Sony Yay sees recovery in ad revenue with onset of festive season

Sony Yay, Sony Pictures Network India’s channel for kids, has started to see a recovery in advertising revenues with the start of the festive season.

Speaking exclusively with BusinessLine, Leena Dutta, Business Head for Sony Pictures Network India, Kids’ genre, said “Our advertising revenue recovery has been much better and in fact, we are back on track with the pre-pandemic levels of advertising, that is, pre-March 2021 levels. We are seeing amazing traction of advertisers, across the board, across the network, and for Sony Yay.”

During the second wave, according to Dutta, Sony Yay advertisers halved the inventory level, in comparison to what they are operating with now. That was in the peak second wave period when rural India was impacted and FMCG players cut down on advertising spends.

Dutta is reporting that their advertising inventory is quite full at the moment, and , she expects it to rise even more next month onwards. In anticipation of this, Sony Yay is launching a new line-up of content for kids, to capitalise on advertiser interests. Usually, new launches are reserved for the summer months, where kids consume more television during summer vacation. Sony Yay’s new line-up includes bringing the old classic, Oggy and the Cockroaches, onto their platform. The launch also includes new shows such as Haste Raho Henry, fresh episodes ofHunny Bunny Ka Jholmaal, new shows of Paap O Meter, as well a Paap O Meter movies.

TV viewing pattern
With the end of the Covid second wave, kids’ TV viewing patterns are also going back to normal. Dutta noted for the past one or two weeks, the category is coming down to pre-Covid levels from a consumption perspective. Before the onset of Covid, viewership in the kids’ category for Sony used to hover at 550 GRP (Gross Rating Points) which went as high as 700 GRP during the pandemic, and eventually coming down to 650 GRP. For quite some time during the past year or so, viewership has been hovering at 600 GRPs, although the channel has seen an ambiguous dip to 550 in the past week or so. Dutta believes that there is still some time before the consumption patterns for her channel, Sony Yay, return back to normal. “Our primary demographic is primary school-aged kids in rural India, who are yet to completely return to school for quite some time,” Dutta said. “Therefore, it will be a couple of months before a viewership returns back to the pre-pandemic normal” she added. The Hindu BusinessLine