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MTV India has been making a song and dance about how it is the numero uno music TV channel. It has been beating its drum about how it leads in penetration, viewership and in terms of advertisers too.
Well, Channel [V] Asia has put its boasts to the test, in Asia at least. And it has gone straight for MTV's jugular.
The channel has taken on the full cover form of regional advertising trade publication AdWeek Asia, Hong Kong, as an advertisement. The outside front cover has huge headlines screaming: "Exposed. The truth about music channels." The inside page of the front cover features a letter from Channel V Asia managing director Steve Smith addressed to MTV Networks Asia president Frank Brown.
He first tells Brown "Dear Frank, Lets be frank." The letter goes on to say that he (Smith) "felt obliged to respond to your (Brown's) long letter dated 15 March contesting our recently published distribution figures for Channel [V]. So here's a short one. We must agree with your point that the focus should be onreal, actual TV reception. In fact, we could not agree more. That's why we published the truth that Channel [V], 24 hours a day, reaches 40 million homes while MTV reaches 19 million homes (as stated in your own figures.) We were surprised at your accusation that our numbers are estimates. Every number is supportable by industry data, cable company returns or plain commonsense. We will be responding to your 11-page letter line-by-line accordingly. Yours sincerely. Steve Smith."
The inside back cover lists the distribution figures of the two channels in various markets across Asia. It goes on to add that both Channel [V] and MTV syndicate programming, which reaches 126 million homes and 85 million homes respectively. The back cover of the magazine lists the more than 100 advertisers that have put their money behind Channel [V]. And a large chunk of them is from India.
Clearly, Channel [V] is fighting back with loads of moolah under its belt, a new managing director, fresh creative impetus, and the spiritof the underdog behind it. Luckily for it, opportunity is beckoning it as a fair measure of arrogance has crept into MTV these days; its management feels it can do no wrong. What Channel [V] has to do is get its act together to come up with a winning combination. In the process, it will be able to show MTV it too can make mistakes.
However, both channels need to do a lot of work in terms of getting accurate numbers and research on the market. Media planners across Asia have expressed doubts about the claims made by the managements of the two channels about their effectiveness as advertising media.
Getting connectedIn India we have a measly 200,000-odd internet subscribers; the figure is expected to go up to more than a million within the next couple of years. Impressive numbers right. Take a look at what's happening and is expected to happen in the US in around the same period.
Market research firm Yankee Group has predicted that nearly two-thirds of US homes will be online by 2003-end.Currently, the Yankee group says just 25 per cent of US homes currently access the internet.
The figure is expected to leap to one-third by end this year and to two-thirds by 2003. The Yankee Group has forecast that US consumers will spend more than $56 billion on internet access services over the coming five years.
And what will drive the internet market? Decreasing computer sticker prices and the fact that online access will become increasingly affordable. Can Indian computer firms and internet service providers learn from this?Guess how many free e-mail providers are there floating around in cyberspace? A recent estimate shows that there are about 500 of them. That's a massive leap from just 100 free e-mail providers in March 1998.
And there's even a service, which guides you around. Called the Free Email Address Directory (http://www.emailaddresses.com/) it served over 1.5 million pages in the first quarter of 1999 to over 350,000 visitors. This represented a 60 per cent increase in traffic over thefourth quarter of 1998, and a 500 per cent increase in traffic since March 1998.
The writer is the editor of The Indian Cab&Sat Reporter. Feel free to email with your comments to television@vsnl.com or television@hotmail.com
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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