Today while addressing the media on the comeback of ZEE South Cluster, Siju Prabhakaran, spoke about the market share the cluster enjoys and how the 4 south channels have maintained their positions in the cluttered market.
Prabhakaran said, “The ZEE Network has 20% share of the all India viewership and 1/3rd of the viewership comes from South cluster. South region has gained prominence and in times to come with the content line-up these would be strong set of channels. In terms of our festive plans- during Oct-Nov, all channels will be launching 3-5 shows of their own in their own markets in Fiction & non-fiction. In the 3 markets (AP & Telangana, Karnataka, TN) we have had our presence for long, and we have had a very strong comeback while in Kerala we have managed to consolidate & grow our market share”.
Prabhakaran also spoke about the consumer connect the channels had in terms of the content they curated to comeback with post the lockdown, he said, “Consumer Connect is at the heart of our business and every channel did their own understanding of the consumers & new learnings were obtained. We used those learnings as insights during our comeback in each of the markets. This helped in a strong comeback in each of the markets backed with great content”.
He reiterated the fact that the crisis was a difficult period he said, “The Lockdown was a difficult period with dip in advertising, during the period channels in general could not monetise fully despite growth in viewership in certain genres & channels. The Content Palette had to be changed to cater to the viewership change which happened during the lockdown”.
The first channels in the south to comeback with original content was Zee Kannada and Zee Keralam in the 1st week of June followed by Zee Telugu at the end of June. Zee Tamil was the last, it came back with original content only on the 27th of July as the lockdown was extended in Tamil Nadu.
Zee Kannada post comeback is leader in fiction & non-fiction, prime time, non-prime time, weekday & weekends becoming the strong no.1 channel in Karnataka. Zee Tamil post come back is the No2. Channel and the No.1 channel in prime Time and leads in the fiction genre. Two of the fiction shows in Zee Tamil are among the top 5 shows.
The Movie channels have also been performing well during this crisis, Prabhakaran said, “Zee Thirai in Tamil, Zee Picchar in Kannada was launched prior to lockdown and grew to a strong position during the current period. While Zee Cinemalu during lockdown was benefitted from the spurt in interest in movies genre and the market share increased 22% to 27% and became strong no. 2. Similarly, Zee Picchar is at No. 2 position and Zee Thirai is at No. 3 position in Tamilnadu with 20% share in Chennai and 17% in urban markets”.
Talking about the ad revenues Prabhakaran said, “April & May was a washout for ad revenues, with the lockdown being relaxed however MoM the ad revenues are growing up, we see September with the festival buoyancy push ad revenues up to November & with business coming back with retail outlets opening up, it presents a conducive environment for people to go out and shop given the general opinion that we can co-exist in the current situation till vaccine is found. We see the comeback of advertising as a positive sign”.
