Television companies have significantly increased the use of hoardings to increase awareness about the shows they have on air.

Although print medium (specifically newspapers) still takes the lion's share of advertising, the total adspend on hoardings from TV companies have gone up by over 60 per cent over last year, Shankar Shetty, associate vice-president of Prime Site, estimates. Prime Site is a division of Mudra Comunications Ltd and coordinates what are known in the trade as out of home advertising.

Shetty said the market had dropped out of the business following the dotcom bust but post-October had seen TV companies filling the void to some extent. Shetty estimates revenues of over Rs 3,000 million at an all-India level with the TV industry contributing over Rs 800 million in the current year. Last year the TV industry spent below Rs 500 million on hoardings. The figures are collated from 22 cities in the Hindi speaking belt.

Industry sources reveal that the biggest spenders on hoardings are Star, Sony and Sahara TV. Zee TV has a much more modest budget where hoardings are concerned, the sources say. As for how much a Star or Sony spend, the sources said the figure was over Rs 100 million. And of this the biggest chunk was taken by Mumbai, with a Rs 70 million spend (per channel).