Battle for business eyeballs

Aggressive distribution helps NDTV Profit to the number one slot

NDTV Media's chief executive officer L S Nayak has reasons to be on a high. With a market share of 46.9 per cent, NDTV Profit, the new business channel from the NDTV stable has overtaken its rival CNBC-TV 18 in less than a month of its launch.

Among the business news channels, including Zee Business and Awaaz, CNBC-TV 18 followed NDTV Profit with a market share of 38.8 per cent in the week ending February 12, 2005.

The data reflects the all-India viewership among men in the 25 plus age group. Analysts at the television viewership monitoring agency TAM Media say that NDTV Profit's number-crunching exercise is not faulty.

"However, it is better to take a view on channel shares over a 12 to 15 week period. It is kind of too early to talk about leadership," says a TAM executive.

But NDTV Profit is unrelenting and claims a weekly reach (number of people in the target group who saw the channel/programme for at least a minute during the week) of 10.2 per cent, compared to 6.2 per cent of CNBC.

There is no official comment from CNBC TV-18, though a couple of senior executives in the company privately admit to a marginal decline in CNBC's market share.

However, one of them claims that NDTV's general English news channel, 24x7, has lost its audiences to NDTV Profit. "That is where it is getting its viewers from," he observes.

A quick analysis of last one month's TAM's viewership data for NDTV 24x7 does show a 20 per cent drop in its male viewership in the six metros in the SEC A and B categories.

"This could be because NDTV 24X7's male audiences may be sampling NDTV Profit," says a source at Optimum Media Solutions that did the number crunching.

A TAM official, however, adds that it is difficult to establish where this viewership may have moved. Nayak firmly believes that it is getting fresh viewers to watch business.

"On an average, the business news segment used to get 0.12 to 0.13 per cent share. Its share has now doubled and touching 0.28 per cent."

Media industry experts say that NDTV also went aggressive in ensuring visibility for its business channel. It forked out huge carriage fee to get a good frequency, say cable industry sources.

"NDTV Profit has been very aggressive in its distribution strategy," says an independent cable operator in Delhi. "Besides, Profit is a free-to-air channel while we have been a pay channel from day one. It has caused a turbulence in the distribution market and we expect things to settle down," says the CNBC executive.

Counters Nayak: "The argument that NDTV Profit is free to air and CNBC is pay does not hold much water. The point is ZEE TV and STAR Plus are pay while Sab TV is free-to-air... "

CNBC also has reservations about classifying NDTV Profit as a business channel. "We are a pure business channel. Profit seems to be doing lifestyle programming. We are not sure if the two of us are addressing the same viewer," says the CNBC source.

Agrees the Optimum Media Solutions' executive: "The content on NDTV Profit is definitely straddling business and general news. The channel seems to be looking at a larger pie of audience strategically."

NDTV Profit may have garnered more viewers in a short time, but the question is how long can it stay number one. Replies Nayak: "As long as we keep delivering good content and our viewers keep tuning into us for credible business news."