Channels have been experimenting with the prized evening prime time slot. Star Plus, Zee TV, Dangal TV extended their prime time fiction soaps from five days a week to include weekends. A few days back, Star Bharat came back to airing prime time shows five days a week, and re-airing mythological shows ‘Radha Krishn’ and ‘Devo Ke Dev…..Mahadev’ during weekends instead.
We asked industry watchers and experts: Is an all-week fiction strategy creating boredom? Channels are experimenting with formats on weekends – which will work?
Sticking to fiction is a good strategy
Fiction is the staple for any GEC channel. That’s where your loyal audience is and if you get your shows right that’s where you make the maximum profits. Non-fiction helps the channels add variety to its offerings and bring in new audiences.
There won’t be viewer fatigue as much as it will be extremely taxing on the production houses and the artistes to work all seven days of the week, unless they start banking content well in advance .
Given the market scenario, where advertising revenues are under stress and more so for impact non-fiction properties, sticking to fiction is a good strategy to maintain a healthy bottom-line.
– Raj Nayak, Managing Director, House Of Cheer Networks
Weekend programming will always be a challenge
Habit formation of TV schedule is dependent on two factors – convenience of viewers and business economics of content. One channel cannot create new habits. Weekend programming will always be a challenge as it has to fight with changing weekend life routines of people at large.
– Bharat Ranga, Managing Director, Beginnen Media
Not a ‘one size fits all’ play
The seven-days-a-week strategy will work for channels who have strong daily soap properties. That will help them further their GRPs at a lesser cost than investing in non-fiction properties. For broadcasters who don’t have strong dailies, it will be a challenge and they will have to revert back to experimenting with other formats to get more reach and sampling on their channels. So it is not going to be a one size fits all play but each broadcaster taking their own tactical calls depending on their existing properties and the planned future pipeline.
– Mautik Tolia, Managing Director, Bodhi Tree Multimedia Ltd.
Both solve different strategic problems
Format-based non-fiction shows are typically used by channels as reach aggregators. With ample marketing put behind them, these shows help create opening buzz. They are expensive and more sponsor-friendly compared to daily fiction shows and hence used tactically by channels to solve reach and monetisation issues.
Dailies on the other hand work as sustenance builders for the channel. They assure daily reach and sustain the channel GRPs through the week. Strong characters make audiences come back every day and round the year. Highly cost-effective if done at right budgets, successful dailies can help solve annual engagement problems.
So, both solve different strategic problems for channels and have their own advantages and if used well, an optimal mix of strong three to four dailies and one or two weekend formats can help drive a channel to leadership position.
– Gaurav Gokhale, Chief Operating Officer, Endemol Shine India
Audiences are never bored of their favourite soap
The seven-day fiction strategy works for channels with strong and engaging daily soap content. Viewers are more than happy to come back to the channel on weekends to watch their favourite daily soaps. Star Plus is the best example of the seven-day fiction strategy working superbly for a channel.
With Sunday non-fiction the channel saw an exodus of soap viewers to competition. The channel is now able to retain these viewers on Sundays as well with the seven-day fiction strategy. Audiences are never bored of watching their favourite soap content. As long as the channel is able to provide engaging storylines for their soaps, the audience would continue to sample the channel day after day.
Consistent weekday ratings of multiple fiction shows which run across all the seven days is a prime example of audiences cherishing the content. The same phenomenon can be observed for Zee TV as well where audiences return to the channel on weekends to watch their favourite soaps.
The seven-day fiction strategy might not work for a channel like SET which banks on strong non-fiction content. The channel garners a higher share on weekend prime time with its tent pole non-fiction properties as compared to weekday prime with fiction content.
Some of these tent pole non-fiction properties across key GEC channels have also seen a decline in ratings across years. With similar format shows running across channels and best content snippets available on short video platforms, it’s important for content creators to keep evolving the non-fiction format to sustain audience attention season after season.
To conclude, non-fiction surely helps to garner incremental audiences for the channel. Viewers who have not sampled the channel on weekdays due to non-engaging fiction content, tend to sample the channel on weekends to catch up on their favourite non-fiction shows. This aids in growing the weekly reach. On the other hand, engaging fiction content helps to improve the time spent of the existing channel viewers which ultimately aids in growing the channel GRPs.
– Tejas Naik, Vice President – Strategy Group & Business Development, TAM Media Research
Feedback: [email protected]
