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"Mind
it!"
A phrase immortalized by Channel [V]'s south Indian cowboy
character Quick Gun Murugun in the nineties. And one that
is most relevant to the regional language market in 2007.
The year saw a flurry of launches or announcements of launches,
a change in long-running political equations, continued growth,
and an increasing intensity of competition in almost every
language segment - whether Tamil or Malayalam or Kannada or
Telugu - of the regional market.
The
big news of the year in this space was the public parting
of ways between Kalanidhi Maran's Sun Network and his grand
uncle Karunanidhi, the chieftain of the DMK party. The breakup
was bitter, and it was almost as if the floodgates were let
open and a flurry of launches followed.
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| Kalanithi
Maran holds the Contribution to Television Award trophy
he was presented with at the Indian Telly Awards 2006. |
The
DMK launched its own channel Kalaignar TV with a little bit
of help from former Maran friend Sharad Kumar, a few Sun TV
employees and Sun arch rival Raj TV. The latter offered it
uplinking facilities for Kalaignar TV which has a menu consisting
of film and entertainment programs and news. The DMK appeared
to be in in a hurry to make up for time it lost - over the
past decade during which it supported the Sun Network - and
announced plans to build a channel bouquet with a 24-hour
news channel and music or a movie channel. This apart, it
initiated steps to set up its own cable network in the state
to counter any moves by the Maran-owned MSO Sumangali Cable
Vision as well as to gain control of the last mile.
DMK
ally, Raj TV announced plans to introduce its DTH service,
again as if to darken the Sun Network's DTH prospects. In
May 2007, the Raj TV management said that it would roll out
11 channels, and would take the acquistion trail to expand
nationally in other languages, without disclosing any time
frame. In August, 2007, it unveiled a FTA music channel Raj
Musix.
Besides
Musix, Raj TV telecasts two channels - Raj TV and Raj Digital
Plus'.
On the Raj TV horizon are Tamil and Telugu news channels.
Jaya
TV, backed by the AIADMK party, and a comparatively smaller
player, recently started testing two new Tamil channels -
music and news, which are expected to start full time transmissions
sometime this month. As the year drew to a close, Tamil Nadu
Congress member of parliament, KV Thangabalu's flagged off
Mega TV, a 24 hour FTA Tamil news, current affairs, and entertainment
channel, while Tamil Nadu Congress MLA Vasanth Kumar said
he intends to start Vasanth TV.
For
the Sun Network, 2007 was business as usual, the political
setbacks notwhithstanding. The network, which has the highest
number of channels in south India, dominates the region, with
the exception of Kerala where it trails Asianet as a close
No 2. It drew the curtains on its DTH service using transponders
on Insat 2B, offering subscription packages that looked extremely
competitive and attractive. Industry watchers expect Sun's
dominance to get eroded over time, but 2008 is unlikely to
be the year when we will see that happen.
"Sun's
biggest strength has been content, be it GEC or movie. Just
because Sun may be not be gaining numbers and Kalaingar is
showing unprecedented growth, it doesn't mean that advertisers
are going to run away from Sun to its next biggest rival.
At present, Sun has retained a firm grasp on its slowly reducing
share in percentage terms, its share has not reduced in numbers,"
says an ad executive.
So
far, Sun has been able to maintain a lead over all the others
in most of the space it operates in. In a few places, even
its second channel has performed better and attracted far
more viewers than its nearest competition's main channel has.
In a very dynamic space, how the new equations will work out
only time can tell.
For
Telugu print and TV baron Ramoji Rao, however, 2007 would
be a year he would prefer to write off as a bad dream. For
Rao, who owns TV network ETV and leading Telugu newspaper
Eenadu, it was reportedly his close alignment for the past
quarter century with the Telugu Desam and his run-ins with
the Congress chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y Rajshekhar
Reddy that cost him dear. It is pertinent to note that a deal
signed between US-based Blackstone Group and Rao's holding
company Ushodaya in January 2007 for the sale of a 26 per
cent stake is yet to see closure. If Blackstone's proposal
to invest $275 million in Ushodaya had gone through, it would
have been the biggest ever media investment in an Indian firm.
2007
will also go down in the annals of regional television history
as the year of TV9. Promoted by Associated Broadcasting Corporation's
(ABCL), it appears to have ambitions to get its foothold into
almost every language segment. In Andhra Pradesh, TV9 News
got the better of Gemini News and ETV2 News, with its Telugu
religious channel Sanskruti beginning to get noticed.
In
Karnataka TV9 Kannada surpassed the biggest player Sun's Kannada
news offering Udaya Varthegalu. It has also been itching to
get control of Kerala's fledgling news channel IndiaVision,
but has only managed to start selling air time for it.
Karnataka
witnessed the launch of two GEC channels Asianet's Suvarna
and Kasthuri (the latter headed by then chief minister HD
Kumaraswamy's wife) during the year. Another channel 'Real
Estate TV' for national consumption by a construction group
made a lot of noise, but failed to get its signals carried.
"Kasthuri
could be eating into DD Bangalore's ad shares, especially
ads by the state government and public sector undertakings
based in Karnataka," said an executive from an advertising
agency. "Having been the chief minister, Kumaraswamy
could leverage his contacts in these companies. Even if these
pickings are small, they are very good for a new entrant,"
he avers.
Observers
expect the action in the southern space to continue. Balaji
Telefilms is expected to launch TV channels in partnership
with Star TV either in 2008 or 2009. And there is no doubt
that others will also make a try for the southern pie.
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