The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic hasn't been as bad as the first wave in terms of advertising revenue for the Indian broadcast industry. While broadcasters managed to create some amount of fresh content despite the COVID-19 disruptions in April-June FY22, the advertisers also continued their spends, according to a recent report by Edelweiss.
Total ad volume during April-May was 85 per cent higher compared with the same period in 2020. Ad volume was 64 per cent higher in May 2021 on a year-on-year basis, with FMCG companies accounting for 72 per cent of the volume in the month.
Since there was a disruption in shooting of original content, channels with shows (fiction shows) that need to be viewed sequentially are expected to have seen a dip in viewership, the report said.
"Viewership should shift to channels such as Sab TV and Star, which have game and reality shows that can be viewed anytime. Sun TV too would gain as it has a strong movie library. We expect ZEE to suffer a blip in viewership and its viewership share to remain around 18 per cent," Edelweiss said in the report.
"Ad revenues would dip quarter-on-quarter due to the second wave impact. We expect ZEE's and Sun TV's ad revenue to increase 110 per cent year-on-year and 100 per cent year-on-year respectively, and subscription revenue to increase 11 per cent year-on-year for ZEE and remain broadly flat for Sun TV," it added.
On the other hand, there seems to be no end to the woes of multiplex industry. Though states such as Telangana, Punjab and Gujarat have allowed theatres to open, content producers are hesitant to release fresh content as major markets such as Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu continue to remain closed.
"This has led to screens remaining closed for most part of the quarter. Rental negotiations are still underway, but it is difficult to get the same concessions on rent and CAM (common area maintenance fee) as last year. It is likely that there would be a reasonable discount for rent and lesser discount on CAM as these are cash outflows incurred by the owners," the report said.