RETROFIT
Bruising egos and vaulting ambition
Safedi ki chamkar where Rin and Tide are slugging it out isn't theonly battle zone these days. There is another joust in the mediafirmament where an ongoing glove fest has everyone riveted. And thishas nothing to do with iski shirt meri shirt se zyada safed kyun hai?This one is about bruising egos and vaulting ambition. It is about anentrenched player and a newbie. More than that it is all about a newline entering contemporary lexicon. The line - apni aukat nahibhoolni chaiye - which is way beyond white shirts and detergent bars.It is about ratings and the line is reverberating in the corridors ofmost media entities over the last couple of days, thanks to theinternet. On Wednesday, Bloomberg UTV filed a defamation noticeagainst Udayan Mukherjee, managing editor of rival business channel -CNBC TV 18 for inflamatory, derogatory and defamatory statements madeduring the course of a morning programme. The UTV legalese also soughtRs 500 crore in damages if an unconditional apology was notforthcoming within 48 hours. Their contention that Mukherjee duringBazaar had mouthed 'false statements communicating to the public thatBloomberg UTV is copying, cheating and lying about its viewershipratings on the day of the announcement of the Union Budget 2010."
White shirts be damned, it was code red in telly studios. The ratingswar has seen its first big battle unfold in recent times. There issome serious strife in business telly land. And how? Udayan Mukherjeedashed off this missive to his staff in the heat and dust of BloombergUTV's claims of being number one:
"The TAM ratings for budget day came out this morning.
I stress this point as you may have seen some utterly false andmisleading ads in the ET over the last couple of days from BloombergUTV claiming that they are the “new No 1”. They were going by AMAPwhich is a small sample based study, in most cases inaccurate, whichprovides a very rough preview into what the TAM nos could “possibly”resemble. The same set which had Times Now excited after last year’sbudget till they got kicked in the teeth with the final TAM numbers.
I must also add here that UTV made a devious distribution switch onthe budget day, replacing UTV Movies with Bloomberg. Of course, allmovie channels have higher ratings (they are more mass) than newschannels and that would have led to much higher SAMPLING of Bloombergon the day of the budget, leading to a spike in their ratings : ofcourse compared only to their generally abysmal ratings. DESPITE that,they are nowhere NEAR CNBC TV18 in the final ratings and will firmlygo back to their consistent No 4 (among 4 players) position next week.
Now the ratings. CNBC TV18 is, expectedly, the No 1 on budget day forthe 10th year running, ahead of all business news and English generalnews channels and by a mile. Sure, the extent of our leadership or thegap would have been even higher had it not been for these distributiongames but that takes nothing away from our dominance on budget day. Weare still 3 TIMES the no 2 player (ET Now) in our core TG. Am sure allof you understand by now that the TAM ratings are just an indicativereflection of our dominance as it does not capture our presence inoffices/brokerages and general out of home or affluent householdswhere we enjoy a virtual monopoly. But EVEN in that crude measure wehave always been and continue to be the leader by far.
I hope this will dispel any self doubts you may have had after readingthose ads. Actually, none of you should have had them in the firstplace. The fine effort that all of you put out on budget day and onelook at the comparable screens should have amply convinced you that wewere the best, by far. Now you have factual endorsement of that.Congratulations to all of you and just stay focused on the No 1channel, yours. The rest is noise and mostly empty at that. There’s aphrase in the English vocabulary for it :comeuppance.
Cheers,
Udayan"
This was in response to the Bloomberg UTV advertisement, but thechannel's managing editor Govindraj Ethiraj, incidentally a formerCNBC TV 18 staffer, had this to say about Uadyan's letter to hisstaff. Ethiraj's missive titled - What fun ! went like this:
"Hi All
An interesting ratings battle has broken out....as you can see and wasonly expected...a few things to bear in mind...
1. We don't own AMap, any channel would have done what we did if Amapratings were favourable to them. As it happened this time, Times Nowand us took the lead.
The same networks who are clutching onto TAM like dear life frequentlyuse AMap when it suits them, in ads too.
2. That is not the issue though. The issue is that the 'undisputed'leader is not undisputed any more...if that was the case you can'thave a vote that was so divisive...one sample likes us totally,another some one else and we are okay with that, for now !
3. Fact is we have put the market on alert and told them that we arein clear contention for number one sustained position and not theocassional double century or whatever, as we discussed the otherday...and we continue to remain focussed on that goal...
And its fun to rattle and make your competition sweat so much as wasevident today and will be in coming days !!!!
MOST importantly, the Bombay party is Friday night at Sobo Central,7.30 pm onwards, details already with you....see you there !
Cheers, Govind
PS do circulate to whoever missed out"
Wow, this reminded me of Zee TV's gauche attempt many years back tostrike at the very heart of the TAM Peoplemeter model when Star Plushad begun its ascendancy. Many investigations later, nothingsubstantive came out of it and life and business went on as usual. Ittells you something about the competetive times that we live in thatone has to resort to such gimmickry to stay ahead of the eight ball. Iguess for both Bloomberg and CNBC T V 18, it is imperativeperceptually to be seen as number one. From virtual dominance over theyears, CNBC TV 18 now finally has some competition. With newbie ET Nowalso adopting a buy, hold and sell plank, this competition will onlyget murkier.
I choose not to be judgmental in this affair, for it has exposed thewarts that exist in this business. What we first saw in the cut throatGEC sweepstakes and then in the news telly media has now spilled overto biz television. The sabre rattling over 'safedi' is the latest inthe competitive advertising counter punching offensive and has alreadylanded in court. The ratings war that has erupted on biz telly is alsoheaded in the same direction, for both entities would like to stayahead of the curve. Bloomberg UTV believes that it has been wrongedand the tone and tenor of the legalese is based on that edifice, sowhat happens if an apology is not forthcoming? Bloomberg UTV claimsthat its name has been sullied and its brand name and reputationtarnished by Mukherjee's off the cuff remarks. It remains to be seenwhether it will take this matter to its logical culmination?
Meanwhile, wait for the next salvo to be fired in this gripping tale.Not about safedi ki chamak, but ratings ki chanak.
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