Sunday, April 18, 2021

Sun Tamil in 29th year gets a rival - Star Vijay

 

As Sun Tamil enters 29th year ,  the pioneer in Tamil TV  which  held a brute majority in terms of the Average Audience Minute (AMA) rating over rivals,  is seeing Star Vijay breathing down its neck.. Sun  Network’s other channels in three other South language are at the bottom.

To quote the BARC report - in Tamil Genre, Sun TV bagged the 1st spot with 2267.7 of weekly AMA, Star Vijay claimed the second place by 1752.56 AMA, the 3rd spot was taken by Zee Tamil with 1029.79 of weekly AMA followed by KTV of 4th place with 709.52 AMA, and lastly Star Vijay Super of 5th place with 468.02 AMA.

If this is not enough, the Telugu report says In Telugu Genre, Star Maa Bagged the first spot with 2202.48 of weekly AMA, Zee Telugu claimed the 2nd spot with 1582.71 AMA, the 3rd spot was taken by ETV Telugu by 119.96 of weekly AMA, followed by Sun network ‘s Gemini TV of the 4th spot with 783.41 AMA and lastly Gemini Movies on 5th place with weekly AMA of 622.2.

In contrast, Asianet of Star network still hold good. In Malayalam Genre, Asianet bagged the first place with weekly AMA of 894.6, the second spot was claimed by Flowers TV with 244.78 AMA, Zee keralam took the 3rd spot with 232.2 AMA followed by Mazhavil Manorama on 4th place with 225.9 AMA, and lastly Surya TV ( Sun network) on 5th place with 210.89 of AMA.

According to advertisers, Sun’s hold is in the rural markets and is losing fast the urban viewers. The Urban + Rural rating gives Sun soaps a clear lead but now the situation is changing as Star Vijay’s soaps have started wooing the same audience with the same formula. In the top 5, the positions are shared by Sun and Vijay. Zee Tamil that began with a bang is losing out on the race.

TV content makers say that change in approach to woo audience by Star Vijay has given them results. Vijay TV initially positioned itself as the urban channel and more so a Chennai one. As it got the tag that it was not visible beyond Chennai, advertisers dwindled. To top it the Sun TV cable network monopoly hold did not help either. The cable TV domination got broken with State owned Arasu cable  getting teeth under ten year AIADMK ‘s AMMA rule and an I&B ministry and other regulatory bodies throwing spanner in the works for Sun. The booming of TataSky Dish business in South, especially TamilNadu, gave rural viewers more options.

Shifting to the same formula of Sun TV soaps, Vijay started making inroads into rural areas. It further strengthened by remaking its own network’s popular  Hindi soaps. The reality shows that Star had the rights helped it to further make inroads. Apart from Bigg Boss, Cook with Comali has become a big hit. Sun continues as top in paid channel list and the movie library is helping them a lot. Vijay is yet to match up to Sun in the movie acquisition market.

Vijay was also helped by rival Sun TV’s failings. Sun decided to move towards the channel funded method and stop the selling of slots to producers. Many top production houses decided to look elsewhere. Ongoing  serials took a hit. After opening up post lockdown, Sun never managed to get going. Vijay on the other hand was firing on all barrels.  Sequel to all time hit Chitthi was to make history again for Sun. It did by reaching dismal TRP ratings and breaking the myth that actress Radhika and Chitthi were still all time favourites.

Sun has pumped in money into OTT arm Sun Nxt and hope to get the satellite- OTT deals from big names and also go in for big Star budgeted movie production. As Star Vijay has tie-up with Netflix – Amazon and Zee with Zee 5 for respective South movie languages, Sun without Sun Nxt will get isolated, says  trade experts. If as per survey results, DMK rides to power, Sun News which is  ranked low will hit the bottom for next five years,

 

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