English business-news battle heats up

The English business-news space is getting ready for one hell of a slugfest for eyeballs and television rating points.

CNBC TV18, for long the undisputed leader, and NDTV Profit, the No.2, are facing increasing competition.

With the three-month-old ET Now, the channel from Bennett & Coleman, trying to make its presence felt, the older UTVi, got pushed to the fourth slot in the manic jostle.
On Thursday, UTVi lined up for a rebound through a force-multiplier alliance with Bloomberg TV. Will that be enough?

“It’s becoming hard to distinguish between business channels. When CNBC was launched, it was the sole player and has had a first-mover advantage ever since. With more options now, we are looking at possibilities beyond that channel,” said Mona Jain, head, strategic investments at India Media Exchange, a part of Starcom MediaVest, the media-planning giant.

One of the key strategies for the denizens to counter CNBC TV18 has been to have a foreign tie-up.

While NDTV has linked up with Fox News of the US, ET Now has Reuters. UTVi was the only local standalone. The Bloomberg TV alliance now puts it on level pegging.
Ronnie Screwvala, chairman, UTVi, believes the addition of 14-15 million television sets every year and a rapid change in preference in favour of premium channels will drive viewership of business news in India.

“This is where our association with Bloomberg will create impact,” Screwvala bets.
What distinguishes channels is content, says Jain. “So deals with international media like Bloomberg, or Reuters always boost image and ratings.”

But R Gowthaman, leader, Mindshare, part of GroupM (GroupM serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Maxus, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia and Mindshare), contests this.

He says, visually, there’s really little to differentiate between the four channels “they all look more or less the same, with graphics, bluish background, tickers…”

He questions if international linkages are enough. “Would it give them a USP? I am not sure. What Bloomberg gives to UTV would not be greatly diferent from what Reuters gives to ET Now. I choose CNBC not because it is a market leader but because it gives me a million viewers. It will be too early to say if we’d look at other channels beyond CNBC,” Gowthaman said.

But TAM data show the heat is surely on the leader. CNBC TV-18’s all-India viewership has declined from 62% to 58% in the last five weeks (up to September 5), while in metros, it is down to 42% from 50% two weeks ago.

NDTV remains rock steady at No. 2 with all-India viewership in the range of 22%, while ET Now has half that at around 11%.

Both, however, have better numbers in the metros.UTVi has perhaps had the best five weeks in recent memory, trebling its viewership to 10% all-India and 16% in the metros.

But Ajay Chacko, director, TV18-Business Media, the Indian partner of CNBC, remains unfazed by the increasing competition.

“We continue to hold 70% market share in the English business channel space throughout India. Whatever new you can think on the business channel space has already been tried with CNBC,” Chacko said.

That figure, TAM data show, includes direct-to-home subscriptions. Chacko agrees the Bloomberg deal is “big for UTV” but adds: “We already have the mother of all deals (with CNBC)”.

The stock-market hours segment continues to be ruled by CNBC. The next fight, say media analysts, would be compelling differentiators within this key time slot of 9 a.m to 4 p.m first, and post-market programming.

“It’s not going to be easy for the new channels to bring stickiness unless they break news on a 24 x 7 basis,” said a media analyst within a top advertising agency, who did not wish to be named citing conflict of interest.

“The top four are well-poised in terms of international coverage; perhaps NDTV Profit and ET Now will have to work on this score now, but I suppose what will sell is local business news, not international,” he said.

“I guess they all would want to be the market mover CNBC TV 18 now is. The leader had better watch out, the heat is on,” he said.