Abstract
Primetime has ever been an essential part of every livelihood since ages and decades and has gained increased significance in business scenario and now with the invent of the modern virtual methods the story takes us in the future where the question arises if the traditional methods will be an illusion and through this report we plan to clarify on how much of an impact has primetime had and will be having in the future, although at a diminishing rate, but still manages to touch hearts, inspire people and groom and boom business fraternity.

INTRODUCTION
Star India’s latest and biggest digital initiative, the Hotstar app, launched recently, is aiming at changing the way Indians consume content. Coming 18 months after the launch of its other digital property, Starsports.com, Hotstar also won the digital media rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL). Hotstar offers more than 35,000 hours of content in 7 different languages—promising viewers a big library of movies, television shows and even live sports (cricket, football, tennis and kabaddi).
For the 21st Century Fox-owned broadcaster, Hotstar, which was in the making for more than 15 months, is perhaps its most ambitious digital offering so far. The idea, said Sanjay Gupta, chief operating officer, Star India, is to be a one-stop destination for users to consume premium content across genres and languages and, more importantly, at their own convenience. “There aren’t many platforms available to Indian consumers offering high-quality, curated content besides, say, YouTube,” he said.
Viewers will be able to watch all the shows telecast on the Star channels a day later on Hotstar.
Similarly, for the first time, English dramas and serials that premiere in the US and are showcased on Star in India, will also be available for consumption on Hotstar. The platform will also stream upcoming Cricket World Cup matches live, with a five-minute delay.
For one, it gives access to a much larger and valuable target audience—primarily the younger generation and also those in the 25-and-above age bracket, wanting to consume content on the go.
Since content is being offered free of cost, Star said it is looking at monetizing purely through advertising. Gupta was not forthcoming on the estimated revenue from Hotstar, but he said the platform would contribute around 20-25% to the overall revenue for Star India in the next 4-5 years. “It’s a valuable audience and advertising will be targeted. We can charge a premium versus other digital players,” he said.
Why is there, a need of such media when there is Television around us where whole family sits during prime time and enjoy the moment, or is it changing.

Is Prime-time an illusion in the Changing culture. Lets begin….
India has one of the largest and fastest growing populations of Internet users in the world, which is estimated to be around 190 million as of June 2014 and growing rapidly. India already has the third largest Internet population in the world today, after China with 620 million and the US with 275 million.
The growth in the Internet base in India is now exponential. It took 20 years from the introduction of the Internet to reach 100 million users. The second 100 million will likely be reached within three years, and the third in less than a year.
Today various reports & research shows that an Indian spend average 8 hours online & 3 hrs on his smartphone daily.
Why is there a shift of generation from television to online network for entertainment?

With an Example:
The Advertising Research Foundation’s 54th Annual Meeting and Convention just concluded in New York City. This was a watershed event, with over 700 paid attendees sharing presentations over three days. The organization is made up of advertisers, their agencies and media planning partners, the media, and market research companies. At the meeting, companies demonstrated their latest, most innovative media offerings, creative product, use of media and sharing their research tools and studies advancing the measurement of ad creative, media, advertising effectiveness, and custom

A watershed event because so much of the focus of the event was on digital advertising and social communication on the web. A year ago, digital media much less on everyone’s tongues. comScore, as a platinum sponsor of the event, presented a special session called “Online is the New Primetime,” documenting the immense size of the online audience and its development as an advertising medium. Despite the fact that consumers spend at least 17% of their media time online, online advertising only accounts for 7% of advertising spending. We shared work we have done with our clients to demonstrate the results they are getting from online display and search advertising—some uniformly impressive results.

The question was posed that given the huge audience and proven effectiveness of online marketing efforts, “Why are some advertisers so slow to adopt online ads?” Turning to a panel of advertising experts from Yahoo!, Google, MSN, P&G, CBS Interactive, and Mediaedgecia to discuss the reasons. Those comments will be the subject of future blogposts. Sharing some of the most interesting data on the audience size.

Television is still the pervasive medium and the bedrock of most major brand advertising plans. Network television generates large reach numbers (not as large as a few years ago, but the most of any medium per exposure) and high engagement. However, the Internet has risen to be the second or third highest cumulative reach medium, depending on the source of the numbers.

One striking finding presented in the session was that during most waking hours, more people (age 15+) are using the Internet than are watching television. It is only for the last two hours of primetime and into late night, when most people seem to wind down their Internet usage, that TV consistently surpasses Internet usage.

Another analysis that was part of the presentation was one prepared by Magid Abraham that quantifies the impact of the Internet as an advertising medium compared to television. Based on our tracking of online ads compared to an estimate of the number of ads run on television and average TV ratings, it appears that the Internet delivers forty percent more gross rating points than TV in the course of a month and 120 percent more impressions. It was surprising, even to us, the heavier advertising delivery of the Internet versus TV.

Source: comScore estimates

The Changing Trend…. Or a Digital Revelation?
Let’s ponder upon a perspective at Wharton!!
It’s open season on the television industry’s business model. In recent years, the three pillars of the industry’s profits — advertising, regional programming and syndication deals — have come under fire from a band of technology companies, including Sling Media, TiVo, Orb Networks and Apple Computer, that are rewriting the content distribution rules. As Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach notes, TV won’t necessarily be viewed via TV anymore.
“Over the next decade, the idea of video content being limited to a single time and device will become quaint,” says Werbach. “Broadcasting, as we know it, is an artifact of historical limitations on distribution, which are increasingly irrelevant in the digital broadband age.” The only real question for Werbach is how quickly the transition will occur as technology shifts the place and time that television is viewed.
Other experts at Wharton agree with Werbach’s thesis. Dan Hunter, legal studies and business ethics professor, sees television as a slow growth industry that will struggle to capture Internet-savvy generations now spending more time with web sites like MySpace than with their remote controls. Nelson Gayton, a Wharton adjunct professor who studies media and entertainment, suggests that technology will forever redefine viewing habits. Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of information technology at Wharton, acknowledges that media giants such as CBS, Disney’s ABC and General Electric’s NBC will have to change, but says that the TV giants seem to be willing to adapt to new technologies.

Indeed, the major television networks have cut deals to distribute shows for a small charge through Apple’s iTunes or have launched on-demand viewing from Comcast or DirecTV Pay Per View. But what remains to be seen is how television giants adapt to a shifting landscape. TiVo, with its digital video recording technology, allows consumers to “time shift,” or view programs whenever they want and skip commercials. Apple has shifted both the time and place viewers can watch TV by selling shows that can be downloaded to iPods. Sling Media, a San Mateo, Calif., company that in January secured $46.6 million in venture capital funding, has created the Slingbox, a device shaped like a gold brick that allows you to “placeshift” and watch your TV live from a laptop PC. On March 23, Sling Media announced software that allows a viewer to channel surf his home TV from any network-enabled mobile phone or handheld computer (PDA) powered by Windows Mobile. Sony also has a device, called Location Free TV, that lets viewers watch shows streamed from a home TV set to a PC anywhere, much like the Slingbox.
Individually, these technology companies aren’t going to upend broadcasters anytime soon. Collectively, however, they could undermine the business model that media companies have relied on for years. Television operates under a complex set of arrangements that cuts deals with local affiliates based on geography, syndicates reruns and relies on ratings to sell advertising. But gadgets like Slingbox do away with geography. TiVo redefines the definition of prime time. iTunes puts on-demand reruns in the palm of the viewer’s hand. Sites like YouTube (www.youtube.com), a Menlo Park, Calif.-based consumer media company, allows amateurs to share and distribute video clips and could someday threaten TV networks. Meanwhile, the audience becomes more fragmented, a fact that undercuts the ad rates TV can charge.

The Real Picture..
There is an increased importance of broadcasting media which attributed to the burgeoning satellite TV connections in the country. In the year ended last 31 March, close to 16.4 million television sets were sold in rural India. Of these, about 5.6 million were liquid-crystal display TVs, according to the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA).
If the trend continues, by March of 2014, the number of television sets sold in rural India—which accounts for two-thirds of the country’s population—this financial year will be 17 million, according to CEAMA estimates.According to TAM Media Research, an audience measurement company, the number of cable and satellite TV-owning households in the country ballooned from 90 million to 126 million between 2009 and 2012.This number is expected to reach nearly 150 million by 2014, a study done by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and KPMG this year estimated.
The chart below shows the growth & current situation of television in India.

The expanding footprint of direct-to-home (DTH) networks also helped media penetrate deeper into rural markets. Dish TV India Ltd has 11 million connections, of which nearly half are in rural India. Similarly, half of Tata Sky’s 11.5 million subscribers are in rural India. Overall, DTH connections in the country have gone up from about 13 million in 2009 to more than 54 million in 2013. DTH connectivity has grown in rural areas from 6% to 29% while terrestrial connectivity has dropped from 64% to 27% in seven years between 2006-2007 and 2012-2013. New TV households are increasingly bypassing the public service broadcaster preferring private channels through cable and DTH.
The report attributes this to demand for content which is met by private channels. Research has also shown that the barriers to TV viewing include poverty, power failures, scheduling of TV programming, perception that TV is morally corrupting and monopolization of the remote control by children.
The statistic below contains data on digital advertising spending in India in 2012 and 2013 with a forecast until 2018. The source projected the spending would grow from 0.45 billion U.S. dollars in 2012 to 1.78 billion in 2018.

GroupM says ad spends to grow 12.6% in 2015
E-commerce advertising will grow fastest, albeit from a small base, while among media platforms, digital media will grow fastest, the report said
In 2014, ad expenditure had grown 12.5% to reach approximately Rs43,490 crore.
Mumbai: Ad spending in India will grow 12.6% to touchRs.49,000 crore in 2015, with digital media seeing the fastest growth, albeit on a small base, global media-buying and planning firm GroupM said in its This Year, Next Year report, released on Monday.
Digital advertising will account for 9.51% of all ad spending in 2015, the agency estimated, up from 7.8% in 2014. Print’s share will shrink from 37% to a little over 34%. And TV will remain the dominant medium with a 45.8% share, up from 44.5%.
The big story of the year will be the same as in 2014—digital. Growth in digital ad spending will be the fastest at 37%, GroupM said.
The segment has grown at an average of 35% over the past two years. Video, mobile and social will be the biggest growth drivers, the report said.

Advertising by e-commerce companies will grow the fastest, the report added. In 2014, ad spending rose 12.5% to reach Rs.43,490 crore, largely on the back of heavy spending by political parties in the general and state elections, and by telcos and e-commerce companies.
Companies in the packaged consumer goods, automobile and telecom businesses will do better than the previous year, the report said, and therefore spend more on ads. And the entry of more multinational companies in single-brand retail may add to spending, it added.
Television advertising will grow 16%, print 5%, out-of-home 4 %, radio 11% and cinema 20%, GroupM said. In 2014, cinema advertising surprised everyone by growing 25% on a very low base.
According to C.V.L Srinivas, chief executive officer, GroupM South Asia, the emergence of categories such as e-commerce and the increased competition in telecom are aiding the growth of traditional media channels including print and TV, even as they help the cause of digital.
Srinivas added that the most prized ads, for advertisers, are those on the front pages of newspapers (these are called jacket ads). “I still get calls from marketers, saying they want their ad to appear on the front page of newspapers... more than grabbing a TV spot or online space.”
A senior executive at a large retail firm agreed.
“For us, spending on print has not gone up dramatically but we are buying the premium jacket ads. We buy television for national reach and have started doing tactical consumer connect programmes online. So we have presence on social media than expenditure on online ads,” added this person, echoing trends that are clearly visible in the numbers. This person did not want to be named.
The big-ticket event this year is the ICC Cricket World Cup, set to begin this month, which will provide plenty of scope for programming and advertising innovation during the tournament to be staged in Australia and New Zealand. It will be followed by the Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

The two sports properties could see a combined advertising spending of between Rs.2,200 crore and Rs.2,500 crore. Of this, the World Cup alone could account for Rs.1,200-1,500 crore,Mint reported on 28 January. PepsiCo India, Castrol India Ltd and Hyundai Motor India Ltd have already announced their plans for the World Cup.
Overall positive sentiment about the India economy and its prospects—manifest since a new government took charge in mid-2014—are reflected in the numbers.
“We are seeing a lot more confidence among local businesses to invest in brand building than before. This is a positive sign for the industry,” said Srinivas.
If the packaged consumer goods business picks up, ad spending could grow 15-18% in the future, he added.
Digital Drive
The most significant change evident in the numbers is the shift to digital.
“The next 3-5 years will be about embracing technology, which will allow both advertisers and media owners to customize distribution to a premium niche audience with very nominal margin of error. In 2015, programmatic buying will see an impetus, as all media in the future will see automation, backed by smart data and analytics,” addedPrasanth Kumar, managing partner, central trading group, GroupM South Asia and CEO-designate of Mindshare South Asia. Mindshare is a media communications agency.
Advertisers are cognizant of this.
Dabur India Ltd executive director, consumer care business,K.K. Chutani, said that the share of digital in total ad spending was increasing. “We are already seeing advertisers shift spends from traditional media like TV and print to digital. At Dabur, we have also started earmarking a percentage of our total ad spends for digital, which was never the case earlier. While it is still small now, this number will only increase going forward.”
He added that youth was increasingly going online to not just seek information about products or to make purchases, but also to consume media. “So, we have put in place initiatives to use the Internet and various emerging social media platforms to communicate frequently and directly with our consumers... by creating interfaces on the digital social platform with four dedicated portals...”
Other interesting trends highlighted in the report include the rise in native advertising, which is expected to bite into the share of standard banner advertising, as well as a closer correlation between sports and entertainment, given the number of sports leagues that are set to take place. Local advertisers will also be showing a stronger appetite to invest towards brand building.
Native advertising is the practice of using seemingly editorial or sponsored content to win the trust of potential customers.
Digital Takes Tiny Share of Ad Spending in India
Less than $1 billion will go toward digital ads in India this year
Media Buying
India is the second most populous country on earth, but total media ad spending in the country only amounts to 1.1% of the global total, based on eMarketer’s latest forecast of ad spending worldwide. This year, ad spending will rise 8.0% in India to just $6.60 billion. By 2019, advertisers will spend $8.53 billion on paid placements in the country.

Less than $1 billion will go toward digital ads in India this year, even though spending on formats served to internet-connected devices, including PCs as well as mobile devices, is growing by double-digit rates. This year’s 27.0% growth will bring digital to 14.2% of total ad spending in India. That’s still the third-smallest share worldwide, ahead of only Argentina and Indonesia. But by 2019, when more than a quarter of ad spending in India is digital, the country will have pulled ahead of several others, including France, Spain, Italy and Brazil, by this metric.
More than 60% of that digital spending will be on display ads this year, eMarketer estimates. Display ads are also growing slightly faster than spending on search or “other” ad formats in the country and will maintain their hold on more than 60% of the market throughout the forecast period. In 2016, which will be the first year India’s digital ad market passes $1 billion in spending, 35.2% will go to search, while just 3.5% will go to email, mobile messaging and lead generation.

Spending on mobile internet ads will at least double this year and next, with growth slowing as mobile internet ad spend nears $1 billion in 2018. By that year, more than half of digital ad spending will go to mobile.
India’s low levels of ad spending contrast with its huge population. Even though internet penetration is somewhat low in the country, digital ad spending on a per-user basis is the lowest of anywhere in the world, estimated at $3.72 this year. It will only reach $5.13 per internet user by 2018. India also comes in last among all countries broken out by eMarketer in terms of mobile internet ad spending per mobile internet user, at 27 cents this year. Mobile internet ad spending per user in India will remain well under $1 throughout our forecast period, keeping the country in last place for the foreseeable future. eMarketer bases all of its forecasts on a multipronged approach that focuses on both worldwide and local trends in the economy, technology and population, along with company-, product-, country- and demographic-specific trends, and trends in specific consumer behaviors. We analyze quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of research firms, government agencies, media outlets and company reports, weighting each piece of information based on methodology and soundness.
In addition, every element of each eMarketer forecast fits within the larger matrix of all its forecasts, with the same assumptions and general framework used to project figures in a wide variety of areas. Regular re-evaluation of each forecast means those assumptions and framework are constantly updated to reflect new market developments and other trends.
Findings
Shifting the Business Model
Gadgets such as the Slingbox give consumers more control than ever over what entertainment they choose, what devices they use to view it and what they can do with it. That fact fundamentally changes TV’s relationship to viewers. Broadcast TV has been telling you what to see, when you see it and how you see it, Technology has changed all that forever.
The big unanswered question is how the television business model will respond to the changes. The television industry is used to adapting. Indeed, broadcast TV has had to fend off encroachment from VHS video tape recorders, cable networks and new entertainment forms over the last 30 years. Cable TV splintered audiences and VHS recording allowed consumers to time shift programs. Through it all, TV giants have survived, and in some cases, thrived.
But the real wildcard is whether typical TV broadcasting can withstand online and other new forms of distribution. The networks’ major thrust in digital television has been toward HDTV (high definition television) which, while it offers significantly better quality, still follows essentially the same distribution model. To the TV industry, geography still matters, says Whitehouse. But Internet-connected devices change the equation dramatically. “TV has built a whole business model around geographic segmentation, but the Internet blows that away.” Indeed, digital distribution could affect everything from local advertising rates to what stations pay to rerun hits such as “Lost” and “CSI.” “How much can [the networks] charge for a program in syndication once a large segment of the audience already carries around all the episodes on their iPods?” asks Whitehouse. On the other hand, he notes that digital distribution also creates markets for programs that may not work well as reruns. “A show like ‘Lost’ has a lot of buzz on its first run on TV. But once the [show’s] mystery is revealed, it may not be as valuable a commodity for syndication. ABC may make more money selling it now through alternate venues while it’s still a hot program [than it will selling it in syndication].”
Wharton acknowledges the threats, but also notes that the true effect on the business model will take years to unfold
However, attracting a mass audience may lose some of its value as consumers become increasingly fragmented. Now DTH TV and Online Media can potentially give advertisers smaller, but more lucrative, audiences due to better viewer tracking. By focusing on actual audience behavior instead of Nielsen ratings — which may not be able to capture how and when content is viewed over alternative devices — advertising could become more efficient,
Despite digitization and the access to over 80+ channels, low income viewers & people in rural areas have an unmet demand seeking programming connected to career advice, employment news and skill development.
If compare with urban population the changes aren’t lost on the television industry. There is a periodic rise in the viewership of TV by the people whenever sports season starts from IPL to Pro Kabaddi League.
Television “Technology will change the way we receive information, but you don’t have to look too far back in history to see television reinvent itself. These devices represent transition points for media. Television can’t expand that much as an industry. It will keep the generations that now watch it, but the current generation doesn’t care about TV. Over time, television will be a declining market but will never fade away and prime time will coexist as people when get older always tend to having a life of comfort where they don’t require clinging to the online world but to relax and enjoy the life with their family.
“The TV model is about control, and it is clear that broadcast attributes are a part of the past. But it is still one of the best ways to get a mass audience.”
Appendix
1. www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Takes-Tiny-Share-of-Ad-Spending-India/1012326#sthash.DiUKxk4b.dpuf 2. http://www.comscore.com/ita/Insights/Blog/Online-is-the-New-Primetime 3. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/prime-time-no-more-the-television-industry-struggles-against-digital-distribution-upstarts/ 4.