Riding over a bunch of romantic shows that appealed to youth audiences, Star Jalsha has widened the genre share to 35.4 per cent as local audiences have increasingly migrated from non-Bengali to Bengali content.

The growth path

Star Jalsha was clear about its brand positioning right from the start. "Our research had identified the need for youth-centric positioning as this segment was not being addressed by the existing channels," says Star executive vice president & general manager (regional channels) Ravish Kumar.

The channel caught on to the tagline Chalo Paltai (Let's Change), pledging to bring in a new wave of change into the Bengali television space.

Says Kumar, "Regional markets are an attractive segment with distinct needs from Hindi GECs. This presented Star with both a challenge and an opportunity to bring quality entertainment to consumers in their preferred language. Our focus was to attract the youth that had remained unattended for long by our competing channels."

Star Jalsha was launched on 8 September with a programming mix that included a chat show (Ghosh & Company), a family drama (Bandhan), a romantic thriller (Neer Bhanga Jhor), a love story (Ekhaney Akash Neel), a devotional drama (Durga) and a comedy show (I Laugh You). But the major thrust, however, remained on 'romance' to attract the youth.

Avers Kumar, "Star Jalsha identified romance as the genre to target the youth and launched its two biggest shows OBS (Ogo Bodhu Sundari) and BKK (Bou Kotha Kou) to address this need."

Backing this statement is Tam's latest data that reveals that the last three-week average TVR for OBS stands at 11.05, while BKK is at 2.1.

According to ETV Network associate chief producer Kaushik Duttasharma, Jalsha made huge investments in upping the production value of its properties which put into effect competitive channels to push up the value of their productions.

Agrees a Zee Bangla top executive on conditions of anonymity, "Jalsha brought freshness into the viewing habits, added youth, exuberance and gloss and also a lot of relatable content."

As more Bengali channels were beginning to be viewed since the last 1-2 years and eyeballs were gradually moving from non-Bengali to Bengali content, Jalsha was also endorsed as a welcome entrant.

States Zee Bangla senior VP and business head Sanjay Chatterjee, "At a time when the shift in viewership from non-Bengali to Bengali content was helping the ad revenue to grow, Jalsha's entry was a welcome move as it benefitted the two most sought after elements - eyeballs and monies. This is exactly what Zee Bangla did three years ago to the Bengali GEC space."

Jalsha opened its GRP account with 92 grades in its debut week and, after oscillating much between the second and the third spot, surged ahead to become the number one player for the first time across the Bengali GEC space in April this year. Posting a steady growth, the channel now stands at 595 GRPs for the week ended 7 November (Tam C&S 4+, WB market). Zee pales in comparison with 285 GRPs while ETV has pocketed 225 GRPs for the same week.

So, apart from high production values, what else propelled the growth of the channel?

Says Kumar, "Star Jasha is located in Kolkata and is completely staffed by people who have grown up in West Bengal and in essence not just understand the consumer - they are the face and voice of our consumers. All our shows are produced locally by talented and emerging producers, directors, story writers and actors/actresses which is why they connect emotionally with consumers."

Also, innovation was a key component to their success. "Star Jalsha pioneered romance-based shows (BKK, OBS, EAN), non-fiction shows (I Laugh U, Swamvaar), events (Star Jalsha Entertainment Awards) and movies in its programming repertoire to give consumers a holistic and quality viewing experience," Kumar says.

ETV's Duttasharma believes that what further propagated the growth for Jalsha was its reach. "Unlike ETV, Jalsha is a free-to-air channel (turned pay in November) helping it to exhibit tremendous reach. And thus, its viewership is huge."

Star backed up its programming with a heavy spend on marketing. "Till last two years there have only been sales in the market, no multiple touch point promotion and marketing of the products. This is where the major change happened. This was also aided by new media entrants like a host of news channels and FM channels in the Bengali market," says Duttasharma.

The other major ingredient that has helped Jalsha drive in traffic is movies, currently contributing almost 15 per cent (an average of last four weeks) to the channel GRPs while soaps contributed about 74.6 per cent.

Says Kumar, "Movies were used initially as traffic generators and to encourage consumers to 'sample' the channel. The growth on the channel has been subsequently driven by both the reach and time spent on our fiction, non-fiction and event properties and our reliance on movies has reduced significantly with movies currently accounting for only 15 per cent of the GRPs on Star Jalsha."

Adds Chatterjee, "Contemporary movie airings have always increased sampling and contributed to the overall GRPs. From a sales perspective, movies also work as a good GRP leveler."

The growth path

Jalsha lifted the Bengali GEC genre with its variety of shows addressing different segments.

According to Tam data, the genre that once accounted for approximately 25 per cent of the entire broadcasting pie during the second quarter of 2008, grew to about 27.6 per cent with the entry of the new player in the third quarter of the calendar year. Today, the market stands at 35.4 per cent.

Claims Kumar, "Star Jalsha has pushed the share of Bengali GECs from approximately 26 per cent at the time of launch to 37 per cent plus today."

Rival channels, who until now had adopted the wait-and-watch strategy to see how Jalsha performed, have begun to react to the change.

Says Duttasharma, "Since 2006, there had been no change in ETV Bangla's primetime content. But since one month, we have started to push things and will be reacting to every time band by 2010 May-end."

Zee Bangla has also begun working towards strengthening its content lineup to push up its GRP grades. "A lot of things are being lined up which will be slowly revealed in the coming months," Chatterjee quips.

The Bengali GEC market is pegged at Rs 2.8 billion. "With three players driving the market, the genre will see a 20 per cent revenue growth," says Chatterjee.