By Shailesh Kapoor
In a new annual feature, here is my choice of five channels that made the maximum impact in 2015, standing out in a crowd of 500+ channels as true success stories.
This list is not based on ratings alone, though it is one of the inputs. Channels that ended 2015 with significantly higher position of strength vis-Ã -vis where they stood at the start of the year have been considered as prime candidates for this list. To that extent, we could call them the broadcasting success stories of 2015.
5. Times Now: It has its share of detractors, but Times Now continued to dominate the English news genre in 2015, first in TAM and then in BARC India ratings. But it makes it to this list not just for that reason. Today, Times Now has set the rules for television news in India. Its competitors are routinely seen as promoting “less noise†and “more news†as their unique offerings. With many spoofs, funny videos and jokes centered around it, the channel, and its principal (and only) face Arnab Goswami, has gone beyond being a news brand to one that defines the discourse around the Indian media, good or bad.
4. Nick: Kids television in India has been a low-key category, with not much media attention. In a commoditised category where each channel is driven by one or two animated properties that are wallpapered on the FPC, Nick managed to stay ahead of its competition all of 2015, and by a wide margin too. The channel has seen huge success with homegrown animation, first with Motu Patlu and recently with Shiva. With a 50% lead over competition, Nick is set to have a great 2016 too.
3. Zee Anmol: No one cared about this channel much, till rural ratings were released by BARC India from Week 41. The free-to-air channel rules the rural markets, widening its lead in recent times to almost 100 GRPs. It has also been ahead of Star Plus and Colors in many weeks at a national (Urban+Rural) level. Even as the media industry is getting used to BARC India ratings and its implications on trading, the introduction of rural ratings has been the big step forward in 2015. And Zee Anmol has been the big beneficiary.
2. Colors: The channel was the challenger to Star Plus for much of early 2015. But as the year progressed, it came into its own, backed by high-power weekend launches. Comedy Nights Bachao did well, but it was the blockbuster success of Naagin that took the channel ahead of Star Plus on a consistent basis as 2015 drew to a close. More importantly, Colors had a year of consistency in its fiction content for the first time since 2009-10. So much so that Bigg Boss did not get its usual 9pm slot on weekdays, where high-performing fiction was retained. Bigg Boss may have suffered as a result, but Colors continues to flourish.
1. Hotstar: The no. 1 “channel†of 2015 in this list is not a conventional TV channel, but a platform that came as a new, almost niche, idea but managed to become a lot more mainstream by the end of 2015. Sports content is one of the drivers of Hotstar, and this was the year of the Cricket World Cup, helping the brand grow. But Hotstar continued to do well beyond sports too, with properties like Badtameez Dil and On Air With AIB that did not do too well on TV finding acceptance among the OTT audience. 2016 is set to be a year of OTT overkill in India, and Hotstar is everyone’s target to beat, including the just-launched Netflix India.