Times Now scores high on timing

The news channel beat NDTV 24X7 and CNN-IBN in the latest TV ratings.

The new year brought cheer to Times Now's Mumbai headquarters. The two-year-old general English news channel from the Times Group beat NDTV 24X7 and CNN-IBN to claim leadership position among viewers (age group 4+) in cable and satellite homes in towns with a million-plus population.

If that seems a rather narrow segmentation of viewership, then consider TAM's week three (January 2008) data on English news. Among viewers in the 15+ age group in the all-India satellite news market, Times NOW was ahead of NDTV 24X7 and neck and neck with CNN-IBN in market share terms.

Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting Company that runs the news channel, says for the last eight weeks, Times Now has been the clear leader in the consumer segment "" news viewers in the socio-economic category A and B, in towns with a million-plus population.

Says Times Now's editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami: "We were the last to launch and were written off. To climb up from there has been no mean task."

When it was launched in January 2006, the channel was pitted against players such as NDTV 24X7, CNN-IBN (Network18 group) and Headlines Today from the TV Today group.

However, its success in the last few months is a consequence of tweaking and re-working some of the channel strategies.

As part of the initiative, Times Now abandoned its business and news format in favour of a pure news format. "We spent time and money in covering the stock market at length. It didn't work," says Lulla.

So the channel turned to the "news first" formula. "We did not want to be seen as a commentary channel with too much analysis," points out Goswami.

Sports coverage was also given its due, and it to the prime 8.30 pm slot rather than the 7 or 7.30 pm slot, which most news channels use. Its 9 pm news bulletin has consistently attracted high viewership.

Programming changes were followed by strengthening distribution of the channel through cable networks. The company invested in improving the quality of channel placement and the width of distribution.

Experts in the cable business, however, insist that Times Now's viewership increase can be attributed to the handsome Rs 50 crore carriage and placement fee that the company paid for its two channels (Zoom included) last year.

However, critics have reservations about the channel's leadership claim. Ravi Kiran, CEO (South Asia) of the media agency Starcom MediaVest group, says news channels have a habit of claiming leadership in different population strata.

"The channel is still not number one in the all-India cable and satellite homes." But the head of a rival news channel maintains that the English news market is too tiny to be further sliced. English news is barely 1 per cent of the total TV viewership, against the 6 per cent share of Hindi news.

NDTV did not respond to Business Standard's queries and the editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN and IBN7 (from the Global Broadcasting Network) Rajdeep Sardesai too refused to comment on the ratings' claims.

However, Sardesai observed: "If you look at the last six months' all-India ratings, we are comfortably placed as the market leader. The real battle for the future will not only be for ratings but also for perception based on the quality of journalism and the level of engagement with the viewer."

Heads of news networks as well as media planners agree that ad spends on news are linked to perception.

"Advertising on news is not viewership but perception-driven. Anchors and programming quality play a role in deciding on spends on news channels," says Ravi Kiran.

If advertising revenues are an indication of perception, then Times Now has to meet some standard. The channel's ad rates, Rs 1,800-Rs 2,000 for a spot, are lower than what NDTV 24X7 (Rs 5,000) or CNN-IBN (Rs 3,500) can command.

Hence, at Rs 48 crore, its advertising revenue is lower than CNN-IBN's Rs 93 crore and NDTV's Rs 135 crore. Media industry observers say Times Now is expected to close the year with 40 per cent growth in revenue.

Lulla says that as far as ad volumes go, rival channels benefit from being part of larger networks. Since experts say that "stand alone" channels stand to lose out, Times Global is quickly launching its Business News channel this year, leveraging the strength of its pink paper The Economic Times.

Currently, CNBC-TV18 is the country's most prosperous English business news channel with an annual advertising income of approximately Rs 225 crore. But wouldn't a Hindi news channel complete the bouquet? "We are late. The Hindi news space is too crowded. There's a blood bath out there," says Lulla.

He expects Times Now to break even in 2009.

To be sure, global experience shows that there are no monopolies in news and TV channels in the genre are susceptible to weekly changes in their ranking. India is getting there.