MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) has appointed N. S. Easwaran as the Deputy Business Head of its Tamil GEC, Zee Tamizh.

Easwaran, who is serving as the West Zone ad sales head of Zee TV, will be relieved from his current position.

He will take charge of the new role in the first week of April and will report directly to Zee Tamizh Business Head Prem Menon. As the Deputy Business Head, Easwaran would be managing the business of the channel.

With an extensive library of 100,000 hours of original television content, rights to more than 3,000 movie titles, and a wide network of 169 countries, Zee is rightly taking the essential steps in strengthening its leadership teams in the regional markets.

MUMBAI: As we dive into the digital era, there is a fear that audience patience is shrinking and that a distracted audience will move from screen to screen, consuming ?bite? sized content like tweets, headlines and YouTube videos. However, in this era, long form content seems to have revived from two minutes ads, longer articles and richer fiction content. Hence, there is a co-existence of both in the industry.

According to British Telecom Media & Broadcast global sales and marketing director Mark Wilson Dunn, the shorter format largely acts as the entry point (or sampling opportunity) for the longer format content. He also believes that the creative process is important, whether it?s short format or long. "The acceptance span of a human is 15 minutes today and hence short format attracts people. I think longer and shorter formats can exist symbiotically in the best way, while everyone is trying to understand consumer behaviour." he said.

According to Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (Zeel) chief content and creative officer Bharat Ranga, content today is either specially created or is expression based. There can be no versus and both have to co-exist.
 
Catching the audience trend is important as content consumption is moving towards a blend of both the formats. "I think like most media vehicles, advertisers will put money based on their gut feelings. The growth will further be defined by the measurement techniques that are being used and that would come to the fore in the future. We at Zee always stay ahead of time but there is a learning here because at times we need to move with time rather than going too much ahead of it."

Ranga also said that most of short films are because of the long formats of the show. "We use short form to promote our long format content. To monetise the same through advertising, I think the industry needs to have a third-party measurement technique. Once the evaluations are done, the advertisers will realise and be able to justify the short format?s value."

Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly agreed that the short form helps the channels analayse the popularity of the show through social media. "Twitter is working in tandem with long form, leading to the co-existence of both long and short forms. I think shorter formats help advertisers to get more creative. The amount of noise a show is making on social media shows the success of that show," Jaitly said.

Google regional director Ajay Vidyasagar observed that the main reason for people turning to YouTube for watching television shows is that on television there is an interruption of about 13 minutes in the 30-minute duration of the show. So, the long format on television is actually a short format on YouTube. "I think that advertising on television has been pushed a bit too hard," Vidyasagar noted.

Vidyasagar also mentioned that the content, whether it?s long or short, should arrest the viewer. "Today consumers are landing in front of content without intimidation and pass on the feedback to their community. Though people in India consider that YouTube offers short format content, globally our average consumption is much more for the longer formats. An important reason to this difference is that in India there are access issues and hence, probably, shorter formats work better."

NDTV managing editor-technology Rajiv Makhni, who was the moderator of a session at Ficci Frames 2013 titled "The Past Present and Future of Content Consumption: Long form VS Split Second Viewing", said that if this discussion was happening a few years ago, there would be no debate about the long and short format at all. "It was unanimously believed that we are moving towards shorter formats. But now, it?s more about content engagement than format. If content is crap, its crap, be it a minute-long video or a 30-minute film," he added.

Giving an insight from the print industry, Dainik Bhaskar Group national editor Kalpesh Yagnik said, "It is of prime importance that we understand the pattern of news consumption in different markets."

Yagnik noted that there are two types of consumptions - Racey format (Short format) and Long Form. Audience consumes news which is information, incident-oriented in racey manner, in the morning or while travelling, but the long format where there are opinion-based columns or articles relating to literature and their culture, they hold back for evening reading.

"The racy format should not be governed by minutes but with a combination of words and time spent words. The only problem with the short format is that at times in order to make the news short the truth is lost," Yagnik added.

MUMBAI: Riding high on subscription revenue and a bumper advertising revenue growth, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel) posted a 40.5 per cent jump in fiscal-third quarter net profit to Rs 1.93 billion from Rs 1.37 billion a year earlier.

Zeel?s operating revenues grew 26 per cent to Rs 9.3 billion in the third quarter from Rs 7.4 billion a year earlier.

"Zeel?s Q3 results are better than market estimates. This is evident on both ad and subscription revenue fronts," said a media analyst.

Ad revenue

Belying the overall slowdown in advertising spending due to a sluggish economy and the subdued festival season in November, Zeel?s advertising revenue grew 28.8 per cent to Rs 5.09 billion from Rs 3.95 billion a year ago.

Advertising contributed to 54 per cent of the company?s total revenue. The d growth was aided by an increase in market share in many of Zeel?s channels.

Subscription revenue

The broadcaster?s subscription revenue in the third quarter ended 31 December stood at Rs 4.09 billion, up 25.6 per cent over Rs 3.26 billion a year earlier. Its domestic subscription revenues in the third quarter grew 33.2 per cent year-on-year to Rs 2.9 billion, while international subscription revenue increased 9.4 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.13 billion.

The company said subscription revenues are not comparable since the accounting treatment of Media Pro, a distribution joint venture between Star India and Zeel, has changed from the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal.

Zeel?s revenues from other sales and services head which includes syndication sales, play-out and transmission facilities decreased 10 per cent to Rs 197 million in the third quarter from Rs 220 million a year earlier.

Ebitda growth

The broadcaster?s operating profit rose 27.6 per cent to Rs 2.6 billion in the third quarter from Rs 2.04 billion a year earlier. Its operating profit margin in the third quarter was 27.8 per cent while the net profit margin was 20.6 per cent.

Going forward, margins could improve on higher subscriber revenue, lower sports losses and new investments turning around. However, the company would continue to invest on content.

Zee chairman Subhash Chandra said, "Indian economy has been in a vicious circle of slowing growth, high inflation and stalled capex. Advertising spends have been impacted this year due to this slowdown. The first three quarters of this fiscal have been good for Zee with a strong performance relative to the industry and competition. With one quarter to go, we are looking forward to a strong growth this year. The highlight of this quarter has been the strong growth momentum in advertising revenues despite subdued spends. The performance illustrated that our investment in content is yielding good returns. We continue to invest to create compelling content across genres."

Operating cost up

Zeel?s total expenses in the third quarter stood at Rs 6.7 billion, an increase of 26 per cent from Rs 5.38 billion a year earlier.

The company?s operating cost jumped 22 per cent to Rs 4.18 billion in the third quarter from Rs 3.4 billion a year earlier.

Zee?s employee cost rose 22.4 per cent to Rs 895 million in the third quarter from Rs731 million a year earlier, while selling and other expenses jumped 37 per cent to Rs 1.69 billion from Rs 1.23 billion a year earlier.

During the quarter, the company had launched it kids channel ZeeQ besides investing in new programmes along with increased marketing activities.

Zeel MD & CEO Punit Goenka said, " The subscription revenue during the quarter is highest ever and with digitisation roll-out (it) will (further) improve in the medium term.?

?Our network viewership saw a successful mix of new and returning shows. Overall, I am confident about the next 12 months and continue to make further investments in new content and channels. While these new channels will have an impact on the operating margins in the short-term, they will enhance our performance in the medium term,? Goenka said.

Sports business

Zeel?s revenue from sports business in the third quarter was Rs 1.07 billion while incurring an expenditure of Rs 1.16 billion.

In the third quarter of previous year, Zeel?s revenue from sports business was Rs 1.66 billion which included a one-time fee of Rs 700 million on pre-mature termination of the commercial contract with All India Football Federation (AIFF). The company had incurred expenditure of Rs 1.99 billion on sports business a year earlier.

The company expects to contain the sports losses under Rs 1 billion in Fy?13.

The company said it is yet to realise 1.4 billion from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and hence has not been given effect to in the third quarter results.

In November, a three-member Arbitral Tribunal had held the BCCI guilty of "exploiting its dominant position" for arbitrarily terminating its five-year broadcast rights contract with Zee. The tribunal had asked BCCI to pay Zee about Rs 1.4 billion, including the security deposit of Rs 300 million with interest at 11 per cent per annum from 31 May, 2007, for loss of profit and goodwill.