sony

Sony Entertainment Television was once India’s most watched Hindi entertainment channel, it was a new television channel with some very funny and cutting edge shows that catered to a majority of the Indian audience. However after the Star Plus juggernaut in the majority of this decade Sony has progressively deteriorated. The TRP ratings of their programs have slipped steadily .As of this year Sony finds itself at the bottom of the league.

‘Have You Ever Seen A 100 Crore People Doing The Same Thing At The Same Time?’, that’s the ad doing the rounds on Indian TV. The product being advertised is the biggest phenomenon to ever come out of the Indian subcontinent and easily the biggest in the game of Cricket.The sporting spectacle known as the Indian Premier League or the IPL for short kicks off on the Tenth of April. This time the stakes are higher, the number of players are more, the viewership is guaranteed to be much more than the number we saw last year. What should however have the big men in the BCCI grinning from one ear to the next is the amount of money that is expected to come into the IPL.As Lalit Modi said a few weeks ago “The IPL Is Recession Proof”. That’s food for thought.

Raghav Bahl’s baby is growing up to be one big giant. The number 18 that has become synonymous with Bahl’s media group Network 18 is fast becoming the number that frustrates the big men in rival companies. Not only has Network 18 established a strong foothold over the Indian TV space but is quickly becoming a multimedia conglomerate of epic proportions. The company now presents a very real threat to any venture that wants its share in India’s TV space. Network 18 has been able to grow thanks to a quick spreading viewership base and a very strong marketing engine.

The primetime soap opera bubble seems to have finally burst. For the first time this decade the country’s biggest Hindi entertainment channel ‘STAR PLUS’ has amplified it’s efforts to once again win the ever present ratings war and it did so with a blockbuster announcement which has definitely signaled the heralding in of a new era for Indian television .It has decided to cancel the very show that helped it take the #1 spot a little over six years ago “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi(KSBKBT)”.It’s a bold move and one that has already set the show’s creator Balaji Telefilms on a legal warpath with the channel .

Less than a week after the ESPN-STAR group won the rights to host the inaugural edition of the Twenty20 Champions Cricket League to be held in India from December 3 to the Tenth, a clearer picture has emerged in the sub-continent. The business side of cricket continues to prosper, the BCCI continues to get richer and most importantly, the ESPN-STAR group have become without doubt the most dominating sports broadcasting entity in this part of the world and now provide sports content for over a sixth of the world’s population.