The battle among American TV giants has come to India.
Channels owned or backed by Viacom Inc., Time Warner Inc., General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and News Corp. all are contending for a piece of a market where advertising is expected to grow for years.
Colors, a four-month-old Hindi-language channel backed by Viacom, has soared to No. 2 in the ratings in recent weeks. The channel mixes celebrity-hosted game shows and remakes of Western reality shows like "Fear Factor" with the more-traditional Bollywood song-and-dance soap operas.
NBC Universal earlier this year invested $150 million in an Indian media company that launched its own Hindi channel, called NDTV Imagine. Time Warner, which owns CNN, HBO and part of the CW, among other networks, next year plans to launch a Hindi-language entertainment channel though a local joint venture.
They're all zeroing in on a market where TV ad spending is still growing strongly. WPP Group PLC's GroupM media-buying unit forecasts India's TV ad market will likely grow 17% next year to 97.7 billion rupees, or $2.3 billion.
The emergence of the new channels "is driven by the opportunity of scale that India represents -- and it has resulted in an extraordinarily competitive moment," said Steve Marcopoto, the Asia chief executive of Time Warner's Turner Networks, which will own 50% of the as-yet-unnamed new channel with India's Alva Brothers Entertainment.
The broadcasters have set their sights on News Corp.'s Star TV, whose Star Plus channel has dominated India's TV ratings for years. Star doesn't reveal its financials, but research firm Media Partners Asia estimates it posted ad revenue of $375 million in the year ended in June, up roughly one-fifth from a year ago, and operating profit of $90 million. (News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.)
Star has no plans to cede its top spot in the general entertainment market, and says it has invested heavily in new content. "While we continue to showcase our celebrity talent, the focus is on creating new kinds of content that is not necessarily driven by celebrities. We want to attract people with the power of novelty," said Star's chief executive in India, Uday Shankar.
One of the network's newest features, a variant of the out-of-court justice format found in the U.S. show "Judge Judy," stars retired police officer Kiran Bedi, famous in India for prison reform.
New entrants will also face tough local competitors, including Zee TV and INX, a startup backed by private-equity firms and run by a veteran of the Indian TV industry.
In addition, Sony Corp. and local partners run entertainment channel Sony Entertainment Television, which usually comes in third or fourth in the ratings. Walt Disney Co. also is active in Indian TV, through its 37% ownership of a joint venture partner in a youth-targeted channel.
U.S. networks are feeling the squeeze at home as advertising slows. But in India, the companies say they are making a long-term bet on a market that has 125 million TV households and millions more who will be buying sets in coming years.
"It is going from zero to 60," said Bob Bakish, the president of Viacom's MTV Networks International.
Star's two channels combined had 33% of the Hindi-speaking market in the week ended Oct. 25, while Colors had 18%, Sony Entertaiment Television had 7% and NDTV Imagine had 6%, according to TAM Media Research.
Moupriya Bandyopadhyay, a 24-year-old in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) who just completed a master's degree, used to watch Indian soaps on Star Plus with her family but gradually grew tired of the fare. "They are too over the top," she said. "The characters are the same. The actors are the same. It is very boring."
Now she switches between music-video channels and Colors, the Viacom-backed channel. She likes Colors's "Bigg Boss," a version of the reality show "Big Brother" with Bollywood actress and U.K. celebrity Shilpa Shetty, and "Child Bride," an original drama about an 8-year-old forced into a traditional marriage. Colors "has a lot of variety," she says. "Each serial is different."
Colors is run by Viacom18, a joint venture with local media conglomerate Network18 Group. Its early success has been built in part on its relationship with cable-TV providers, which it pays steep fees to carry the channel.
Colors also invested in big-budget drama and mythology-based shows. Competitors argue it is unwise for a channel to spend so much upfront on expensive shows and cable-carriage fees.
Viacom declined to disclose details about Colors's financial performance. Media Partners Asia says the company has spent about $25 million on marketing and cable-carriage costs, though it is likely to bring in only $50 million from advertising in the year ending next March.
Star, meantime, is launching channels for some of the dozens of languages spoken in India. Its third regional channel, Star Pravah, tailored to the Marathi language and culture, is scheduled to debut in mid-November.
recent stories 