Balaji Telefilms seems set to continue its winning streak with a clutch of new serials this year, three of which will premiere on Zee and Sony within the next two months.

The production house is making its first daily comedy for Zee that will be aired some time from March 2002 in the 7:30 pm slot. Also in the pipeline is a ‘woman oriented soap‘ to be aired in the 8 pm slot on Zee in April 2002. But the first new show of the year from the Balaji stable will launch on Sony mid-February and will be a daily afternoon show. This is scheduled to be a regular family drama in the Balaji tradition, although the cast could be fresh this time, says CEO Sanjay Dosi.

The company says it is also launching a daily soap on Udaya TV in February 2002. Close on the heels of its promising Q3 results, Balaji has also announced it had hiked its rates 35 per cent for shows airing on Star Plus. Dosi says the rate hike is effective 1 January, 2002 for all four Balaji shows that are on air on Star currently.

Furthering an announcement it had earlier that it was discontinuing programming on national broadcaster Doordarshan, Balaji said it is also ending a programme for SABe TV and one programme on Vijay TV in the coming quarter.

While 21 of Balaji‘s shows continued to remain in the top 30 shows in the satellite market, the share of commissioned revenues increased from 66 per cent to 76 per cent in the quarter just ended. The share of commissioned programmes rose to 268 hours as against sponsored programmes that dipped to 144.5 hours this quarter. Fresh regional programming on the other hand saw a marked increase from 130 hours to 180 hours over the previous quarter.

The company stock meanwhile hit a new 52 week high of Rs 469 today during intra-day deals, boosted by the impressive Q3 performance. The company that has forecast a 50 per cent growth in bottomline for the next year, opened at Rs 428.45, closed at Rs 442.70.

India‘s leading fast moving consumer goods company Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) has said that it is increasingly focusing its marketing spends on a core group of brands that it calls the power brands.

Speaking at a press conference in Lever House in Mumbai to announce its Q3 results for 2001-2002 HLL Chairman MS Banga said the company had set aside an ad & promotion budget of Rs 8,240 million for the year. This is an increase of 18 per cent over the previous year‘s figures, he said. Of this 90 per cent has been allocated to the so-called 30 power brands.

He added that while the revenues for the firm had grown by 3.5 per cent, the power brands had shown six per cent growth in the same quarter. "Overall, the market has been in a bad way," he pointed out. "But our power brands are fundamentally stronger than they were 12 months ago."

"Our objective is to deliver directionally with the focus on certain key products," Banga said. On the big question what sort of resources the company was setting aside for advertising, he said: "Our commitment remains to drive our power brands and for that we will spend."

A point that Banga made as to which area was seeing increased ad spends should have television executives sitting up and taking notice. "We are investing in a major way on outdoor media. The growth of ad spend on outdoor media is significantly higher than other media," Banga said.

Banga said the company‘s ice-cream business was losing money as the market was not growing but said the next fiscal would see a major initiative to turn around the business.

The company was test-marketing brands among which figure Knorr rice-at-ease, and other spreads in Punjab. He added that both rural and urban India had grown to account for an equal share of revenues for the company. He was a little bearish about the return of the rural consumer, saying that things will become clearer only after the Rabi crop was harvested in March 2002. "Rural income will depend on the price-realisation that the farmer gets for his crop and that will be known in the second quarter of this year," he pointed out.

On the whole Hindustan Lever, reported a tough quarter with its October-December net profit growing a fractional 1.39 per cent at RS 4360 million from RS 4300 million in the corresponding previous quarter. Net sales were up 4.34 per cent to RS 27,630 million compared to RS 26,480 million last year. Its profit after tax (before exceptional items) rose 16.39 per cent to RS 4,999.80 million (RS 4,295.8 million).

On a year on year basis, however, HLL‘s FY01 results showed a 25.26 per cent increase in net profits to RS 16,410 million (RS 13,100 million), while sales were up 3.47 per cent, to RS 100,972 million as against RS 106,040 million.

The clock is ticking for the entry of a new ratings currency. Market research agency ORG Marg‘s Intam data, the older of the two established ratings services currently available in India, will no longer be issued from the end of March.
The move is part of a process set in motion at the end of October 2001 by AC Nielsen‘s TAM Media Research and ORG MARG‘s Intam that involves the integration of the two agencies‘ ratings systems and the "unveiling of a completely new service in June," LV Krishnan, president TAM India, told indiantelevision.com today.

The cessation of Intam data was originally supposed to go through by 31 January but that has been postponed till the end of March "to allow for a thorough benchmarking" between the two systems, Krishnan says. This is required because Intam uses picture matching technology for its peoplemeters while TAM uses a frequency system. Work is on to debug the software. "It essentially involves software resolutions for which the process is very much on," says Krishnan.

What this all means in effect is that, between April and the unveiling of the new service, TAM data will be the only ratings available.

Krishnan says the work towards a new service is proceeding in close consultation with the joint industry body (JIB) which is made up of 20 members representing broadcasters (Indian Broadcasting Foundation - IBF), ad agencies (the 3AAAs of I) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA). The JIB technical committee is chaired by BV Pradeep, director, market research, Hindustan Lever.

"The JIB has also appointed a research design sub-committee headed by Praveen Tripathi (with over 20 years experience in market research) and a software sub-committee headed by Asutosh Srivastava of MindShare. The committee‘s recommendations will be an input to the final new service plans," Krishnan said.

Pointing to the extent of interaction involved, Krishnan said the JIB has had six meetings between 29 November and 7 January. Represented on the JIB from the IBF are five members, one each from Star India, Zee TV, Sony Entertainment, Sun TV and Eenadu TV.

MUMBAI: In its annual general meeting held on 8 September 2003, the Gujarati daily newspaper Sandesh Ltd has declared a 50 per cent dividend on the equity shares of the company. In absolute terms, what it means is that the existing members of the company will make a neat Rs 5 on every share held.Riding on the news of the healthy 50 per cent dividend, the Sandesh scrip, which put on 1.20 per cent yesterday to close at Rs 126.50, is expected to clock gains on the bourses today.

Its rivals include, among others, the Agarwal family owned Divya Bhaskar and Gujarat Samachar.