The Hindu Business Line : As cricket wins, other channels go for a toss

SONY Entertainment Television's cricket gamble seems to be paying off. With most of the big spenders putting in huge monies behind the World Cup, spends on mass entertainment channels such as Star Plus and Zee TV have come down.

A look at the number of seconds consumed by ads on the four entertainment channels indicate that Star Plus and Zee TV have seen lower advertising during the cricket season. Star Plus, for instance, had about 44,550 seconds of advertising time in the first week of February, which fell to just 31,760 seconds in the third week, when the World Cup just began. Zee TV too witnessed a major decline in ad seconds, down from 51,520 seconds to 38,850 seconds during the same period.

And these channels were hit for a six on the days India played. When India played Australia, Star Plus had 2,620 seconds of advertising time, Zee had 5,800 seconds while Set MAX and Sony had 5,974 seconds and 6,703 seconds of advertising time.

When Business Line contacted Star India, the company declined to comment on the impact of the World Cup on its ad inventories. Advertising industry sources said that a lot of inventory has been unsold especially during the afternoon slots. "Also, the channel has slashed rates by 10-15 per cent to woo advertisers during this cricket season. The ad rates for the channel vary between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh per spot," said a senior media planner.

Mr Sandip Tarkas, President, MPG (part of the Havas Group) said that general entertainment channels have been hit because several companies have deferred their advertising plans. "Some fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) companies and some brands targeted at women have decided not to advertise during the World Cup," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Rohit Gupta, head of network sales, SET, said that the cricket season has been a good one and with India entering the Super Six, viewership is set to move upwards only. "The advertising format during a cricket match is different as the breaks depend on the match. If more wickets are taken during a match, then there would be more commercials during the breaks. While most of the advertising for the World Cup has already been tied, we are negotiating with a few clients for the few remaining spots," he said.

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