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Chandra anchors the show

Nandini Lakshman

In the sixties, when the family's trading business was in the dumps, Subhash Chandra, then only 17, was pulled out of school to manage it. Legend has it that riding on his scooter, he went from place to place building the rice trading business from scratch. Slowly but steadily, he managed to export rice to Russia to become a reputed trader.

More than four decades later, Chandra has once again regained the reins of his media empire. He is going all out to resuscitate his flagship, the Rs 394- crore (Rs 3.94 billion) Zee Telefilms. With CEOs coming and going over the past six years, he has reposed faith in his brothers and a handful of professionals in the last five months to pull him through. All eyes are glued to the Zee chairman, as he works his way to lure viewers to his television network.

Being clobbered by competition and the market in the last two years, the big question is how soon can Chandra turnaround Zee? And more importantly, can his new strategies bring back the halcyon days?

While Chandra is leading from the front, four months ago, his younger brother Jawahar Goel 47, was put in charge of the group's distribution outfit -Siticable. Goel was earlier handling the group's Playwin lottery business. Another brother Lakshmi Goel, a director in Zee Network, heads the Zee News Channel. He was in charge of the family's Essel group's real estate business - E-city ventures promoting Fun Republic entertainment complexes.

Clearly, the move comes at a time when India Inc is distancing ownership from management. But Chandra's gamble to involve the family is seen more as a "survival strategy". "He is not doing it out of choice but because he has no choice," says a manager at Zee. He claims that with the last of Zee's CEOs - Sandeep Goyal - on a sabbatical, "Chandra is left holding the mess that a lot of his professional managers left behind".

Despite a request for a questionnaire, Chandra did not respond to the queries. But analysts are not unhappy about what's happening at Zee's suburban Mumbai corporate office. "He is a great fighter and knows the business. But he has to make the right moves," says an analyst from a foreign broking firm tracking the company. Adds an investment banker, "An owner-manager may not be the right prescription, but television is a different business altogether. All it requires to turn around Zee is one big programme."

The industry is unanimous in their view of Chandra as a "visionary", but they concede that the turnaround has to come through a brick building exercise. And Chandra is doing just that. Taking a cue from rival Star TV, which hit upon the winning game show Kaun Banega Crorepati to build a pantheon of programmes around it, Zee has adopted a similar game plan.

Chandra's strategy is on the same lines but with a difference. Knowing fully well that there could be no programme bigger than KBC or its anchor, Hindi film legend Amitabh Bachchan, Chandra's big bang move is his film strategy.

He stunned the industry when he picked up 16 recently released Hindi films to be screened every Thursday on Zee at 2000 IST. Having got them at dirt cheap prices - ranging from Rs 50 lakhs (Rs 5 million) to Rs 2.5 crore (Rs 25 million) per film - he is believed to be negotiating for many more.

Considered a masterstroke, the strategy, which took off on October 10, is paying off. Media directors of advertising agencies reckon that Zee is making upwards of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) per film. "They may not all be hits, but they are the latest and they are being watched," says a media director at a leading ad agency. Adds Vijay Jindal, who was Chandra's longest lasting CEO, "It may be good for the channel in a way, but it is not good for the film industry."

What's more, the time slot has meant, weaning viewers from the daily soaps on other channels, which any way screen the last episode of the week. According to the television audience measurement, which tracks viewership data, in the very first week that Zee unleashed its films, the television viewership ratings rose from 2.76 per cent to 7.5 per cent. In that same week, Star and Sony saw their TVRs dip to 68 per cent and 29 per cent respectively.

At the same time time, he worked on the daily soaps. In September, Zee entered the daily soap arena with back-to-back serials like Lipstick, Kitty Party, Koi Apna Sa and Kammal. While these were earlier screened during prime time from Monday to Thursday, they were rescheduled to fit in with the movie gamble. From October 10, in an unprecedented move, the serials are being screened from Friday to Monday.

The logic? To target weekend viewers. That's because, Chandra is trying to change what has been considered a worldwide trend. Channels have palmed off their weaker programmes for weekend evenings. The reason being that people are rarely at home during this time. Zee is looking at it differently.

Their research showed that while out-of-home entertainment is a Saturday phenomenon, the Indian middle-class prefers to keep entertaining to the minimum on Sundays, in preparation of the week ahead. "As a result, people's viewing span is very less. By giving them soaps which we can promote with the films, we are hoping that viewing habits could be changed," says a Zee executive.

Is this an ideal soap formula? "We have to watch and see what happens," says an executive from a rival channel. Says Sunir Khetarpal, senior manager strategic advisory M&A at Rabo India Finance, "They hope to pull some of the viewers and build up loyalty."

Even as the current priority is to disengage viewers from other channels, Chandra has to tackle many issues like integration. Today, there is Zee Music and there's the newly acquired music channel ETC. The ETC acquisition is looked upon as a strategy to take on both Star and Sony on the music scene.

Again, there are plans to shift the Zee's film production activity to the earlier acquired Padmalaya studios in the south. "With potentially more discipline in the film distribution and production in the south, it will be economical," says Khetarpal.

That may be. But Chandra's strengths - his confidence and the size of his business - could also be his big weaknesses, say his critics. "It was overconfidence that brought Zee to this," says an ex-manager of Zee. Adds Amit Khanna, chairman Reliance Entertainment, "Subhash is a great doer upto a point. He has reached a scale where he has to let go. But he has absolutely no resources." He claims that while Chandra will have a major entertainment conglomerate, there is no way that he would occupy the top slot.

But Chandra's competitors are not underestimating him. "Having been a pioneer in the game, he can be expected to pull some rabbits out his hat at this time," says a Star executive. Adds Meenakshi Madhvani, CEO, Carat Media Services, "I am hoping that Zee will finally be able to succeed." It all depends on Chandra's fighting spirit.

(With inputs from Anusha Subramanian)

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