Zee Entertainment: key regional genres facing heat

Zee reported lackluster performance in CY20, as within the key regional genres, continuing to face competition from STAR’s flagship channels during the year. It lost market share in key regional genres as STAR serials and shows gained traction across all genres.

Zee Group still dominates in regional genres, movies

Zee Group continues to lead in regional genres on an annual performance basis, although competition from STAR Group began post the lockdown from August. Marathi and Kannada GEC genres retain the top spot despite loss of 655bp YoY and 245bp YoY, respectively. Z however lost its crown within the Bangla genre as STAR Jalsha saw strong gains in viewership share by 132bp YoY to 35.4% while Zee Bangla, which was the erstwhile table topper for years, toppled to the second spot with loss of 900bp YoY to 33.6% share as STAR Jalsha popular programs, such as Mohor and Sanjher Baati continue to gain traction during the year over Z’’s top show, Jamuna Dhaki. Within the Tamil and Telugu genres, Z’ reported a stable performance, with Zee Tamil retaining third spot within the genre at 18% share, down 193bp YoY, while maintaining the second spot in the Telugu genre with loss of 23bp YoY to 20.6% share.

Zee Group maintained its share within the movies genre despite increased competition from Sony & STAR Channels as Zee Cinema along with Zee Anmol Cinema had a 30.8% combined viewership share. Within the GEC genre, viewership share was stable for Z channels; whereby ZeeTV was fifth in the GEC (urban) segment with loss of 516bp YoY for an 8.2% share. Within the Hindi GEC (rural) genre, Z’s Big Magic was in the third spot with 10.4% share while Z Anmol in the fourth spot at 8.5%. Z’s Big Magic and Z Anmol had a combined share of 18.9%, just next to STAR Group channels within the genre.

SunTV: Flagship channel performance stable annually

SUNTV, the flagship channel, retains its top position within the Tamil genre with stable 40.8% viewership share, up 133 bp YoY, although the channel faced competition from peers post the lockdown from September-November where it slipped below the 40%+ benchmark level movie catalogue. KTV, SunTV Group’s other movie offering in the Tamil genre, has seen an uptick in viewership to14.1% share, up 145bp YoY, owing to the COVID-19 lockdown, the shift of viewership from GEC toward movies and news genre, activation of the second TV.

Within the Kannada genre, Udaya TV moved up to the second spot despite the H2CY20 performance whereby it consistently lost viewership share to peers by 1,780bp over the past five months; however, annual performance was better led by strong H1CY20 for the channel whereby it was in the Top 2 positions. In the Telugu genre, Gemini TV remains in the fourth position with a 18% share, down 67bp YoY.

TV Today: Aaj Tak retains 25%+ benchmark share

Aaj Tak, the flagship channel of TV Today Network, retained its top spot with stable 25%+ viewership share, despite Republic Bharat gaining traction for the Sushant Singh Rajput since August-September 2020, giving some jitters during those two months. However, this will remain as a temporary phenomenon; thus, we believe viewership share, and, consequently market share to come back for Aaj Tak backed by Bihar elections in October where it commands a strong market share. Among English news channels, India Today retains the third spot with a 13% share, down 200bp YoY within the genre.

Note: News data was not published during October-December 2020 by BARC following the issue of TRP scam

In terms of the impressions performance for CY20, uptick was seen across genres except the regional GEC genre, which lacked live shows and content amid the lockdown as all shooting was at a complete standstill. Among regional GEC genres, Tamil declined 1% YoY and up 6% MoM in December 2020), Telugu and Kannada impressions declined 2% YoY and stable MoM and 1% YoY and up 7% MoM, respectively. In case of Marathi viewership, impressions declined 6% YoY and up 10% MoM.

Within the Hindi GEC (urban+rural) genre, impressions count was up 26% YoY and up 8% MoM while in case of individual Hindi GEC (urban) & (rural) genres, they grew 3% YoY and 7% MoM for Hindi GEC (urban) as urban viewership for primetime, which was improving gradually post the unlock, was again lost due to IPL over September-November 2020 and grew 28% YoY and 8% MoM for Hindi GEC (rural), largely led by mythological shows like Ramayana & Mahabharata, old hits like Shaktimaan being replayed amid the lockdown gaining significant traction. Other genres like Hindi movies & news too gained sharply amid the lockdown, benefitting from GEC viewership shift toward news and movies reporting growth in impressions count by 36% YoY and 23% YoY (up 4% MoM) in CY20.