The broadcast scenario is changing like anything, with technology shifts, viewership behavioral changes, lots of niche and engaging content and more. If you take the non-news segment, sports events created a lot of disruptive eyeballs, which made a huge dent in the GEC sector. This also results in TRP loss to GEC channels especially the regional ones, and adds to revenue loss as well.
Huge, engaging back-to-back sports events divert all plans of any GEC and this is going to stay there, so GEC content will be much more prone to attacks from the sports space.
The second big thing is the technology shift to Smart TVs.
Once the Smart TV is switched on in homes, one is not sure what all platforms the consumer will go to. It can be from high profile engaging content of OTT players to any social media. Combined together, the GEC sector is facing a huge uncertainty and I don’t think in the near future that this uncertainty will end.
Digital growth and budget allocation to digital platforms are also eating into the share of GEC, so the war at ground is not at all a mild one.
In the news segment, especially in South India, consumption keeps increasing but the young generation hardly view news channels or even digital news…they are not bothered by what is happening near them. The future of news channels as such is also questionable considering the viewership shift, capex involved and ROI.
(The author is Global COO, Insight Media City & 24 News and Flowers TV, UAE.)
