[intro] ETV is ready to air four new channels on Children’s Day. How does it change the TV landscape for different players? [/intro]

ETV is finally launching its four new Telugu channels on Children’s Day and none of it has really got anything to do with children’s themes. ETV Plus is a comedy channel which adds to the current comedy channels of Gemini Comedy. ETV Life is a lifestyle and wellness-focusing channel which has few competing channels on a full-time basis. ETV Abhiruchi is a channel which shows food-related programming after the hugely successful program on ETV by the same name which clashes with many culinary programmes competing at the same time on Zee, MAA and even Gemini. ETV Cinema is the much-needed channel in their menu which will now show five movies per day with a single-break. This may give the much-needed level-playing field to ETV to compete with novel programming in rival channels like MAA and Zee which are racing ahead with blockbuster movie rights and innovative serials.

For some time now, ETV’s entertainment mix beyond movies has been lagging even if the bank of movies in its kitty runs into thousands of films released in the last 80 years. ETV alongwith Gemini TV have had the first-mover advantage for almost a decade in grabbing the satellite rights of most Telugu B&W and color classics released until 2000 for ridiculous amounts like Rs.20000 to 50000 per movie with leases ranging from ten years to a lifetime. The game changed when MAA entered the fray with backers like Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna – once they started bidding aggressively, the momentum moved away from Gemini and ETV to MAA for movies. First choice of producers has always been MAA and now Zee because of the premium they are ready to pay for films with cult star status.

In a bidding that happens out of every four movies, while MAA and Zee have turned aggressive in bidding for hit movies, Gemini still choses a variety of films of each star in tandem but always has a soft corner for films with bilingual appeal – in Tamil and Telugu so that rights can be negotiated. But Gemini has been faltering with new film rights despite a huge backlist of golden classics. For a long time, the producers who felt short-changed with the abysmal valuations paid by Sun network for their movies clearly loved the alternative that came in the form of MAA and now Zee which is paying as much as MAA does in building catalogue of films per actor, per genre. In this game, Gemini has been a loser despite having one of the richest catalogue of films because the producers complain two things typically about Gemini. One, the channel abruptly chops the end titles if the running time exceeds the allotted time. Two, there is an arrogance and ruthlessness in the way it shows the blockbuster movies which comes back to haunt it. “Gopala Gopala” released around Sankranti this year but got aired almost seven months after release, a trend that is no longer acceptable to advertisers and producers because of piracy and recency bias. No wonder the world premiere of “GG” lost out to “Bahubali”. Also, once the channel commands a premium, it cuts the end reels or clashes with a rival channel’s première just to show the superiority resulting in splitting of TRPs – it consistently lowered Gemini’s credibility with advertisers and producers.

With ETV’s new additions, the channel is trying to drive a wedge back into the leaders like MAA and Zee with a wider variety of options to choose for both advertisers and viewers. Plus the network strengths of TV 18 are at disposal even though only Telugu channels of ETV remain with Ramoji Rao. What, however, raises eyebrows is how influential Rao has become to get the permissions so quickly when rival channels have still got applications pending for new channels from the Ministry of Broadcasting. Apart from Zee and Gemini, MAA TV has applied for  two channels of which MAA Kids got permission but got converted into MAA Gold while MAA Comedy is pending for a while now and even the much-publicised sale to Star TV is yet to see clearance for FDI since April 2015. It is widely believed that Ramoji Rao thinks like a businessman and knows which side the bread is buttered; he has buttressed KCR on one side and Naidu on the other and has the blessings of Mr Modi thanks to initiatives to promote Swach Bharat etc. Whatever be, ETV is once again trying to redefine entertainment with theme-intensive channels in cooking, comedy, lifestyle and cinema as the four new channels go on air at 12.07 pm on November 14. We will continue to report how the sweepstakes change for all the players.