Dubai: Mukund Cairae is no longer willing to hold back on his punches.
“Pay TV penetration among South Asian viewers has reached between 55 to 64 per cent — that’s six times the penetration of the Arab viewership,” Cairae, the territory head for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at Zee Network, said. Zee Network operates a bouquet of Indian language entertainment and film channels, and one Arabic channel showing dubbed Bollywood movies.
“Yet the ad industry in the region chooses to overlook the entire South Asian viewership base. Their perception is that the South Asian viewership base predominantly comprises blue-collar workers.
“That’s why the ad rates given to the South Asian satellite channels — which are pay TV — are at an all-time low. If you see the total spend on TV advertising, it’s barely 3 per cent of that for Arab channels, nearly all of which are free-to-air.”
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500 per cent increase
So what should the ideal share of Hindi language broadcasters be? “Being pay TV channels and the fact that in a market such as the UAE, 20 per cent and more of the population represent the target audience for them, we should be 15 per cent of the total ad market for TV, not 3 per cent. I am talking about at least a 500 per cent increase.”
But, shouldn’t the blame be directed at the channels concerned for airing commercials at heavily discounted rates?
Cairae has a riposte to that as well. “The biggest FMCG spender on ads in this region has not been on Zee TV for four years,” he added. “If you cannot pay the rates that are due to a South Asian satellite TV leader, then we can’t do business with them.” Matters have now reached a point that Cairae is working to get Zee TV and two of the other leading Indian satellite channel broadcasters, Star and Sony Entertainment Channel, to come together to create a united front on ad rates.
Combined efforts
“The contacts have been initiated with my counterparts; I would be making a serious effort to join ranks with two of the other three Hindi language broadcasters based here,” he said. “If between the two, it would be great if we can have a tie-up with at least one.
“Collective pressure would be the only way to bring about an ad rate card that is commensurate with what we should be paid.”
But any mention of united action comes with the spectre of a cartel creation. Cairae is not unduly concerned about that.
“I would love to create a cartel with Star, Zee and Sony sitting together and saying advertisers need to pay the expected rates,” he added. “We tried to do the same three years ago, but that effort did not go anywhere. This time, we need to make it click.
“Zee has 40 per cent of the total ad space for Hindi language channels; the problem with being the leader is that others may want to strike a deal, but may not end up holding their promise.
“I will be happy to sit and explain anything. What we are trying to achieve is not against the other channels, it’s against the ad industry to get what is rightfully due to us.
Awareness needed
“Education is what we need to do and it will work if all the Hindi language channels sit together. In principle, we would be satisfied as long as there’s an increase in ad rates from the current lows.”
As to whether he would end up being unpopular with advertisers, Cairae said: “My job is not to be popular with them. But I have always been an optimist that matters will work out… eventually.”
Arabic channel platform
Even as it works to get improved ad rates on its Hindi channel, the Zee Network is keeping an eye out to launch new channels in Arabic. It currently has one in Zee Aflam, which airs Hindi movies either dubbed in Arabic or with sub-titles.
“An Arabic language platform is what we are looking at,” Mukund Cairae said. “When you are only selling one Arabic channel, there are barriers. But if we have more, the park opens up for ad revenues.”
It was just recently that Zee Aflam, launched in June 2008 as a free-to-air, started recording a profit. “Saudi Arabia is our target market and we are there in 9 million households,” Cairae said.
“We created Zee Aflam around movies because as a genre it has the second-highest ad buy here after general entertainment channels. And being free-to-air, it has a higher ad dollar rate.”
