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From March 17, the NDTV Profit business news channel will not be broadcast after five in the evening. Instead, you will get to see NDTV Prime, a new infotainment channel.
The team handling the new channel will comprise mostly the business news channel’s staff. NDTV Prime would have programmes on automobiles, technology, property and comedy shows.
In the nineties, Cartoon Network and the TNT movies channel had a similar arrangement in India.
Vikram Chandra, chief executive, New Delhi Television (NDTV, which owns the eponymous brand of news channels in English and Hindi), said, “We noticed viewers tend to lose interest in business news channels after market hours. So, we thought of adopting the dual-channel strategy, where after the market hours, there is a totally new channel on air. Also, with digitisation, there is scope for experimentation. At NDTV, we already have shows across technology, auto and property (sectors). So, we have the resources to produce excellent content for Prime.”
While the channel’s programming will be heavily male-oriented, Chandra said there would be enough peg for women as well. Prime has already got sponsors, including Micromax, MRF Tyres and Croma, said sources.
NDTV Profit, around for eight years now, has been losing market share and revenue in the past three-four years as competition increases in the business news market. The company lost Rs 40 crore year-on-year in revenue in 2012-13.
For the past one year, NDTV cut costs at Profit by shifting to Delhi, where rents are lower from here, and reducing staff. The company expects loss due to Profit to come down to Rs 19 crore for 2013-14.
For the quarter ended December, English news channels have taken a slight beating, given the economic slowdown. In contrast, Hindi news channels have seen ad revenues grow, helping the company’s NDTV India Hindi news channel in the quarter gone by. With a little help form the Hindi channel and the shift to dual-channel strategy for its business news channel, the company hopes to cut the loss and perhaps make a profit.
Media planners, however, have their doubts. While some believe the new channel might help gain viewers after market hours, others say the difference in the viewer profiles targeted before and after market hours might make things more difficult. Karthik Laxminarayan, chief operating officer, Madison Media, said: “One way to look at it is that something is better than nothing (on viewership after market hours). But the biggest challenge will be to get advertisers and viewers on board and positioning the channel effectively. Trickling of viewers might not necessarily happen since the viewer profile for both the channels is different. Also, NDTV Profit is an established brand, while Prime is a new channel. We’ll have to wait and watch as this strategy can go either way.”
NDTV reported a loss of Rs 10 crore for in the quarter ended December against a profit of Rs 15 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, mainly because of incubation costs incurred for setting up Prime and NDTV Ethnic Retail (a subsidiary company).
