Switch on to the mainline satellite channels and they are choc-a-bloc with advertising. Advertisers complain that finding space on some of the prime time programmes like Star News, Close-up Antakshari and Boogie Woogie is difficult. And some are even turning down advertisers at prime time.
The picture isnt as rosy as it appears. With the corporate sector reeling under an economic slowdown, clients are plastering ads on television to sell their wares. But unlike advertising in the press and Doordarshan, payment realisation on satellite channels is far from robust. With no governing body, rate cuts, free advertising time, unending credit periods, defaulters and legal notices have now become part of satellite folklore. And as outstandings in the television industry total Rs 200 crore, channel owners are struggling to put systems in place to recover monies.
Surf through Rupert Murdochs Star TV Network with its five channel catalogue. Of the total Rs 60 crore outstandings, 60 per cent is due to flagship Star Plus. Clients owe the two-year old Sony Entertainment Television (SET) around Rs 25 crore. And outstandings at Subhash Chandra Goels Zee Network with four channels is said to be around Rs 60 crore. The situation is grave and the advertiser is king, says Kunal Dasgupta, chief operating officer of Sony.
Just how important are advertisers is reflected in the way they are being wooed. White goods major Videocon which owed a channel Rs 1.8 crore over a period of one year was blacklisted six months ago. It promptly started advertising on another channel. Today, swayed by the volume of business, the earlier channel is once again wining and dining Videocon. We are the bread and butter for satellite channels and they cant afford to antagonise us for long, says a client.
Or take the case of Philips. The multinational audio giant has been sponsoring Philips Top 10
on Zee for a couple of years. When its annual outstandings piled up to more than Rs 80 lakh, it was recently blacklisted.
Dasgupta is candid about Sony. He claims that only 25 per cent of the time on Sony is paid for and the rest is free.
In other words, depending on the volumes, clients get four free spots on the channel.
Despite this, the sales and marketing teams at all the channels are working overtime to garner more business. The logic being that a few ads are better than nothing. With 18 hours of daily programming, Sony has 180 minutes of advertising time on sale. It gets about two hours of ad time. Zee which has Zee Cinema, El TV and Music Asia offers 96 hours of programming a day with each channel offering four hours of ad time. Sainath Iyer, vice president at Zee Network says that
Zee TV attracts a little more than 50 per cent of the available space. This has put channels in a bind. Even as dues are piling, they are selling space at all costs. Meenakshi Madhvani, head of international media buying house Carat International, At the end of the day, time is a perishable commodity. If you dont sell off now, you cant carry forward inventory. So the regular 30-day credit period is pushed ahead to 90 days to a year.
There is little choice, says Yashpal Khanna, Star TVs vice president for ad sales in India. Air time is like an airline seat.
If the flight takes off, you cant do anything about the empty seat. So irrespective of whether the money comes in or not, we have to book space, he adds.
He refers to the Rs 1600 crore television industry as a different ball game altogether. Unlike the print medium which can prune the number of pages depending on the advertising, television has no such standbys. And whats making it worse is that satellite channels do not have the backing of a quasi-judicial body which holds advertisers in check like in press or Doordarshan. Both the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) and Doordarshan have rules for advertisers and agencies
where the defaulter risks losing accreditation. And in a competitive environment, no client wants to antagonise the media.
As a result, the clients pay agencies who in turn pay off Doordarshan and the press bills. The satellite channels get the last priority. So while payment realisation in print and Doordarshan is 95 per cent, it is an abysmal 35 per cent on satellite channels. Says a media manager, In a tight money situation, we have no option but to delay paying the channels.
But there is no sign of respite for the channels. For three years now, they have been thrashing out details on setting up a regulatory body like the INS. But with ego hassles and no consensus, the issue is still hanging fire. I dont trust my competitor who will have no qualms about picking up a client I have blacklisted, says a channel owner. Adds Madhvani, Their spirit of competition is stronger than the spirit of collaboration.
The channels are all desperate for revenue. All the same, channels are making attempts to put systems in place. After sending 30 legal notices to clients and agencies, Zee, the largest of the satellite channels set up a credit policy plan six months ago. All the release orders for ads are preaudited. Clients are also classified in three categories according to their track record which includes the volume of business and their outstandings. Star has hired an ad agency hand dedicated to payment recovery. And Sony is scrutinising clients carefully.
According to Stars Khanna, collections are already up by 40 per cent. We have to employ inventory management to the best of our abilities, he says. Media managers claim they are taking the Zee directive seriously. Sonys Dasgupta is determined to have a governing body in place. An no matter when the client pays, the show goes on for the satellite channels.
NANDINI LAKSHMAN
