It's advantage Sahara in this round.

Is this right time and place to lure eye-balls?

Sahara Samay Rashtriya and Sahara Samay Mumbai now grace television screens across all local railway stations in Mumbai. Sahara's six month contract is a strategy to ensure audience sampling at these strategic places, for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Sahara officials say the first three months (from January 2004) was dedicated to a promotion and awareness drive for the news channels, while the next three will be election focused. An approximate ad spend of Rs 16 million has been dedicated for this activity.

Speaking to Indiatelevision.com, Sahara Rashtriya head Arup Ghosh offers, "The company had won a contract to have TV sets in Mumbai stations playing mainly the national channel and also the Mumbai-specific channel. The contract is for about six months and it'd be a good avenue for the travelling public of Mumbai to keep themselves updated on the election-related news too."

That apart, this novel concept of building brand loyalty to a news channel appears to have commanded a high utility value to different factions of people across industries. There has been a qualitative response for Sahara with a lot of sampling taking place, say officials. Another advantage that seems to have come the channel's way is that whenever a new show makes its debut on sister channel Sahara Manoranjan, the news channels take a break, and the promos of the new shows are aired ad nauseum.

Sahara - reaching for the star

Sahara though, cannot be credited with starting the concept of a news channel on TV screens on Mumbai railway platforms. Earlier, television screens in Mumbai railway stations aired music videos, as a means of entertainment for commuters. The launch of four new news channels last year gave birth to a new genre of competition and hunger for innovation and improvisation in brand building exercises.

NDTV, the production house turned channel pioneered newscasts on railway platforms in an attempt to set for itself the task of breaking into the top league. A senior NDTV executive says, "This was a lucrative option when the channel was in its infancy, to spawn eyeballs and also allow the viewer to get a feel of the channel. But once that is done, it will not make any difference to continue the activity. As of now, it does not make any sense for us to get into it again."

Aaj Tak, the TV Today group's flagship channel has also tested this advertising gimmick, and although they did see TRPs taking off by using this unique sampling, it seems a little difficult for them to gauge the contribution this activity has provided. Says Aaj Tak marketing head Rajesh Seshadri, "It seems to have been a good medium of attracting eyeballs but I would have to test this activity once again to be fully sure about its response. A one time effort cannot give an accurate analysis on its rate of return."

The reach - A bottomless pit

The Indian Railway authorities also see this as a good revenue generating proposition. Looking at the response they received from agencies wanting to buy more and more of the water wall, the railway authorities have gone ahead and put up more screens in various stations, making it a total of 13 screens on the western belt of the Mumbai local railway.

Apart from a revenue generating exercise, they also see this as a potential for key messages and social awareness drives. Western railway chief PRO Shailendra Kumar says, "There have been several commuters telling us that it's an excellent medium for splashing messages relating to safety of rail travellers. Besides, we also have an understanding with the agency for a break of three minutes in every ten-minute programme, which is the exclusive property of the railways."

The railways, which currently flash written messages in their three-minute domain, have plans of featuring short films to create awareness about different issues.

Says Kumar, "We charge Rs 80,000 per screen per annum, and Rs 37.5 thousand for a smaller screen, hence a total of Rs 690,000 is the annual revenue generated from this activity alone. We call for bidders, and the highest bidder bags the contract, hence the rates are very market driven. Also, we made an addition of a TV screen in Surat recently, which is sold at Rs 48000 per annum."

The railway authorities do not deal with channels directly, as there are agencies to act as intermediaries and buy advertising space from the railways. What the agency does with it and how much it sells it for is totally the agencies' prerogative. Agencies that play middlemen in this business refused to talk because of the vast disparity in their cost price and selling price. The market boom and the need for unique ways of advertising have obviously landed these agencies in a win-win situation.

All said and done, in those crucial few minutes before boarding the Virar fast at 6.17 pm, the commuter is managing to get his daily dose of election news from a TV screen located conveniently near his favourite tea stall at Churchgate and Dadar. Whether he remembers the name of the channel after reaching home is quite another story.