SONY: Cricket is CEO Kunal Dasgupta's biggest gamble, but market reports hint that the channel's high asking rates have left advertisers cold

ZEE: New weekday soaps and lottery shows are CEO Sandeep Goyal's bet. And, yes, that old hope that its Alpha channels will pick up steam

KBC, Amitabh Bachchan, and the stroke of programming-genius that saw it pick a clutch of winning Eakta Kapoor-produced weepies, have given Star Plus a seemingly insurmountable lead over its rivals, Sony Entertainment Television and Zee, in the viewership and advertising hustings. So much so that talk in media circles has moved away from when the two channels in question will catch up with Star, to how long their CEOs, Sandeep Goyal (Zee), and Kunal Dasgupta (Sony) will remain in the hot seat. There's some basis to these rumours: Goyal's ambitious late-2001 reprogramming exercise (close to 26 new programmes) has fallen flat, and Dasgupta has seen his best and brightest (Kacon Sethi, Head, Marketing & Sales, and SET Max; Rajesh Pant, COO, SET; and Rekha Nigam, Programming Head, SET) leave and had to rebuild his core team. Still, the two men are there today and have actually mounted a fresh challenge to Star's near-dominance of the Hindi-speaking cable & satellite market-all thanks to Star Plus.

True, Star Plus is streets ahead of Sony and Zee, but a single programme could change that. After all, Zee was considered invincible for much of the 1990s, and as recently as early 2000. Neither Sony nor Zee (or their CEOs) is fazed by Star's success. "Habits in the media business take time to change," philosophises Dasgupta. "Viewers aren't yet tired of Star (Plus)." Both Zee and Sony are hoping they tire soon (and are trying everything in their power to ensure that happens). Zee has six new shows on the prime-time band, 8.00 pm to 11.00 pm, on weekdays; is building interactivity with online lotteries; and has slotted a long-duration, prime-time tele-auction for the weekend. And SET is hoping the Madhuri Dixit-hosted Kahin Na Kahin Koi Hai (knkkh) can do for its eponymous channel what KBC did for Star Plus and that the $225 million (Rs 1,097 crore) it paid to obtain the rights to a clutch of International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments (to be broadcast on SET Max) pays off in a cricket-crazy country. "The name of the game is try, try, and try again," explains Goyal.

Who Wants To Do A KBC?

Everyone-Sony and Zee, at least-does. "The trick is to get that one big programme that can be a channel driver," says Sanjeev Prasad, a media analyst at Kotak Securities. That's what Star did. Only knkkh doesn't look like it. In its first week, it returned TRPs (television rating points) of a mere 2.69. "Reality television isn't something that succeeds in a day," defends SET's new Executive Vice President and former dotcom poster-boy Sunil Lulla. "It takes sustained sampling by the audience (for that to happen)." To ensure the programme doesn't go the way of its much-hyped Govinda-hosted gameshow, Jeeto Chappar Phad Ke, SET has lined up an array of extras-such as a viewer vote-to sustain interest. The problem is, Ms Dixit has to compete for eyeballs with Star's formidable Kasauti Zindagi Ki.

ZEE WAITING FOR THE JACKPOT

The 26 new programmes (fine, not exactly 26) that the then new Group Broadcasting CEO of Zee Telefilms, Sandeep Goyal, launched in late 2001 didn't do much to the channel's TRPs-although the channel itself believes advertisers need to look at metrics other than viewership. For a channel that doesn't believe in one set of numbers, Zee sure has great expectations from another, the online lottery business. ''Internationally, lotteries bring discontinuity to viewing patterns,'' boasts Goyal. ''Give it another six months to a year here (and see).'' Already, Zee airs two online lottery-based shows, Khelo Number Khelo and Karvan Kismat Ka. Come October, it will unleash a mega auction show, Hazaar Bazaar, on weekends-viewers can participate in and bid for an excess of consumer durables (and in the process, stay tuned to Zee between 7.30 and 11.00 in the evening, the prime weekend band). And you thought only a never-ending series of K-weepies could build viewership.

SONY THE 2-IN-5 GAMBIT

Sony entertainment television, the channel, has made money these past three years. SET India, the company, has seen its total revenue plummet nearly 25 per cent in the past year (from in excess of Rs 500 crore in 2000-01 to just over Rs 400 crore in 2001-02 ). But SET ceo Kunal Dasgupta has an ace up his sleeve: two channels. ''Having two channels in the top five will make us better off than both Zee and Star,'' he claims. Dasgupta's idea is to take the fight to Star on two fronts: the Rs 4,000-crore advertising market, where the re-engineered Sony and SET max will lead from the front, and the much-ignored Rs 6,000 crore cable distribution market where SET max will. Cricket is what will make the difference: SET reportedly paid $225 million (Rs 1,097 crore) to the International Cricket Council for a clutch of television rights that run till 2007: two World Cups, three Champions Trophy tournaments, and sundry others. Dasgupta figures that if ESPN-Star gets paid for 7 million households, the One Alliance (Sony, SET max, and four others including AXN, Discovery, Animal Planet and CNBC) should too-currently it gets paid for 4 million. Cricket will accelerate the acceptance of the bouquet and it will bring in the usual clutch of brands that advertise during live telecasts. KBC may have worked for Star Plus, but no one at SET has illusions about the Madhuri Nene Dixit hosted Kahin Na Kahin Koi Hai (Surely, somewhere, there's someone for me) doing the same thing for Sony.

STAR STILL BURNING BRIGHTLY

There's been a certain predictability to the C&S top 20 over the past three months-it's all Star. In terms of advertising, too, Star, with Rs 700 crore-odd, tops Zee (Rs 640 crore). Star's biggest strength is its soaps, specifically its Balaji Telefilms soaps. Of the top 10 Star Plus programmes in terms of viewership today, four are produced by Eakta Kapoor's company. That's also the channel's most worrying weakness: a change in viewer interest (after all, all weepies are the same) could hurt. The channel is widening its portfolio of offerings with a talent hunt (Pop Idol) and a fantasy (that's the channel's description, not ours) show, Shaka Laka Boom Boom. The biggest test for the channel, though, will come, not from Zee's lotteries or Sony's new shows but SET MAX's cricket broadcasts. It begins next month with the live telecast of the ICC Champions Trophy from Sri Lanka-and it's on prime time.

And Star is leaving nothing to chance: it has a K-soap at 8.00 p.m and is planning a family-oriented "fantasy soap" Shaka Laka Boom Boom at 7.30 p.m. That should protect its flanks from Zee's recent Kkamal (weekdays ,8.00 p.m) and Sony's upcoming music show. "We're expanding the prime-time band, and will experiment with never-before seen programming genres," says Peter Mukerjea, CEO, Star India.

Both Goyal and Dasgupta are convinced they can't do a KBC; the first calls it a fluke, the second, a phenomenon that will be impossible to repeat. Neither expects any of their new offerings to do what the game show did for Star Plus. "Its going to be a long programming and marketing haul for anyone who wants to challenge Star," says C.V.L. Srinivas, Chief Operating Officer, Madison Communications.

The Strategy Game

If it isn't about a best-seller that can anchor a channel's offerings (much like KBC did for Star Plus), it has got to be about strategy. Both Dasgupta and Goyal have innovative ones. "I want to have two channels in the top five," explains Dasgupta. "That way I'll be better off than either Star or Zee, which will have only one each." Sony will be one of these, SET Max the other, and blockbusters and cricket will help them challenge Star Plus' hegemony. The battle should be interesting: the crucial match-ending hours for next month's ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka, and next year's (February) World Cup in South Africa fall in the prime-time band in India. Cricket, plus a bouquet of other channels, should help increase SET's distribution take (Rs 40 a household), reckons Dasgupta. Today, the company gets paid for just 4 million households; ESPN-Star gets paid for 7 million; and Dasgupta believes the One Alliance offering (that's the name of the SET-led bouquet) has the potential for getting revenues from 10 million households. Apart from everything else, that will de-risk its business model some: currently, 80 per cent of SET India's revenues come from advertising; in the next two-three years, the ratio could be 50 per cent from advertising and the rest from distribution.

Cricket is the great white hope that'll make this possible. If it doesn't, SET India's Rs 1,097-crore gamble would have come to nought. The market is agog with reports that SET's high asking rates have left advertisers cold. "They haven't yet found a main sponsor for next month's Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka," says a media-industry watcher. Dasgupta is unfazed. "It's like a game of poker," he laughs. "The issue is, who is going to fold (first); we won't, because if we do, we won't have any business for the next five years."

SET India's tariffs-a minimum of Rs 2 crore for a 30-second spot on each of the 15 matches of the Champion's Trophy and the 54 matches of the World Cup-do seem a bit steep, but the channel is counting on the almost fanatical following for cricket in India. There are other things going for it as well: the reach of satellite television in India has almost doubled since the last World Cup (1999), the live broadcasts eat into the prime-time band, and both tournaments coincide with periods when advertising spend traditionally spikes-September is the beginning of the festive season in India and February sees an increase in advertising from automobile and financial services companies.

Zee doesn't have a cricket card to play-in its hey-days Chairman Subash Chandra was considering hosting tournaments in Nepal, a la Sharjah, but the plan stayed on paper-and is resorting to the oldest trick in the book, lotteries, to revive its chances. "We're doing some intelligent guessing on new soaps and looking to lotteries as a strong catalyst," says Goyal.

The TRP numbers for its lottery shows may yet be low, but Zee could have a potential winner in the wings: in the first week of August, the company sold 12 million Playwin Super Lotto tickets.

STAR: CEO Peter Mukerjea is expanding the prime-time band and experimenting with new programming genres to maintain the lead

Goyal believes it is only a matter of time before that number shows up in the TRPs and has lined up another lottery show and a weekend auction. He is also hoping the company's Alpha channels (regional language offerings) start pulling their weight.

"The problem for Sony and Zee is that, during prime-time, it is only Star Plus that people switch on," says Ashutosh Khanna, Senior Vice President, Grey Worldwide. Today, Star is its own competitor: the Neena Gupta-hosted Kamzor Kadi Kaun was pulled out despite a TRP of around 5 (it was at the bottom of Star Plus' programmes). Even today, Goyal and Dasgupta would probably give anything for a programme with a similar TRP. Cricket may turn things around for SET India. Lotteries could do the same for Zee. But both channels will have to build an effective prime-time package around their successes-80 per cent of all television ads are aired in those magic hours between 7:30 pm and 11:30 pm. Right now, it sure looks like Sony and Zee are in for a long and cold Star-lit night.