MUMBAI: Three months since the new TRAI tariff order (NTO) came into the picture, but it might take three to six months for the dust to settle in the industry, according to Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) CMO Prathyusha Agarwal.

 At Zee Melt 2019 a session was conducted-“TV revenue pie” with panellists Agarwal and BARC India EVP partnerships and growth Aaditya Pathak. The session was moderated by Provocateur Advisory principal Paritosh Joshi.

According to Agarwal, NTO has been a game changer because various channels and sectors that went unnoticed became visible. She said that with its implementation she has seen high involvement in purchases of the channels. “This relates because the subscription numbers will get transparent and you have the understanding that this person is purchasing your channel,” she added.

While the NTO was being implemented, BARC had stopped releasing ratings of the channels but Agarwal said that it wasn’t an issue. “When such big transitions take place, the industry will take time to settle. We also need to understand what consumption is happening and why and it will take at least 3-6 months for the consumers to understand,” she added.

Right now, ZEEL is working on attracting consumers to the pay model. It put in six months of effort into understanding how many consumers would pay for the content.

Furthermore, Joshi asked about linear TV’s future against mushrooming OTT platforms to which Pathak answered that the cable and broadcast media outside India is highly expensive. The cheapest entertainment television is here and that’s the biggest incentive for the Indian households. So, that is one of the reasons why people will not opt out of choosing linear TVs over OTT platforms. “People will actually think twice before making a transition because TV is cheaper in terms of entertainment,” he said.

Agarwal chipped in citing that if the nuances are being considered then this wouldn’t even be a question to be raised. She said that paid digital subscribers are less than 10 million as compared to 120 million for TV households. “The number of hours of content watched on TV is more than 4 hours and an average of more than 3 hours versus upcoming 50-60 million of interrupted viewing on digital. OTT has miles to go to catch up to TV’s ad and subscription revenue of Rs 345 billion,” she said.

Pathak added that TV has 66 per cent penetration and the ad pie is growing by double digits.