MK Anand, CEO and MD of Times Network, expects to add another channel to the network’s bouquet by August-September, but will still need to focus on growth beyond niche channels to achieve the size and scale of a large network
By Simran Sabherwal
The Times Network (earlier called Times Television Network), which rolled out its first channel Zoom in 2004, is yet to enter its teens. But with six channels in its bouquet - Zoom, Times Now, ET Now, Movies Now, Movies Now Plus and Romedy Now - the network has not only managed to build niche specialist channels and grab eyeballs, but also seen considerable growth after MK Anand took charge as its CEO and Managing Director in February 2014.
Competing with larger networks, Times Network caters to the premium urban English speaking viewership – about 1% of TV viewers – but enjoys a disproportionate AdEx share at 9.6% (5% English news and 4.6% English entertainment, as per FICCI-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry report 2015). But with the focus on premium, it also loses out on a mass audience and scale.
REFRESHING THE SYSTEM
Before he took over, Anand says that as an outsider, he had looked to improve efficiencies and the bottomline on the back of strong products. But, once in the system, “more important priorities” needed attention. “The first agenda on my to-do list was to intervene at an all-structure level, improve the overall organization and make it more vigorous, clear and transparent,” says Anand.
He says that till date, he has achieved about 50% of what he aimed to do in the area of HR and people intervention. This initiative has resulted in an integrated management which has full visibility across the organization, with incentives and variable pays linked to the performance of the entire company. The next step forward is individual interventions and a concept of “finishing school” has been launched for all executives from a media point of view. “Ultimately, what differentiates you from competition is the quality of content people, sales people and I believe we can substantially improve them,” says Anand.
Distribution, long considered a weak spot for the network, is the other area to be looked at by filling in gaps on availability and taking the channels to wider markets – the strategy being to go beyond the urban and one million plus towns and enter areas which were traditionally not seen as English and upscale markets.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) order of February 2014, which mandated broadcasters to publish the Reference Interconnect Offers (RIOs) and enter into interconnection agreements with Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs), led to the dissolution of its distribution/subscription tie-up with MSM Discovery (MSMD) and allowed Times Network to set up its own integrated distribution team.
Times Network went on an aggressive drive to up its distribution and expanded its footprint by almost four times over the last year to 1200 distributors. While this may still not be comparable with the distribution network of GECs, Anand believes that 1200-1400 is good enough and further additions will be incremental. “I am delighted at the way the distribution team has functioned and they have surpassed their own highest estimate. We have been helped by our distributors, MSOs, DTH operators and for a smaller but very significant network, we have got great support and respect,” says Anand.
To drive ad-sales, Times Network undertook a strong contact campaign with advertisers and re-negotiated deals which reflected in the numbers in the second half of the financial year. Says Anand, “We have had a substantially good ad sales performance this year and the growth for the whole network is over 40%.” Industry estimates put the size of the network at Rs 400 crore, which Anand terms as “way off the mark and less than the actual worth.”
BUILDING BRANDS & LEADERSHIP
Times Now – the English news channel - is by far the most successful and talked about channel in Times Network’s bouquet. With Arnab Goswami as the face of the channel, it has dominated ratings against competitors CNN-IBN, Headlines Today, NDTV 24x7 and NewsX. The in-your-face reporting has helped the channel grab eyeballs, both in TAM and now BARC ratings. However, critics point out that Times Now has been built on the brand persona and charisma of just one anchor, Arnab Goswami. This reliance could be risky as many see the larger than life Goswami being bigger than the brand, Times Now. This reliance also reflects in ad-rates as the week-day show ‘Newshour’ hosted by Goswami commands a premium and contributes heavily to the channel’s revenues.
Anand claims that ET Now, the business news channel, has long overtaken its formidable competitor CNBC-TV18, but a quick market check within the industry shows that, at least in terms of perception, CNBC-TV18 still remains the undisputed leader with ET Now placed ahead of NDTV Profit and Bloomberg TV. While CNBC-TV18 has a first mover advantage, Anand feels that ET Now has caught up with CNBC-TV18 in terms of revenues from branded content. “We are equal to them in branded content and on gross annual revenue basis. On the remaining, Free Commercial Time (FCT) or the regular bread and butter ad sales piece, we have some catching up to do. My mandate to the team is to be equal to them by next year,” says Anand.
Moving on to the English cluster, high voltage campaigns, premiers, sewing up good deals and increased distribution has helped Times Network’s movie channel, Movies Now, climb up the ratings ladder in a genre where it competes with channels from Star, Turner, MSM and Zee. On the second channel in the cluster, the year-old Romedy Now, in content genre of Romance and Comedy, Vivek Srivastava – Senior Vice President & Head – English Entertainment Cluster, Times Network says, “We have grown as far as positioning and clarity of our brand is concerned. We started off largely as a movie channel and realized that if we have to stick to this positioning, we have to be more than that. Therefore, the focus on series and movies in the space.” While the high action and blockbuster content on Movies Now is skewed towards males, Romedy Now has built up a base among female audiences, despite the fact that most content on the channel is re-cycled. While premiers and blockbuster tittles have helped build up a loyal fan base for Movies Now, it remains to be seen how the network sustains its content going ahead, particularly since the cost of content on English entertainment channels has gone up by three times in the last few years. However, the packaging and differentiated marketing efforts of Movies Now has translated into viewership numbers. The network recently had a soft launch for its latest offering, Movies Now Plus, but it will be interesting to see its strategies going ahead with competition, particularly Star expanding its English language portfolio.
ZOOM SET FOR REINVENTION
Action will also be seen soon at Zoom, the first channel from the Times Network stable. Positioned as a glamour product, with elements of Bollywood and fashion, the channel is all set to be reinvented and will be re-launched soon as a channel that jumps the hurdle of social media. Zoom was launched in the pre-social media age, when interaction with film stars was limited to the big screen, but the advent of competition in the form of interactive social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Vine, meant film stars could now communicate with their fan base directly. Says Anand, “We needed to reinvent Zoom to be able to transcend competition. The channel content, packaging and the channel itself is being designed in a manner that it will leverage on social media more than confront social media. The reinvention and choosing the format has taken time and we will be re-launching the channel next month.” Interestingly, Zoom’s main competitor in this space, UTV Stars, was rebranded as Bindass Play, and the programming was changed to purely Hindi music as Disney did not consider the channel to be a long term sustainable proposition. Commenting on the brand portfolio, Anand says, “Brand leadership is really more important. We have been able to transition from functional leadership to real leadership of the category over the last six to eight months. We should be able to really reinforce and consolidate that position as we go forward.” To achieve this, Times Network is looking to double its marketing efforts and revenue in the coming year.
EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE SCALE
The Times Network perhaps needs a Hindi GEC or regional channel to give it much needed scale. With digitization, broadcast subscription revenue is expected to be the growth driver and in turn, lead to more specialized content and scalability for other genres over a period of time. At an industry level, subscription currently contributes to about 35% of the revenue and this is expected to reach about 47-48% by 2018. But, Anand cautions that news channels will be laggards here. “The Times Group is nowhere near it, nor is any other news company, because news companies unfortunately do not have a strong driver to get to that scale in distribution. The ratio is also skewed because we have leader channels, our ad sales efforts is high enough to keep that ratio.” Meanwhile, Anand is exploring diversification options which could be horizontal diversification such as language news channels or even extensions of business news such as property, to even going beyond Sec A and B into Sec B and C with entertainment products. While not offering a date on the launch of a Hindi news channel, Anand says, “We recently had a soft launch for a movie channel, Movie Now Plus. We will be looking at similar launches and expect to launch another channel by August- September but the larger Hindi or regional language launches will take a little more time.” What is clear is the increased focus on the Digital platform with content being developed for this distribution platform and apps for each of the brands. Internationally, though Times Network has a presence across 75 countries, the company has still not entered the key UK and Europe markets and it is expected that this gap will be covered this year. When asked about the growth rate targeted for the company, with firm conviction Anand says, “I want 30% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for the company and we are already on it for the last two years.”
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
