TV in India remains the most penetrated medium at 66% and with 100 Mn householdsyet to own a television it will only soar further. The year on year growth is seen acrossviewership – content and ads; as well as across the number of advertisers and brandswooing these growing viewers.

While spikes in viewership could be n fuelled by unplanned happenings & topicalevents, there are special events where television plays the role of a commonentertainer for the entire family where collective television viewing by the familymembers becomes a part of the festivities. Broadcasters on their part, make these daysattractive for the viewers through compelling and clever programming and scheduling.Increase in viewers results in increase in advertisers as well.

As we step into the festive season, we aim at decoding the advertising juggernautthrough this edition of THiNK and shed some light on how the viewers and advertisersevolved during festivals especially in the high decibel festival season from September toDecember.

Introduction

Index

1. TV Growth Story

2. Quantum of advertising in the core festive season: Sep- Dec

3. Advertising Categories landscape

4. Year-on-Year viewership on festival days

Summary

Television viewership has been rising over the last 3years. The average weekly viewership of ads in India isgrowing steadily each year as well. From 2016 to 2018,the advertising impressions has increased by aphenomenal 45% from 521 Billion to 755 Billion with2018 yet to witness its festive season. For the Jan to Aug2018 period the average ad duration stands at 31 millionper week, taking the total advertising volume to 1.07 Bnfor the same period.

22 Bn.

27 Bn.

30 Bn.

25 Mn.

27 Mn.

31 Mn.

521

654

755

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500

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800

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

2016 2017 2018 (till Aug)

Year-on-Year growth in TV Viewership, Normalised Ad Imp & Ad Duration

Avg Wkly TV Imp. (Bn.) Avg. Wkly Ad Seconds (Mn.) Avg. Wkly Nor. Ad.Imp (Bn.)

TV Impressions are split into 30 mins and aggregated for each weekAd Impressions are Normalised to 10 seconds

Year-on-Year growth in TV Viewership, Normalised Ad Imp & Ad Duration

The peaks in advertising coincides with planned tent pole events – be it related to sports ornational interest topics like budget and elections, or with the festive season.

Here in this newsletter we deep dive into the happenings in the festive season.

This growing viewership has seen endorsement from the advertising fraternity as well, withaverage weekly advertising volume clocking 31 million seconds from January to August 2018.The trend line for the last 36 months plotted against the monthly advertising volume is alsoon a growing trajectory.

80

90

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110

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130

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150Monthly Advertising on the riseMn. Seconds

Impact of GST

Monthly Advertising Duration

Impact of Demonisation

A weekly break up of the quantum of advertisingjuxtaposed with the festivals celebrated in the land offestivals – India, reveals more intricacies.India is a land of diversities and this diversity reflects in theway we Indians celebrate festivals too. Some are longer,bigger, brighter, high on fun quotient while others are a tadsubtle. We observe that distinct trends in terms ofquantum of advertising as well as viewership emergedepending on various factors like the duration of aparticular festival or whether it is celebrated indoors oroutdoors with family and friends. The chart below attemptsto bring alive the impact of individual festivals onadvertising.

Daily Advertising duration in Hours

Impact of festivals on Weekly Advertising Duration

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Ad Duration (Hours)

Republic Day

Sankranti/Pongal

Holi

Ugadi/GudiPadwa

Vishu

Id-ul Fitr

Independence Day

Ganesh Chaturthi

Janmasthtami

Diwali

Onam

Dusshera

Christmas

New Year’s Eve

Sankranti/Pongal

Republic Day

Holi

Vishu

Id-ul Fitr

Independence Day

Ganesh Chaturthi

Janmasthtami

Onam

Dusshera

Diwali

Christmas

New Year’s Eve

Sankranti/Pongal

Republic Day

Ugadi/GudiPadwa

Vishu

Id-ul Fitr

Holi

Independence Day

On further look at the advertising volume during some ofthe important festivals celebrated through the years, we findthat a few festival days always have more ads than the rest.Festivals which are celebrated at home, with family gainmore ad duration than the ones which are celebratedoutside of home.In the previous chart, it is established that festivals form apart of India all through the year, but the September toDecember period is the euphoric period for Indians whenmost festivals are celebrated. There is Ganesh Chaturthi inMaharashtra, Durga Puja / Navratri / Dussehra celebratedacross the country, also Diwali & Christmas which have anadditional bonus of kids’ vacations in most parts of India.There is a culture of buying new things, gifting to family andfriends and communication on latest offerings, deals et alare welcomed by consumers in these festive months. Theadvertisers love this spending period and loosen their pursestrings too.

39

1 44

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1

2015 2016 2017

Quantum of Advertising : Sep to Dec

Advertising duration in Mn. Seconds

In the September to December period, the year on yeargrowth is in double digits and stands at 13% and 15% for2016 and 2017 respectively.

The core festival season in India

109 115

111128

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Average Monthly Quantum in Festive season higher vis-à-vis the pre festive season

Pre-festive Period Festive Period

15% growth

6% growth

Pre-festive period : Jan to Aug & Festive period : Sep to Dec

The growth rate of advertising volume in the festive periodmore than double for the earlier part of the calendar year :15% in the festive period as compared to 6% in the prefestive period. So while advertising grows annually, theaccelerated growth is witnessed in the Sep to Dec period.

The difference in the average monthly volume of advertisingbetween these two period is more pronounced in 2017where festive period sees 11% higher average monthlyvolume vis-à-vis the pre festive period clocking 128 Mnseconds & 115 Mn seconds respectively.

Advertising

volume -

Mn. Seconds

While there is overall growth in advertising during the festive season, the growth differs acrossregions. The chart below depicts the growth rate of advertising volume across channelsclassified basis languages.

Bangla channels in the 2017 festive season have grown at 3 times the pace of growth in theprevious year. Leading national broadcasters have upped their investments in the south zonewhere content is driven by language. Also factors like , near total electrification leading tovery high television penetration accompanied by quality content and strong platforms hascontributed to growing viewers in the southern states. This has led to accelerated growth inadvertising volume in these states.

0%

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BANGLA KANNADA TAMIL TELUGU

Year-on-Year Growth in Ad Duration by Channel Languages -Sep to Dec

% Inc. in 2016 % Inc. in 2017

Year-on-Year Growth in Ad Duration by Channel Languages -Sep to Dec

In addition to the quantum there are more categories joining the advertising bandwagon in thefestive season with 26 new categories being added from 2015 to 2017. Both advertisers andbrands have also gone up by 18% from 2015 to 2017 in this period.

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Growth in Categories, Advertisers & Brands Year-on-Year : Sep- Dec

# Advertisers # Brands # Categories

Year-on-Year Growth in Categories, Advertisers & Brands : Sep – Dec

YearTop 10 Categories

(Ad Duration in Mn. Seconds)

% Contribution to Total Ad Duration

% Growth over LY

2015 117 30%

2016 141 32% 21%

2017 150 29% 6%

Period : Sep to Dec

Performance of the Top 10 categories

We have seen the positive impact of festive season on the advertising volume on television,now let’s delve deeper into which categories impact this phenomenon.

The top 10 categories maintain their contribution at ~30% year-on-year over the last 3 years.Social Ads by Government, Online Shopping, Tooth Pastes, Toilet Soaps and Film Trailers haveconsistently featured in the Top 10 categories across the 3 years.

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Social Ads -Govt

Film Trailers Toilet Soaps TelecomService

OnlineShopping

WashingPowders /

Liquids

Tooth Pastes Milk & MilkProducts

Shampoos Chocolates

Top 10 categories in Sep - Dec 2016Ad Duration in Mn.

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Social Ads -Govt

OnlineShopping

Toilet Soaps TelecomService

Chocolates Auto - TwoWheelers

Auto -Cars/Jeeps

Tooth Pastes Perfumes /Deos

Film Trailers

Top 10 categories in Sep - Dec 2015Ad Duration in Mn.

Dropped vis-à-vis last year Increased vis-a-vis last year New Entrants vis-à-vis last year

Near 100% growth over 2015

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Social ads-Govt

Toilet Soaps Film Trailers WashingPawders /

liquids

Tooth Pastes Shampoos OnlineShopping

Jewellery Milk & MilkProducts

Auto-Cars /Jeeps

Top 10 categories in Sep- Dec 2017Ad Duration in Mn.

Dropped vis-à-vis last year Increased vis-a-vis last year New Entrants vis-à-vis last year

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InternetServices

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2015 2016 2017

Performance of Categories consumed in the festive season

Ad Durationin Mn.

Online shopping, auto, telecom and chocolates sector continue to be the mainstays of thefestival season. Contribution of categories like Internet Services, jewellery, paints grow overthe years. Jewellery emerged as the close second category for the 2017 festive season, justbelow online shopping. Online shopping portals now advertise all around the year and hencehave reduced dependency on the festive season alone. Consumer durables maintains statusquo with not much movement in advertising seconds across all years.

Advertising volume in festive season : Sep to Dec

With more and more advertisers jostling for the viewers’ eyeballs, mind space and attention thefestive season witnesses more and more action across years and the contribution from the usualsuspects of festive advertising is reducing over the years.

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Monthly break up of advertising volume in festive season

Online Shopping Telecom Service Chocolates

Auto - Cars/Jeeps Auto - Two Wheelers Internet Services

Cell Phones Jewellery Paints

Consumer Durables Total Advertising

Ad Duration in Mn.

Interplay of advertising and promo time on channel FCT

What’s interesting to note is the play between the volume of advertising seconds and volumeof channel promotions. While the combined volume from advertising and promotions rangefrom 9.5% to 10.1% in the Jan -Aug period and Sep-Dec period across 2016, 2017 and 2018;the share of channel promotions went higher in the post demonetisation period toaccommodate the slight slump in advertising volume.

As we have seen in the earlier charts the advertising volume has risen steadily in the festiveperiod – September to December. The broadcasters use this period for announcing specialprogramming, blockbusters, festival omnibuses in addition to the regular programme line up.

4.0%

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Sep to Dec 2015 Pre Sep Sep to Dec 2016 Pre Sep Sep to Dec 2017 Pre Sep

Effect of festive season on ads and promo share

Ads as % to Broadcast time Promos as % to Broadcast time

Where are viewers coming from?

Having looked at the advertiser appetite for the festive season, we now set to explore theviewership on festival days.

The first stop is the region wise contribution to festivals celebrated in the Hindi speakingmarkets across the year.

Maharashtra, UP / Uttarakhand followed by Guj /D&D / DNH and MPCG and are the biggestcontributors to viewership on festival days.Festival viewership is on the rise in 2018 ascompared to 2017. For 2018, Holi andJanmashtami viewership in HSM markets haveincreased by 19% and 29% respectively.

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Regionwise contribution on festival days : HSM

Assam / North East / Sikkim Bihar/Jharkhand Delhi Guj / D&D / DNH

Mah / Goa MP/Chhattisgarh Odisha Pun / Har / Cha / HP / J&K

Rajasthan UP/Uttarakhand West Bengal

HSM Impressions in Mn.

Hindi is the most preferred choice in the Hindi speaking markets on festival days too with over70% viewership coming from Hindi channels. But with the growing advent of regionalchannels, improvement in programming quality and television penetration growing in thebottom of the pyramid, there is an increased focus on regional language channels. The chartbelow gives the language break up of viewers on festival days in the Hindi speaking markets –Hindi has not been included in the chart.

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Languagewise contribution to festivals : HSM

ASSAMESE BANGLA BHOJPURI ENGLISH GUJARATIMALAYALAM MARATHI Multi Language ORIYA PUNJABITAMIL TELUGU URDU KANNADA

Marathi & Bangla channels stack up next in viewership after Hindi channels. The multi feedchannel strategy led by the kids’ genre seems to be working, we have also seen that kidsviewing increases on festivals as most schools are shut and kids are at home on these days.Share of English channels on festivals drops over the years.

• Television Viewership is on the rise for both content as well as ads.

• Advertising volume has grown consistently over the last 3 years andstands at 1.07Bn Seconds for the Jan-Aug 2018 period; up 16% forthe same period last year.

• Both, quantum of television advertising as well as televisionimpressions increase on festivals.

• Potential of the festive period is noticed by heavy weights oftelevision categories like government led social ads and CPGcategories like toothpastes and toilet soaps: and consistently featurein the top 10 categories advertised across three years from 2015 to2017.

• Categories catering to self-consumption like smart phones growingat a faster rate as compared to household led consumptioncategories like consumer durables.

• Kids’ viewership goes up on festivals on the back of schools beingclosed and kids spending time watching television.

• While Hindi channels have lion’s share in HSM viewership –contribution from regional channels is growing, this impact can beseen on festival days too.

Summary

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