MUMBAI: 2015 seems to be an exciting year for television spends. According to the Pitch Madison report, in 2015 television spends are projected to grow to over Rs 15,500 crore, up from Rs 14,158 crore in 2015, showing a growth of 9.5 per cent.
The report further states that for last year, television grew by 14 per cent on par with its projected growth rate of 15 per cent and maintained its contribution to the total advertising pie at 38 per cent. TV advertising, which grew by approximately Rs 1,700 crore, saw two giants - the elections and the e-commerce segment spending in excess of Rs 1,050 crore.
This year’s biggest sports extravaganza, the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup 2015 is expected to bring in revenue of Rs 1,000 crore of which Rs 500 crore is likely to be additional revenue. The balance will be part of organic growth across segments like BFSI, telecom, consumer durables, automobiles and others.
With regards to new channel launches, the report states, “The Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) space saw three launches – Zindagi, Sony Pal and Epic and the re-positioning of Big Magic as a national channel last year. 2015 is expected to see the trend to continue with many more new channel launches from existing networks. This increased inventory supply will in turn lead to a hike in advertising revenue.”
With the government extending the deadline for phase III of digitization, the increased penetration of digitization will also see increased spending not only on SD and HD channels but also on niche channels. The report also mentions that the facility of geo targeting ads on TV (as seen recently with Star picking up the initiative for the World Cup) will pull in more premium, local and retail advertisers. E-commerce along with marketers of mobile social apps are expected to continue their intensive push through higher advertising spends.
The report also mentions that while Hindi GECs contributed nearly 27 per cent of their overall TV revenue and continue being the leaders, a change in the order saw Tamil Cable and Satellite (TN CS) garnering the second largest chunk of ad revenues, as it grew from 7.2 per cent to 8.5 per cent in 2014, thereby overtaking Hindi news channels.
