[icernet] Indian broadcasters switch on to potential of news in Hindi

[Arul Selvan]

  India's latest news channel, NDTV, started broadcasting yesterday in a 
market full of commercial promise. But like many of the other recent 
entrants to the market - including Star TV, the pan-Asian broadcaster - 
NDTV is focusing on its Hindi language channel.

The expansion of local-language channels reflects an increasingly 
popular preference for news delivered in Hindi: 70 cent to 85 per cent 
of television news consumption is from Hindi channels. As a result, news 
channels in general, and Hindi ones in particular, are the fastest- 
growing advertising medium in domestic broadcasting.

Advertisers have indeed followed. In the year after September 11 2001, 
the number of clients advertising on news channels rose 11.6 per cent to 
766, according to TAM. News channels' share of advertising more than 
doubled to Rs2.5bn ($53m) out of a total of Rs30bn spent on TV 
advertising in 2002. Although it remains a small proportion of the 
overall market, advertising on news channels is growing twice as fast as 
on entertainment channels.

Lower advertising rates are one reason: news channels charge about a 
10th of the cost for an off-peak spot on an entertainment channel. But 
news channels' growth also reflects a realisation by advertisers that 
Hindi channels reach a vast consumer market in small towns and rural 
areas -a no-go area for English- language broadcasters.

It is just this market that has successfully been tapped by Aaj Tak, a 
leading Hindi-language broadcaster, which attracts 60 per cent of prime- 
time Hindi news viewers and 40 per cent of advertising. But what excites 
Aaj Tak is not just a rising pool of small advertisers but its growing 
number of big corporate advertisers such as American Express, Hyundai, 
and ICICI bank. These advertisers are especially keen to reach the vast 
numbers of consumers that live outside of the big cities.

Source:
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