MAM
Post World Cup, Hindi GECs bounce back
MUMBAI: Facing bouncers and googlies from the cricket World Cup, India‘s Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) have regained their old order in the television audience graph in the very first week after Dhoni‘s ‘Men in Blue‘ lifted the ‘Cup that Counts‘.
The Hindi GECs mopped up 1209 GRPs, after having lost 108 GRPs in the World Cup‘s final week run.
Star Plus has retained its pole position, after being ousted by Colors briefly for a week with a strategy that involved a cut down in ad inventory.
Star Plus led the week ended 9 April with 334 GRPs (261 GRPs in previous week), according to Tam data (HSM, 4+, C&S). It added 73 GRPs (gross rating points) and its new 10 pm show, Navya, clocked an average TVR of 3.4 in its debut week.
Star Plus also aired Star Parivar Awards on 3 April (Sunday), which clocked a TVR of 4.
Colors lost 51 GRPs and is back to its No. 2 position with 249 GRPs.
Zee TV, which was hit by the World Cup, added 50 GRPs tp close the week with 221 GRPs.
The channel launched a new show, Choti Si Zindagi, at the 7 pm band, which got an average opening TVR of 0.9. All its weekday shows saw an increase in viewership and ratings. It also aired two special episodes, which got good numbers.
Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television (Set) regained its No. 4 position by edging out sister channel Sab. Set added 32 GRPs to end the week with 152 GRPs while Sab, after adding 12 GRPs, took its week‘s tally to 139 (from 127 GRPs).
Imagine TV continues to find the going tough, ending with a 12 GRP loss to collect 58 GRPs during the week (70 GRPs previous week).
Star One and Sahara One were at 32 and 24 GRPs, according to Tam data.
MAM
‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
