MUMBAI: Marred by controversies and drop in viewership, the Indian Premier League no longer rings alarm bells for other broadcasters like it did in the first three years when the share of the official broadcaster Max zoomed past most others by a big margin.

The Hindi movie channels who till 2010 used to draw up aggressive plans to shield themselves from the IPL onslaught are today talking in terms of ?business as usual?.

Star Gold vice president Hemal Jhaveri declares that the channel saw 10-15 per cent growth in viewership last year. His statement resonates with competitor Zee Cinema, which according to the channel?s business head Mohan Gopinath, also grew by 10-15 per cent.

UTV Movies did not participate in the story.

The fact that IPL viewership dropped by as much as 25 per cent last year has also bolstered the Hindi movie channels as they take on IPL.

According to TAM, Max?s share had slipped from 16.03 per cent in 2010 to 12.1 per cent in 2011 during the IPL. The share of Hindi movies went down during the same period from 24 per cent in 2010 to 21 per cent in 2011.

The fact that Max, the official broadcaster of IPL and a key player in the genre, remains out of the race for almost two months when the IPL is on also adds to the excitement for the rival networks.

?IPL like any other cricket tournament can?t be wished but at the same time there would be a huge audience that would want to look at other programmings. If you have a strong lineup, viewers will come to you even if it is cricket, a high point or launch of a big show,? says Jhaveri.

Star Gold is targeting the afternoon and primetime slot. ?We are focusing on the afternoon slot keeping the vacations in mind and for prime time we, of course, have pretty strong lineups for the next two to three weeks. " The list includes Dabangg, Tees Maar Khan, Singham and Golmaal.

The channel is also pinning hopes on Sujay Ghosh? Kahaani which would be released sometime later during the summer vacation.

Zee Cinema is betting on the afternoon slot. Says Gopinath, ?Historically, Zee Cinema has not been affected by the IPL because we have been doing our stuff on Zee Cinema Dopahar which we will be continuing."

Gopinath is planning to air movies Tarzan and Mr India targeted at kids.

?There will be an afternoon slot during the month of May driven towards the movie watching viewers apart from the blockbusters that we will be airing in the prime time. We recently did a premiere of Don 2. Movies like Tarzan, and Mr India which are watched by kids will be aired during the IPL,? Gopinath avers.

MUMBAI: In a move that is bound to add muscle to its movie library, Star India has entered into a movie syndication deal with rival Viacom18.

As per the deal, Viacom18, which runs Hindi general entertainment channel Colors, has offloaded 500 of its Hindi movie titles to Star India for an estimated Rs 4.5 billion.

Viacom18 was aggressively building up its movie library as it was planning to launch its own Hindi movie channel. However, with competition, rising acquisition costs and a mounting internal debt, the company decided to defer the launch plans.

Star India is already a major player in the Hindi film space with over 700 titles in its library. Moreover, the company has started to premiere big-ticket movies on Star Gold, the movie channel. It has also taken some bold steps like reducing the ad breaks and airing 6 movies daily, which has forced other players to change their business models.

Talking about the deal, Star Gold general manager Hemal Zaveri said, ?This is the first of its kind deal that we have entered into.?

Colors spokesperson said, ?As part of our overall strategic plans, we have off loaded part of our film library. We still have a large library and have also kept enough runs to take care of our main channel needs.?

The most pressing need for the group companies, TV18 and Network18, is to reduce their debt load. ?For Viacom18, the deal makes sense as its launch plan has deferred and it allows the company to monetise a part of the library. Also, the amount directly reaches to the bottomline,? a media observer said.

To a query on Viacom 18?s strategy for acquiring films for Colors in future, the spokesperson said that they would look at acquiring new movies on syndication if and when the need arises. However, the company is still holding on to the plan of launching the movie channel. ?The movie channel is an integral part of Colors? growth
strategy and we will revisit our plans at an appropriate time,? the spokesperson said.