Hum Paanch is making a comeback on ZEE TV after a gap of five years. Looks like this is the comeback season on Indian Television. After the second successful innings of KBC and the pending launch of Indian Idol ZEE has also thrown its hat in the comeback bandwagon.

The channel with its positioning on weekends is trying to have a strong positioning for this part of the week where it does not any great offerings and KBC and Movies are keeping the audiences from its flagship brand.

In the post cable era HUM PAANCH has been one of the few sitcoms that did really well and with Laughter propelling a year old STAR One to new heights it is logical that ZEE also does its bit for this genre.

The focus of this article will be analyzing the promotion strategy of ZEE and the backing it is providing to this come back kid. The analysis period is 15^th September 2005 till 3^rd November 2005. In terms of recency this is as recent as it gets and as the serial is going on air tomorrow this is a good time for crystal gazing on the audience grazing planned by ZEE TV. The analysis is done using aMap database and covering:

 

Key Markets	Mumbai, Delhi, HPCHP 10 lac plus, UP 10 lac plus, MP 10 lac plus and Gujarat 10 lac plus (HSM)
Analysis Period	15th September to 3rd November (Wk 37 to WK 44)
Channel	ZEE TV
Target Group	CS 4+
Number of Promotions	1420
Database	aMap

Building Reach

Table 1 Scheduling of Promos

week 37	15		The promotion planning was done keeping a reach target and hence the same has been achieved in most of the markets. As table 1 suggests the initial three weeks had very low pressure on the channel and the real activity started from week 40 wherein the pressure went up by a factor of five. This is in keeping with the recency phenomenon, which suggests that the impact of the promotions nearest to the event is the maximum. Last one month leading to the actual launch of the programme on 5th November had increasing number of insertions and in the last week (week 44) there were 358 promos for this programme. In key markets like Mumbai and Delhi it delivered 100 GRP’s whereas in Kolkata these delivered 181 GRP’s in CS 4+. The biggest impact was in MP and UP wherein the promos delivered 203 and 142 GRP’s.
week 38	17
week 39	20
week 40	93
week 41	288
week 42	292
week 43	337
week 44	358

Figure 1 Reach build up in Mumbai (aMap CS4+)

Figure 2: Reach buildup in MP 10 Lac Plus Towns (aMap CS4+)

In terms of ratings the schedule delivered a rating of 57 in Mumbai at 1+ and 30 at 3+, but was very successful in delivering 47 at 3+, translated this means that the 47% audience watched the promo more than thrice during the planned period. This would indicate a very good opening that this show should get in the Hindi speaking belt in general and MP and UP in particular.

The deliveries could have been improved but for the fact that 67% of the promos were scheduled between 11PM till 12 PM including the lean period of 2AM to 6 AM wherein 27% of all the deliveries were inserted.

The campaign started with three insertions in a day till 30^th September and then the pressure was increased to four insertions a day. Most of the insertions were in the early morning or the late night slot and almost none of them were in evening prime time slots. As suggested earlier the full force of the campaign started from 7^th October approximately a month before the start and there are two spots in early morning hours, which are followed up by one spot for every needle hour till late night.

Unfortunately all the 2AM to 6 AM hardly deliver any eyeballs and it’s the morning insertions and afternoon/evening primetime spots that deliver all the ratings. In the last week of the campaign starting 30^th October the number of insertions per day reaches 90 and stays there till 3^rd of November.

Table 2: Day-wise Schedule of Hum Paanch Promo

One major issue with the ZEE TV’s approach towards Hum Paanch is the total absence of its promos from sister channels. ZEE Cinema, which is another good vehicle to reach the target audience, carried only 55 promos and most of them were in week 38 and 39. This particular channel could have been used to gather viewers from across all the network channels towards ZEE TV in ensuring a good opening for the programme. As varied content is capable of pulling different target groups, use of varied channels for an organization like ZEE to capture all TG’s should have happened. The show is also not listed on the homepage of the website and this too is lack of use of the available resources.

Figure 3: Overall Ratings for the Campaign in listed markets (aMap CS4+)

Figure 4: Gradual Built up of Advertising Pressure in ZEE TV

Figure 3 and 4 sum up the advertising pressure and the deliveries of the campaign over the eight-week period. The resultant ratings that the show is able to achieve will show whether the strategy of scheduling has succeeded or not.

 The Daypart

The show has been scheduled at 8:00 PM on a Saturday and the aim would be to provide a good lead in to the weekend prime time programming. This slot does not generate major ratings or market share for the three mainline channels in HSM’s as per table 3

Table 3: Amap HSM CS4+, Average of last 9 Saturdays

Half Hour Dayparts	Zee TV		Sony		Star Plus
	Rating	MS	Rating	MS	Rating	MS
7:00 PM	0.4	4.1	0.2	1.6	0.3	3.4
7:30 PM	0.5	4.5	0.4	3.4	0.7	6.4
8:00 PM	0.7	5.1	0.7	5.4	1.5	11.0
8:30 PM	0.9	5.1	1	6.3	2.2	14.7

As is visible from table 3 the 8 PM daypart is not doing much for any of the mainline channel in HSM and the new entrant is aiming to boost the performance of ZEE TV in this slot and maybe it will improve the interest of masses in this daypart. ZEE TV is planning to start the Saturday primetime with this sit-com.

The only problem is the people using television or PUT figures for this daypart is only 13.3%.


Future Gazing
 
A lot of analytical models are required to forecast ratings but going by the gut feel if the programme gets a rating between 2-3 in the opening episode it will do wonders for this show, ZEE TV and might heat up the competition in this daypart.