10 TRENDS SHAPING MEDIA CONSUMPTION

THE BOOM IN MEDIA, IN TERMS OF CONTENT AS WELL AS DIFFERENT CHANNELS, IS A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD FOR MARKETERS. TO MAKE IT CUT THE RIGHT WAY, IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THE BROAD DIRECTION IN CONSUMPTION PATTERNS, WITH CUSTOMERS AS WELL AS ADVERTISERS CLAMOURING (LOUD NOISE) FOR THEIR ATTENTION. THIS ARTICLE GIVES YOU THE TOP 10 TRENDS MARKETERS SHOULD FOCUS ON TO ENSURE THAT THEY DO NOT MISS THE BUS.

The human mind is quaint, curious, complex, confident, confounded & most of all observant. Certainly, the gamut of the human mind is such that one can’t possibly be assertive enough to be able to pinpoint its various intricacies at any given point of time. Marketers know very well that every strategy they adopt will fail with a good chunk of their target audience due to this fact. But by understanding the course of trends & capitalizing on them in time, they can definitely hope to maximize their success rate.

While media & society play a great role in shaping each other, for marketers, media is a double edged sword. If they are unable to tap the right media vehicle and/or develop the right communication strategy at any given point of time, they can end up far behind in the marketplace. But to so, it is extremely important to know how media & media consumption patterns are evolving their target markets. Here are the 10 indispensable trends that are shaping media consumption in India, a list prepared through extensive research of consumers as well as interactions with top marketing brains of the country.

TV & NEWSPAPERS WILL LINE ON. DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT.

An average Indian, like anybody else on this planet, has just 24 hours a day at his disposal. In that span of time, myriad modes of communication try to reach him through ultra-myriad channels. Of these, the traditional ones are television & newspapers. According to KPMG analysis of the Indian media & entertainment industry, TV & print have experienced a sizable growth in the last few years. Where the newspaper industry has had a 6% CAGR in the last 4 years, television has grown by double that figure (12% CAGR). If one is to believe in projections made by the same source, TV would be occupying half of the overall M&E industry by 2015 & newspapers would be just second in power.

As per the PwC Entertainment & Media report 2010, print advertising remained the largest segment in the advertising industry at 46% followed by TV with 41% share.

Media spending by region

US

Africa,

Middle

East

& ROW

Asia &

Pacific

Euro

pe

Latin Ameri

ca

Canad

a0

20406080

100120140160 152

22

108

132

288

Ad spend (in $ billion)

Ad spend (in $ billion)

Ad revenues from TV

Ad revenues from TVyear Revenue ( in billion rupees)2007 712008 832009 882010 1032011 118*2012 136*2013 157*2014 183*2015 214*

*Projected figures

CRICKET IS THE RELIGION

According to the numbers provided by Experian Hitwise, the traction to sports & cricket websites was 6 times high. And the same research showed that the brands like LG, ESPN, Start Sports, Castrol & Yahoo made the most of this traction & succeeded in getting a marketing fillip for their brands. And if you own a brand & are reading this, there should be no reason why you should not think about taking up an opportunity of leveraging on India’s most worshipped religion. We have also observed that the viewer’s inclination was more skewed towards the World Cup & less towards the yearly IPL.

Most visited websites in India Rank Websites Visits share

1 Google India 11.13%2 Google 7.61%3 Facebook 5.26%4 Gmail 4.92%5 Yahoo! India 3.37%6 Youtube 2.38%7 Yahoo! Mail India 2.21%8 Orkut- India 2.08%9 Rediff 1.49%

10 Orkut 1.29%

Top Categories searched in IndiaRank Sub-Industries Visits share

1 Search engines 19.59%2 Social networking & Forums 12.97%3 Email services 8.11%4 Portal frontpages 6.56%5 Multimedia 3.76%6 Software 2.44%7 Games 2.04%8 Telecommunications 1.95%9 Reference - education 1.90%

10 Banks & Financial institutions 1.89%

GENERAL ENTERTAINMENT IS WHAT VIEWERS WANT

In 2000, the Hindi GEC (General Entertainment Channels) market was literally ruled by 3 channels. Come 2010, & you have 9 Hindi GECs. In addition to that, according to the results declared by TAM PeopleMeters System, Hindi GECs have had the highest viewership share amongst all the genres, securing a huge 29.6% of the entire pie, which include business channels, movie channels, regional channels & so on. Interestingly, the reality show genre within Hindi GECs has risen as a strong segment; shaping the way media is being consumed. But overall, reality shows have been neck-&-neck with their counterparts & brands have leveraged them well through advertisements & product placements.

LOVE FOR CINEMA OUTSHONE LOVE FOR BOLLYWOOD

Bollywood is India’s second religion if cricket rules the roost. But with foreign cinema looming large & regional cinema growing stronger, the lines between cinema & Bollywood are getting blurred & box office collections now enmesh an agglomeration of all 3 in unison. If one pays heed to domestic box office collections of multiplexes like Cinemax, their revenue share from Hindi cinema or the more popular Bollywood have reduced from 81% to 78% in the last one year while the same has increased in the case of foreign cinema & regional cinema from 12% to 14% & 7% to 8% respectively.

Cinema Consumption (Number of films released)Genre of films full year Jan-Mar'10 Apr-Jun'10 Jul-Sep'10 Oct-Dec'10

Hindi 139 39 33 27 40Regional 338 70 92 85 91Foreign 118 34 31 27 26

Bollywood no longer the monopolySOURCE: Reliance MediaWorks data

GOING REGIONAL IS THE SMART GLOBAL THING

It would be a no-barrier then to say that going regional is by all means the smart global thing to do, be it in print, television, radio or new media. In recent reports of FICCI-KPMG Media & Entertainment Industry Analysis, one thing that came out pretty vividly was the strength of regional as a prospering media. As per the reports, regional channels are second to Hindi language channels in terms of viewership. For instance, the viewership share of regional channels is 33%, just a dozen short of the percentage share of Hindi channels (45%). In certain parts of India like Tamil Nadu & Kerala, regional GECs are the most prominent in terms of viewership; approximating about 70% of the total share.

Viewership of Hindi GECsYear % share at all India Level2006 232007 22.62008 23.22009 26.92010 29.6

source: TAM PeopleMeter Systems

Even if you look at the news media, if English newspapers reach 40 million, regional newspapers reach 468 million. But the irony is that the latter still fails to gather satisfactory ad premium.

Regional Media Growth (%)Channel Genre 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Regional GEC 26.6 25.6 24.8 24.3 22.9Regional Movies 5.2 4.7 4.6 3.9 3.4Regional Music 2.6 2.5 2.1 2.1 1.9Regional News 1.7 2.4 2.7 3.6 3.6

source: AdEx India

GROWING AUDIENCE FOR RADIO MAKES IT A SOUND BET

The appeal of radio is back on track after the slowdown, & so it appeals for brands looking for mass penetration. According to the Radio Consumption Behavior Study, 2010, there has been a sea change in the kind of brands that have begun to advertise on radio in the last one year. While in 2009, radio advertising was broadly used by product categories like cellular phones, social advertising, independent retailers et al, now they are used by realty guys, automobiles, banking & finance & a lot of other corporate brands. Overall radio advertising volume has grown by 39%.

Top 10 Advertisetrs (Radio)

ADVERTISERSSHARE

(%)Vodafone Essar Ltd. 2

Bharti Airtel Ltd. 1Star TV Network 1

Pantaloons Retail India Ltd. 1Nokia Corporation 1Tata Teleservices 1

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare 1Coca Cola India Ltd. 1

Idea Cellular Ltd 1HINDUSTAN Unilever Ltd. 1

source: AdEx India

INTERACTIVE MEDIA AN INTERESTING INTERFACE TO DELIVER IDEAS

India will be a billion dollar gaming market by 2015 & also game-like interfaces can be an interesting opportunity. The market is currently valued at Rs. 10 billion & is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31% till 2015.

INTERNET RULES THE PRESENT, TECHNOLOGY ADDS TO ITS METTLE.

The internet’s growing penetration is almost indispensable & all pervasive. Be it in the form of TV content being watched online, or the trend of subscribing to e-paper’s, buying tickets, watching live-streaming of matches, booking movie tickets, downloading movies, listening to radio bytes & last but not the least, gaming. India has the third largest market of internet users with over 10 million net users. With these numbers at hand, it would be futile to quote how each & every trend mentioned above is incomplete without significant online contribution. Coupled with internet is mighty social media & when combined, the 2 become a lethal team. According to KPMG’s analysis of the gaming industry, increased use of social network in India is fuelling the growth of online gaming industry. From Rs. 1.5 billion currently, it is set to grow at a CAGR of 35% to become Rs. 6.7 billion in the next 5 years. The internet is the strongest ruler of the current time & with technological advents like net-books, smart-phones, tablets etc. the devices to consume online media have multiplied manifold.

MOBILE IS THE FUTURE

The mobile phone is obviously the most potent tool of all. Gartner reports that 140 million mobile devices were sold in India in 2010. Some 117 million were sold last year & they expect the number to grow to 206 million in 2014. With the current figures, India becomes 2 nd largest wireless market in the world after China & also the single largest mobile ad impression market in Asia Pacific. According to TAM Annual Universe Update 2010, India has 134 million TV households. There are 81 million internet users in the country. But the same country has 771.2 million mobile phones & 548.7 million active mobile subscribers.

However, Indian mobile-advertisement business was worth just Rs. 0.4 billion in 2010. Only 4-5% of the mobile market is occupied by smart-phones, but some trends can be leveraged within the mobile industry. Consider Facebook, the current social networking giant, which has a global user base of 500 million. Out of that, around 200 million access Facebook on mobile. If we combine the 2 facts, it results in great opportunity for growth in social media advertising through mobile because Facebook is proven to be the fastest growing source of traffic to websites. Brands like P&G & Adidas are already formulating their mobile marketing budgets.

YOUTH ENCOMPASSES ALL NINE

The booming youth market in India is an overarching trend influencing buying as well as commanding the attention of the most top brands. Whichever trend you take up, youth has a significant game changing contribution to make to it. India will add some 241 million people to its working population between 2011 & 2030 compared to 18 million for Brazil & 10 million for China. A KPMG analysis says that 18-25 years old have the maximum influence on box office success. The music industry thrives on youth support according to the same report, which expects the music industry to grown to Rs. 1.35 billion by 2015, just because youth is getting more active online & on mobile & hence giving impetus to their sector! On a larger scale, there isn’t any trend that is unaffected by the influence of youth in India.

TRENDS THAT ARE SHAPING INDIAN MEDIA CONSUMPTION

The very first question that comes to our mind that what is the use of knowing the trends that are shaping the Indian media consumption, the simple answer to that is not only do these patterns keep changing agonizingly irregularly, but also that the new trends that take their place are as vicarious in their behavior.

ICMR (Indian Council for Market Research) conducted a pan India survey across all age groups to find out the top trends that are shaping the Indian media consumption patterns.

Most preferred for accessing internet

Dial-up Mobile phone Datacard LAN Wi-Fi

1%4%

19%

35%

41%

Most preferred for accessing internet

While dial-up is set to rest in peace, Wi-Fi has taken over as the most preferred medium to access internet by users.

Prefer online shopping over other forms

Half of the India may not have internet access, but more than half of those who have, as per the study, prefer to chill at home & buy online.

58%

42%

Preference of online shopping over other forms

yesno

Online buying frequency

People may fancy buying online, but it is still not a habit. Of those who do prefer buying online, over 53% do so in 2 months & above.

every 4-6 months

every 2-3 months

once a month

every 2-3 weeks

once a week

26%

27%

22%

11%

14%

Online buying frequency

Online transactions

Paying online is highly restricted to credit cards & cash on delivery; banks need to take a re-look at their strategies to promote net banking.

credit card cash on delivery debit card net banking

40%38%

14%

8%

Online transactions

Television viewership at home

Owing to better video quality, DTH is fast catching up; but still has to go miles before tapping cable connections from the top slot.

cable connection DTH IPTV

65%

32%

3%

Television viewership at home

Most preferred TV channel

Blame the daily soaps for whatever, but they are doing the job for the GECs (General Entertainment Channels) making them the preferred one for 75% of the respondents.

others

MTV

Zee TV

Sony

Star Plus

Colors

11%

14%

18%

18%

19%

20%

Most preferred TV channel

Television viewership: hours per day

Unbelievably, almost 1 in every 4 respondents spends over 4 hours a day watching television making it the biggest media consumption.

less than 1 hr 1-4 hrs 4-8 hrs more than 8 hrs

33%

43%

15%

9%

Television viewership

Frequency of listening to radio

83% of the respondents listen to radio for less than 1-2 hours a day. For metros, it’s the daily average travel time.

less than 1 hour 1-2 hours more than 2 hours

38%

45%

17%

Frequency of listening to radio

News; most preferred medium

Morning newspaper & dosage of news on TV still helps every 9 out of 10 metro-living Indians to stay updated with the news.

60%

29%

11%

News; most preferred medium

TVPRINTONLINE

Preferred radio channel

Although there are a host of radio channels to listen to, when given an option to pick up one from the top 4, the following were the responses.

Red FM Radio Mirchi Radio City BIG FM

32%

28%

21%19%

Preferred radio channel

Favorite newspaper

While ToI is the most preferred newspaper across categories, ET has a niche among those who prefer business news.

Times of India (ToI) Hindustan Times Economic Times (ET)

The Hindu Others

33%

26%

17%14%

10%

Favorite newspaper

Favorite news channel

Although a number of new channel are on the rise like never before, Aaj Tak is way ahead with 26% favoring it.

India TV

Zee News

IBN 7

Times Now

NDTV

Aaj Tak

11%

13%

14%

15%

21%

26%

Favorite news channel

Favorite sports event followed

While 70% have opted for cricket-based events, what is striking is the response for plays like chess, pool, Moto GP & even F1.

ICC World Cup IPL Football tournaments Tennis grand slams others

41%

29%

17%

10%

3%

Favorite sports event followed

Favorite reality-show age graph

Big Boss KBC Emotional Atyachaar MTV roadies

23% 24%39% 33%

42% 36%

36%40%

35% 40%25% 27%

Favorite reality-show age graph18-25 years 25-35 years above 35 years

Preferred social networking; age-graph

Undoubtedly, Facebook is the most preferred social networking site, but Twitter & Orkut have a lot of followers in the 25-35 age group.

Facebook Twitter Orkut Others (ibibo, Linkedin)

52%

30% 35%45%

25%

50% 45% 30%

23% 20% 20% 25%

Preferred Social Networking; age graph18-25 years 25-35 years above 35 years

Average time spent on networking

62% of the respondents have started spending 4-8 hours a day on social networking sites, mot=re than what they spend watching TV.

62%

28%

10%

Average time spent on networking

4-8 hrs1-4 hrsless than 1 hr

Watch online videos regularly

77% of the respondents said that they regularly watch videos online, be it from websites or the ones uploaded by friends.

77%

23%

Watch online videos regularly

yesno

Preferred website to watch online video

There is no competition. YouTube has monopoly in this category, though Yahoo & Metacafe are trying to prove a point now.

86%

9%5%

preferred website to watch online videos

YouTubeYahooMetacafe

Preferred place to watch movies

Rise of the multiplex culture has again made the Indian movie buffs to come to the theatres to watch the movie.

Thetres DVD Internet stream Television

49%

27%

17%

7%

Preferred place to watch movies

Download movies; regularity

Downloading movies from the internet, well, Indians are still not habituated to it. Respondents only ranged between rarely to sometimes.

sometimes very often rarely

37%35%

28%

Downloading movies; regularity

Preferred gaming device

Despite increasing sales of gaming consoles in India, PCs/Laptops are still the most preferred medium to play games.

63%

24%

13%

Preferred gaming device

PC/LaptopTablet/Mobile Devices/IpodsGaming console

Preferred gaming console

Although Microsoft Xbox 360 is the stand alone market leader, Sony with PS3, PSP & PS2, is ruling the Indian gaming consoles market.

Xbox 360 Sony PS3 Sony PSP Sony PS2 Wii/Others

41% 40%

9%7%

3%

Preferred gaming console