Is there a market for niche channels?

About 100 channels and some 30 million Cable & Satellite homes to watch them. Is there really space for so many? Specially so, when Indian viewers on an average, devote only 4 to 5 hours per week to Tele viewing. Somehow all the channels have managed to make an initial breakthrough in this ever-growing entertainment industry. No wonder, everyday, there are new channels making their grand entry into this market. But do they generate numbers and revenue for stable and consistent growth? In my earlier columns time and again, I have stressed on the need to have a good distribution network. After all, creating opportunity to see it is the game of eyeballs leading to numbers, which eventually determines revenue in term of ads and subscription fees.

Especially, when it comes to news channels. Leave alone the mainstream channels that are also known as general entertainment channels, even channels like Sahara, ETC and Raj TV are showing news as part of their regular programming. That’s one of the reasons for news channels getting less than 2 percent of the total channel share. In this small segment, the pie is not big enough for all to share. As I’ve said earlier, Indian television sets are mostly black and white and even a very large number of colour sets do not have more than 16 channel facility to surf through. Now in such a scenario why would any viewer opt for more then one News channel! Channels that can provide the news fastest, have more focus on field news and are equipped with a better distribution network will have the edge over others.

Rates for ads on news channels vary anywhere from Rs.3500 to Rs.9000 per 10 secs. If there is an emergency or catastrophe or happenings like general election, news channels suddenly adopt a gigantic size. However, such occurrences are few and far in between. This again brings the focus back to the basic that news channels are seen more as fixed time band propositions rather than ongoing news process. Their current affair programs like Big Fight, Face To Face, We The People and Hard Talk tend to become more popular and have consistent ratings and viewers.

Besides News Channels, Music, Education, Faith channels and other information channels too form the plethora of niche channels. While music is an all time favourite and it has more takers than other niche channels, channels that focus on Hindi music, film or other, enjoy better all India ratings. Between the eight or twelve channels for an average Indian C&S viewer, one music channel is always there on the menu. And if it is minus the stamp of English music and Western culture, it increases its acceptability with the masses.

Amongst niche channels, Educational channels too can create a place for themselves provided teaching is dramatized. Arts & Entertainment Television Networks in USA has proved the above notion that education combined with right mix of entertainment has its takers. All the television viewers do not want to indulge into senseless entertainment. The History Channel, from the same stable, today has an increase of 60% in its subscriber base since its launch in 1995. By October 2000, History Channel had reached 111 million homes in 63 countries. While informative channels like Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Zed and National Geographic do have viewers in proportion to their OTS (opportunity to see). They have a selective and limited visibility and are preferred more by metros and larger cities. One reason for this limited viewership is that these niche channels have English as the spoken language, not a language of the masses.

Presently, addition of more channels is an ongoing process that will have to settle somewhere with many mergers and alliances to give the viewers more compact and good programming. Specially where the niche channels are concerned, channels belonging to one genre do land with limitations in term of variety. Who will emerge the winner, only viewers will decide.

Pradeep Dixit, CEO, ETC Network