A decade ago, there were only a handful of channels for the Indian viewer to pick from. The Indian viewer has seen a tremendous growth in the last couple of years, in terms of number as well as the different type of channels. The Indian Television scenario is now bursting with various different channels catering to the various tastes of viewer. Now we just don't have mass entertainment channels but specific channels for News, Sports, Hindi mass entertainment, English mass entertainment, Hindi movies, English movies, music, nature, regional- the list goes on.

Mass entertainment channels mean channels having programs with varieties of genres catering to viewers of all ages and tastes like Star Plus, Sony Entertainment Television and Star World. Movie channels mostly carry movies and programs related to cinema ie channels like Zee Cinema and HBO.

If we look at the revenue pie amongst these various channels, it is obvious that mass entertainment, Hindi movie and news channels form the major part of the pie. In comparison, other type of channels like music, English movie, English mass entertainment and sports take a back seat.

The top categories that contribute to the revenues of mass entertainment as well as Hindi movie channels are two wheelers and all FMCG categories like toilet soaps, toothpastes, hair oils, shampoos and washing powders/liquids. The reason for this being that for both the above type of channels, their majority of viewership comes from the common man, which constitute people belonging to any and all socio economic classes who watch these channels purely for entertainment purpose. Cellular phones and cellular phone services are amongst the top spenders on English movie as well as English mass entertainment channels, the obvious reason, their target viewers being the urban and elite section of the society. Advertising for the cars/jeeps is seen maximum on sports, news, english movie and english mass entertainment channels. A variety of lifestyle categories like Footwear, Hosiery and Liquor are the top spenders on Music channels.

 

A look at the distribution of the top spending categories, amongst various different types of channels, shows that some categories restrict the spends to specific type of channels whereas other categories spend across the cross section of channels. Automobiles, soft drink aerated and cellular phones/cellular phone services are the categories that spend across all the different type of channels whereas categories like toilet soaps, tooth pastes, hair oils and hosiery spend on specific type of channels like mass entertainment and Hindi movie.

(An AdEx India analysis)