Kalanithi Maran-owned Sun TV Network Ltd, which has been losing viewership share in the last two years in the Tamil market, despite maintaining its pole position, is betting on its re-launched second Tamil general entertainment channel (GEC) Sun Life to attract young audience and fend off competition.
The group’s flagship Tamil channel Sun TV has been facing stiff competition from Star Vijay (with reality shows like Bigg Boss ) and Zee Tamil.
According to brokerage firm Kotak Institutional Equities, Sun TV’s viewership share in the Tamil GEC genre has dropped to 46-47% from 65% in the past two years.
Viewership loss to competition is attributable to the group’s reluctance to experiment with contemporary/bold content on Sun TV and lack of second GEC to cater to urban/youth audience and perhaps, dismissive views about competition, it said.
S.L. Narayanan, group chief financial officer of Sun Group, said Sun TV had all its existing time slots filled up with extremely successful serials that had been running with consistently high ratings.
“We simply cannot disturb those. More importantly, Sun TV’s audiences are a loyal set of people who watch as a family in one living room. Hence, we have to be extremely mindful of the sensibilities of senior citizens. We cannot dilute the reputation and positioning of Sun TV as the definitive source for wholesome family entertainment that we have painstakingly built over decades,” he contended.
However, Mr. Narayanan admitted that there is a new generation of viewers that liked programmes with a lot of glamour — and a bit of controversy. “We simply cannot afford to let that opportunity go. Accordingly, we launched all the new age programmes on a totally new GEC channel.”
New programmes
Mr. Narayanan pointed out that group had lined up a whole host of new programmes which will give competition a run for their money.
“ Soppana Sundari is just one of the recent launches, inspired by America’s Next Top Model that showcases young aspiring models in a reality show format,” he added.
Mr. Narayanan hoped that the launch of three more shows will give momentum to the network once they gain traction.
According to data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), Sun Life ranked among the top five channels in terms of viewership for the week October 6 to October 12. It occupied the fifth position, after Sun TV, Zee Tamil, Star Vijay and KTV. Analysts reckon the progress made by Sun Life would be one of the key things to watch out for.
Another reason Sun TV had faced viewership share loss recently was because it was not available on the State government-owned Arasu Cable. The issue has been resolved now.
Another issue is that Tamil Nadu has not fully shifted to digital from analogue. “Tamil Nadu is the last frontier and we are expecting significant upsides in the remaining months of FY 2018-19 as digitisation accelerates in the State. We are extremely pleased to see that we are finally getting a fair price for the high quality content that we offer to the distributors for sale to our valued customers,” Mr. Narayanan said.
Brokerage firm JM Financial, in a recent report, said despite the structural issue of market share erosion in Tamil market, Sun can deliver over 20% compounded annual growth rate in earnings in the next year driven by IPL turnaround, digitisation in Tamil Nadu and big budget movie releases.
The group’s movie arm, Sun Pictures, has two big films — Vijay-starrer Sarkar and Rajinikanth-starrer Petta, in its pipeline.
