERSHIP CLAIMS

A spat has broken out between Zee TV and Sony Entertainment Television (Sony) with the latter claiming it has overtaken the former in viewer ratings and viewing share in the week ended 5 December 1998. Zee TV has responded by dismissing Sony's claims as cooked up and has questioned the accuracy of the figures furnished by the industry-backed TAM (formed by market research firm IMRB and A.C. Nielsen) viewer monitoring system.

Last week, Sony Entertainment Television chief Kunal Dasgupta announced that his channel had captured a 21% primetime (8 pm-11 pm) viewing share on the TAM ratings system in the week ended 5 December 1998. He added that seven out of the Top 10 program slots during that week were taken up Sony shows. Sony's viewing share, he said, was 3% more than Zee TV's share in the three cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Kanpur. And if data from another five cities (Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin and Calcutta) is added its market share at 12% is a point higher than Zee TV, Dasgupta said. He claimed that Sony's gains have come at Zee TV's (which has lost a 3% share ever since Star Plus started airing blockbuster Hindi movies) expense. The announcement has tremendous repercussions for the television business, especially for advertisers.

For the past few years, Zee TV has led the market by capturing a large chunk of viewers in cable and satellite households and has been able to demand a premium for commercials placed on the channel. Observers wonder how long this scenario will continue now that Sony says it has claimed market share leadership. Prior to Sony's announcement, the Zee TV management claimed that seven of the Top 10 programs in cable and satellite television households were on its channel.

Zee TV spokesperson Ranjan Bakshi says that there's been no change in that position. "The INTAM report (produced by rival market research firm ORG-Marg and Dutch firm VNU) has consistently shown that seven of our shows are in The Top 10 and it continues to do so even today," he says. "This raises the fundamental question as to which research agency is more credible." He adds that the TAM report is misleading as it lists a single Sony show thrice on its Top 10 chart as a different program, while Zee TV's most popular family drama series appears once. "Several other Sony programs are listed more than once in the Top 60 list produced by TAM," he says. Bakshi says that the presence of two ratings systems leads to a lot of confusion. "Hence we have been advocating one currency. But that's another story."

A spokesperson at media independent Carat India agrees that it is true that Sony is inching up on Zee TV. "However, it will take it a while before it catches up. We also have to monitor the data over many more weeks. Finally, you can't dismiss the fact that Zee TV is likely to pull up its socks and fight back."