MUMBAI: Himesh Reshammiya’s latest foray on stardom, The Expose, sustained through the weekend enjoying its solo release status. And, a few did reward him for his sheer perseverance financing and acting in film after film. The film opened reasonably well on Friday morning to drop the same day in noon shows. The film managed a weekend of Rs 7.2 crore.

Hawaa Hawaai has done very well in its first week to collect Rs 6.05 crore. Koyelaanchal has had a poor run at the box office ending its first week with Rs 2.25 crore.

Mastram fails to titillate in the era of ‘porn on click of the mouse’ and manages to collect Rs 3.4 crore in its first week.

Manjunath is rejected outright with shows cancelled at many of its screenings. Yeh Hai Bakrapur itself proves to be the bakra with a total loss one week run.

2 States has added Rs 5.1 crore in its fourth week to touch the Rs 100 crore mark and taking its four week total to Rs 100.2 crore.

MUMBAI: The leader in the Hindi general entertainment space, Star Plus has proved its might once again. After setting new viewership record weeks back, it has hit another record by inching close to the 800 million mark.

The on-going Indian Premier League (IPL) has also not impacted the chart topper’s ratings, thus giving it another reason to rejoice. The channel took its tally to 791 million GVTs in the week 16 of TAM TV ratings, up from 748 million GVTs. For the rest of the GECs that were hit badly by IPL are Colors, Sony and Sab.

Zee TV is stable at number two with 473 million GVTs, up from 464 million GVTs. For Colors, which is at number three slot registered 433 million GVTs, down from 451 million GVTs a week earlier.

Life OK witnessed hike in the viewership and recorded 389 million GVTs, up from 376 million GVTs. For the sister channels, Sab and Sony it was a bad week. Sab stood at number five with 266 million GVTs, down from 314 million GVTs and Sony occupied number six position with maximum loss in the viewership and noted 244 million GVTs, down from 308 million GVTs a week earlier.

The Indian television industry is possibly heading towards a crisis of an audience ratings blackout. TAM Media Research, a joint venture between Nielsen (India) and Kantar Media Research, is currently the only agency that provides television audience viewership measurement services to advertisers and broadcasters.

TAM has hit a roadblock in India with the government issuing policy guidelines for television ratings agencies in mid-January. It has an impossible deadline of mid-February to ensure that the shareholding in TAM is in accordance with the new policy guidelines.

Apart from having substantial (more than 10%) stakes in TAM, the joint venture partners in the Indian television ratings provider also own advertising agencies in India, which is prohibited in the policy guidelines’ cross-holding norms.

Nielsen appears to have taken a back seat and decided to let Kantar lead the challenge against the government’s new regulations and  let TAM face the situation as it develops

Kantar has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court to get a stay on the shareholding norms specified in the guidelines or at least get an extension on the deadline for meeting meet the norms. There’s less than a fortnight left for TAM to comply with them, and it does not like its shareholders will be able to do so in the short time that was given to them.

The launch of television audience measurement by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), an initiative of advertisers, advertising agencies and broadcasters in India, is likely only by October this year.

If Kantar fails to get some relief from the court, TAM will have to stop releasing audience ratings by mid-February which will obviously result in the absence of viewership being metered and measured till BARC is ready with its own services. And that is something which is giving both advertisers and agencies palpitations. Television audience ratings is a key input based on which advertisers base their advertising plans on.

In order to understand what the situation is and what could unfold, indiantelevision.com’s Vishaka Chakrapani spoke to Eric Salama, chairman and CEO of the Kantar group since 2007. Salama has been with global advertising agency WPP, the owner of Kantar, since 1996.

During the interaction, Salama rued that television ratings has become a matter of public debate and a “cricket ball” for everyone to hit. Excerpts:

How different is it operating in India as compared to other countries when it comes to television ratings?

We operate in most countries with the exception of Iran, Cuba and North Korea.  We’ve never had problems in India before, IMRB is the oldest research agency in Asia and we see India as a key market for us going forward.  We have some of our most talented people here.  The TV ratings market is very different to other markets in that it has become a source for public debate and a cricket ball for people to hit.

How do you see TV ratings agencies progressing in India?

We’ll know soon enough!

Do you believe a ratings blackout is likely to happen? What could happen in such a scenario and how will the industry respond?

Unless the court rules in our favour on cross ownership, we are heading for a blackout which will be extremely damaging to broadcasters, programmers, agencies, advertisers and everyone who cares for the Indian media industry.

Do you think there is space for two ratings agencies to coexist?

It happens in some markets such as Philippines but it’s extremely rare as the industry generally wants one currency for trading.

I believe TAM has also applied to BARC for panel management in the industry-driven television ratings service. How do you see your relations with BARC taking shape?

Once BARC is established, TAM will either be a supplier to them for some services or not.

Should the sample size for arriving at television ratings be far bigger?

If people wanted us to expand our sample to 20,000 we would.  When BARC is established it will be up to them to decide what they do.

Accusations have been hurled at TAM and its credibility has been questioned. Do you think TAM has been judged wrongly?

Some of the comments have been libellous. Many of them have been poorly informed.  TAM has performed extremely well for a long period in a very difficult environment and under huge pressure.

What is the plan B if TAM is not allowed to function?

There is no plan B.

MUMBAI: The SCaT (Satellite and Cable TV) trade show in its 22nd year took place at the World Trade Centre, Cuffe Parade here over the weekend between 25 and 27 October. The show received a great response with all the stalls sold out. The show was buzzing with energy and enthusiasm.

“I feel like a kid in a candy shop, I am really spoilt for choice. I would love to check out all the new products and try out a few,” said one of the visitors.

According to the organisers, they had to take additional hall space to cater to the higher demand from exhibitors. It was deliberately held over a weekend to make it convenient for outstation visitors and the number of registrations clearly out did the previous years on both days. Several operators from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh attended in groups and of course from all over India too.

The show attracts visitors to review and purchase products from over 150 companies and brands, not only from India but worldwide. Over 40 international companies participated in the show this time around. The focus of SCaT 2013 was to showcase attractively priced digital headend products to meet the needs of smaller cable TV networks looking to migrate to digital cable TV within a year.

In fact, the entire idea to hold the exhibition is to make work easier for the people in the industry, say the organisers, who also come out with a monthly magazine, SCaT. “We launched the magazine in 1993 and it was the first trade publication catering to the satellite and cable TV industry in the south-Asian region. Simultaneously, we also started organising the SCaT Trade show for which we got huge appreciation,” says SCaT Media & Consultancy publisher and MD Sudeep Malhotra.

According to Malhotra, the entire idea was to cash in on the growing cable TV industry, which was at a nascent stage at that time. “There was a big barrier between the manufacturers of cable TV products and the cable operators who were the buyers. They could only connect through the shopkeepers, who at times were not really helpful. So, if an operator was looking for an amplifier, he would be supplied only those products that was available at the shops. He may not even be aware of the better products that are being manufactured,” says Sudeep, who with the magazine and the trade show wanted to bridge that gap.

The organisers hosted the first show in February 1993 and had just nine companies on board. In the same year in October, the show had 30 companies participating which was a huge jump for the organisers. “Over the years, we have been growing at a rate of almost 20 to 30 per cent. Now, we have 156 companies on board, with participation of about 21 countries,” says Malhotra, also adding that they have special permissions from the government to get the products from other countries.

The footfall has increased considerably too – from 300 people in the first show over three days to almost 18,000 in the present show. “We have visitors not just from India but from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc as well. We also have cable associations visiting the show in groups of 100, 200 from various states in India,” says Malhotra.

The exhibition was spread across two buildings and witnessed a great response in terms of visitors. The show had a great mix of companies varying from those providing headend equipments to those providing end to end solutions. There was also a prominent presence of news channels like Captain TV (Chennai) and Channel News Asia (Singapore).

Satellite & Cable TV Magazine editor and executive publisher Dinyar Contractor expounded, “We hold this exhibition annually to let the industry get together under one roof and explore the new products that are available or will soon be available in the market. We at SCaT believe that the opportunities are manifold at this show and the industry can benefit at large.”

With the DAS rollout and impending phase III and IV implementation, the focus was but naturally on affordable digital headends and STBs which are cost efficient for small networks of the smaller towns that are not MSO dominated. Like always, it was the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers who dominated. Interestingly, the key Indian hardware companies like Catvision, Channel Master, Saibaba Electronics among others had all tied up with international manufacturers and were offering complete end to end DAS solutions. 

“While clearly the focus was on hardware, the middleware and software vendors offering value added services, SMS and billing integration were yet to see significant traction. Also on display was the sole HITS service provider JainHits offering complete services including content, having recently won his legal case against the aggregator/distributors,” said media analyst Sanjeev Hiremath.

One of the products that caught everyone’s attention was the Android OTT IP-STBs – these are set top boxes that function on an Android 4.0 and can be easily synced with any device – which can enable internet surfing, listening to online music via WiFi or Ethernet interface. The STB also supports Live TV watching and VoD if the user has an account with the solution provider.

Another attraction at the event was Gaian Solutions’ new product through which cable operators and DTH players can now customise the advertisements being aired not only within states, but also within the city limit. “The new technology helps you to air different ads at the same time. So if in south Mumbai, a consumer will see a Mercedes ad on TV during a programme, another consumer in other part of the city can watch a different ad, according to the need of the market,” informed Gaian Solutions director-operations Mrigesh Gaurav.

The lobby of the Taj Vivanta President where most of the participants stayed was also a meeting place for networking and also became the hotspot for the trade party on the penultimate day.

All in all, it was an exciting and eventful three days of knowledge enhancement, serious business and networking.

While he is busy directing and co-producing Anil Kapoor’s ambitious adaptation of popular American series 24, adman-filmmaker Abhinay Deo’s TVC titled Nike Parellel Journeys has won six awards including one gold, four silver and one bronze at the recently concluded Spikes Asia 2013.

This is yet another achievement for Abhinay’s company, Ramesh Deo Productions (RDP), which has been winning consecutively for two years at the Spikes and Cannes Lion. 

The award-winning TVC offers a peek into the journey of thousands of India’s budding (wannabe) cricketers and athletes as they single-mindedly pursue their dream; often across different landscapes and yet, culminating in the ubiquitous playing field, proudly sporting the Nike blue Team India jersey – the ultimate object of desire.

Abhinay Deo hopes to continue creating ‘different‘ work

Speaking about the win, Abhinay sounds rather grounded.  “My team and of course the agencies we work with are very supportive of what we do and have helped us push the envelope. And if one pushes these boundaries and works diligently, then automatically it starts showing up in your work, which everybody, including at the international level, starts appreciating,” he says.

For someone who believes it’s not about winning but being part of something that is out of the box, Abhinay wants to demonstrate to the world that there is someone out there, trying to do something different. Asked to name that one agency he loves to work with, pat comes the answer, “Taproot”.  Reason being: “They love pushing boundaries and doing something different.”

Talking about being selective about his work, Abhinay says he believes in working with passion rather than running behind accolades as that, more often than not, gets you onto the wrong track.

Which is not to say he doesn’t want to keep the winning streak going…