The Broadcast Industry has seen many forms of Channel wars that go beyond creation of Quality content and dissemination of Breaking News and resulted in exploitation of distribution mechanism. However, taking shortcuts through the loopholes of the system is on the raise and more recently, the industry has debated on the issue of dual LCN that prompted Telecom Regulator (TRAI) to take note of the issue and put a remedial practices in place.
While, the industry is yet to find a foolproof solution for the Dual LCN issue, it has been forced to brace up for another one in the form of Cross Genre Infiltration; technically it can be called Duplication in EPG, in line with Dual LCN.
According to reports Republic TV has accused Times NOW of involving in the exercise of misleading the system once again by infiltrating in to Hindi News genre during certain time bands for the sake of amplifying its reach, and launched a complaint highlighting the practices to regulator, TRAI and rating agency, BARC.
Impact:
It is quiet obvious that Hindi News Genre has massive viewership base when compared with that of English News genre and any such infiltration will help Times NOW to improve its reach, The spike in viewership through such means always comes with the question of legitimacy in advertisers perspective.
Cross genre infiltration to Hindi News results in modification of the Target Group from English News that has comparativelyhigher volume of NCCS A audience than that of Hindi News genre. Hence, it also rises the question “Why should an advertiser pay English Audience CPT while Times NOW is doing Hindi Content and places itself in the Hindi News Genre?”
Data:
According to the RW data sourced from the market,it reveals that Times NOW got placed in Hindi News genre category on JPR Channels in Mumbai, GTPL in Gujarat & Jaipur, Rajasthan Infotech Media in Jaipur, Ajmer, Bikaner, Sikar & Ganganagar, Digi Cable Agra & Jaipur. Data also reveals that in all these markets Times NOW was enveloped in between other News Channels revaling the fact that it was placed in the Hindi News Category.
The infiltration issue has opened another chapter of debate and discussion between TRAI and BARC, as they need to address the issue in order to protect the interest of the advertisers and other stakeholders and avoid such occurrences in future.
Differentiating on your story and making it palatable to a larger audience is truly the organic way of expanding the genre and reach, rather than placing yourself in the larger audience bucket with mediocre content.
