Ab to Mera Channel bhi Anna !

The Anna Hazare fever has gripped the entire nation for the last couple of weeks. It has brought people from all regions, religions, classes and age-group together and everyone is wearing the same cap – “I am Anna”. I was not born during the freedom movement but I am sure it must have been similar.

What was not present during the freedom movement was the minute by minute coverage by numerous television channels. And that according to me has helped Anna’s movement spread like fire. The news channels have unanimously supported the cause unlike what happened during Baba Ramdev’s movement where it was a divided house. So kudos to the Indian News channels for their unrelenting support to this movement.

But I have an interesting observation to make here. Life has just not been easy for our News channel reporters. They all survive on ‘Exclusive news and interviews”. This is something that they have been struggling to get ever since the fast began. And the credit goes to team Anna, who has been absolutely transparent about all its meetings and discussions leaving no room for speculation. No exclusive bytes have been given and it looks like all the news channels also saying – “Main bhi Anna – tu bhi Anna”

So the channels are trying out various other things to make up for this loss. They are getting all kinds of panelists for debates and discussions (saw yesteryear’s actor Raja Bundela also) but that’s still not making any difference.

And what they did yesterday was hilarious. As soon as there was some news about what  steps the government might take to end the fast, anchors on a few channels jumped with excitement saying that it was only their channel that had predicted that these actions could be taken and how accurate they were – what an achievement, I say. But after two hours when things turned out the other way, they didn’t know where to hide their face.

I think the news channels are doing a fabulous job and at this stage should not bother about exclusive news. My request to them – lets follows Anna’s strategy of being ‘inclusive’ and lets forget ‘exclusive’

Main bhi Anna- tub hi Anna, ab to saara desh hai Anna.

What happened to the Sunday morning TV viewership?

Remember the days of Ramayan and Mahabharat on Sunday mornings? People would have finished most of their daily chores at least 5 minutes before the telecast. And if there was any work left then the work had to wait for an hour at least. Because it was the time when the entire family would sit and watch their favorite mythological show.

Sunday morning in those days was considered as a weekend prime time slot. Of course those were the DD days and one ad spot on these shows used to give you very high GRPs.

With the advent of satellite TV in India, TV viewing has gone through a sea change. Weekday prime time has got extended to 11:30 pm and we discovered the potential of week day afternoon slots. However, one slot that has not seen enough action is the Sunday morning slot. I would say that the slot has been NEGLECTED by the broadcasters and as a result it’s become a dead slot.

No broadcaster is willing to invest in this slot and I really don’t understand why? Colors made an effort with some costume dramas in the morning but that certainly was not the best content they had.  Some of the channels will argue that there is not enough viewership on that slot and hence it doesn’t make commercial sense to invest there. The question that I would like to ask is that do we really need to look at the TAM numbers in this case? The ratings are low because there is no good original content being aired at that time.

Isn’t it common sense that majority of the people are at home at that point of time probably relaxing or doing some weekend work. Yes there will be a segment from the metros that will go out of home for recreation but that is a very small segment. The fact is that if you put up a good show and promote it well you can get ratings that are higher than you weekday prime slot. Don’t we get a good rating for an India cricket match if it’s on a Sunday morning?

I would like to cite the example of the hindi movie blockbuster premiers. Traditionally all channels used to premier e movies on Saturday night. However one of the movie channels experimented with the Sunday afternoon slot and today all premiers happen on Sunday afternoons.

Now my questions is… if there are audiences available at home to watch the movie at 1:00 pm, wouldn’t this segment watch a good show at 10:00 in the morning too?

Yes it will be challenging to decide what kind of content would work?-  Mythos, kids programing, reality shows .. or something compeletly new ? However one thing is certain …. If a channel gets the right content and puts the right weight behind its promotion it will change the game for the industry

I will wait and see as to who takes that first step….