Sony Entertainment Television is gradually inching up on the popularity charts. There's little doubt that it has firmly entrenched itself as a No. 2 to Zee TV in more ways than one. While TRPs of select programmes are going up in cable & satellite homes in Mumbai and Delhi, the channel is also notching up revenues, in the words of chief operating officer Kunal Dasgupta, to the tune of Rs 6 crore every month. A lot of credit for the channel's performance goes to the marketing initiatives taken by the channel's management. Promoting cable operators' names through billboards and giving them respectability were among the first of these at the time of launch.

Says Kunal Dasgupta: "We're pretty much clear that two of our major focus areas are events and films - events such as the Lata Mangeshkar show and blockbuster Bollywood films. Now we are trying to capture a few primetime slots; it's confirmed that we own the Wednesday primetime slot now."

It appears as though Zee TV has lost the marketing and promotion focus it had at one time and is instead struggling with internal issues relating to programming, restructuring and personalities. Capitalising on this shortcoming within the leading private satellite channel is Sony, says a media observer.

According to vice-president, marketing, Soumitra Mukherji, one of the contributing factors to the success that Sony is currently notching up is the concept of brand management, a la Hindustan Lever and Citibank, which has been brought into the channel. Says Mukherji, a former Hindustan Lever professional: "We look at all our programmes as brands." Sony brought in five brand managers into the company about seven months ago who put their efforts behind eight to ten channel-driver programmes; the list is reviewed, pruned, and added to every quarter."

The responsibility for the programme ratings, image and profits is vested in the brand management team's hands. Each one of the managers has to keep his eye on and understand the consumer, that is, viewers, advertisers/clients and cable operators, says Mukherji. He utilises the feedback he gets from market research, direct viewer responses, and from advertisers to work on programming changes with executive producers. He devises advertising sales schemes, and positions each product (read, programme) in the minds of consumers through promotional activities like PR, advertising on billboards, radio, cross channel promotion, says Mukherji.

Programmes such as `Colgate Gel Boogie Woogie', `Thoda Hai, Thode Ki Zaroorat hain', `Aahat', `Chiclets Take Five', `Chamatkaar', `Mahayagya', films and events are part of the clutch of shows which are being given the brand treatment. "I'd like to believe we are the only channel in India using the concept of brand management for our programming," says Mukherji. What is left to be seen is whether it will help Sony leapfrog and shorten the distance it is trailing behind Zee TV.

Mergers and acquisitions in domestic advertising

Mergers and acquisitions seem to be hitting the Indian ad world sporadically. Mudra acquired Interact and Vision, Nexus merged with Equity, Anth-em acquired Radeus, McC-ann Erickson acquired Press Syndicate Ltd, Nexus Equity merged with Enterprise, Re-diffusion has been making eyes at Everest, McCann lu-sted after Clarion, even if only a wee bit, and last week Ogilvy & Mather acquired Speer Communications. The buzz is that another half-a-dozen small agencies are looking around for mates. Is the Indian advertising world going the way of Madison Avenue in the 80's, when a wave of mergers and acquisition in agencies' dizzying quest for growth ended up changing its landscape? But the huge appetite of the agencies led to indigestion for most of them. To answer the first question, yes, there are likely to be some more mergers but there will be even more acquisitions as advertising entrepreneurs who set up shop with a passion, then age, lose their steam and discover that no one in the family is interested enough to carry on with their labour of love. Some of the ad-preneurs will also discover that they don't have the wherewithal to keep going on because advertising is becoming a big-bucks game, and staying power in times of money crises is crucial. Of course, some ad-preneurs will continue as small niche players, running a tight shift and survive without help from a big brother or sugar daddy.

What about the big daddies? Will they suffer from indigestion? Not really. Reason: the mergers and acquisitions have all been of a relatively small scale. They are pygmy-like in comparison to the mega mergers in the US and in Europe.

A bout of the tummy will hit Indian advertising if and only if, say, an Enterprise Nexus Lowe acquires or merges with a MAA Bozell or RK Swamy/BBDO. This is unlikely to happen unless similar activities take place overseas with their foreign parents.

`Asia Times' out?

The news from south-east Asia is that `Asia Times', the much-talked about regional paper written with an Asian perspective launched by the Manager Media group, has ceased publication last week. Some say that the closure may be only temporary because the Internet edition still continues. A whole lot of editorial staff in Bangkok have been asked to pack up bags and go. But certain reporters are still filing stories for the Internet edition.

There have been changes at the sister publication of `Asia Times' - `Asian Advertising & Marketing', too. Manager Media has formed a joint venture with Dutch publishing and information company VNU to publish `Asian A&M'. VNU is a publisher of trade products such as `Adweek', `Brandweek', `Mediaweek', `Billboard' and `The Hollywood Reporter' through its American subsidiary BPI Communications. VNU, earlier this year, acquired a stake in market research firm ORG-Marg, owned by the BusinessIndia group. And it has evinced interest in launching publications - specialised ones especially - in the Indian market, should government permission be forthcoming.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.