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Rina Chandran

MUMBAI, April 7

UPBEAT after its success with marketing the ICC World Cup on Doordarshan, Nimbus Communications has struck another deal with DD, this time for acquiring and marketing feature films.

The two contracts entail acquiring feature films for DD1 (holiday films), and DD2 (Metro weekend movies), and selling ad spots on them. The contracts are worth about Rs 7 crore (for holiday) and Rs 5 crore (for weekend), according to Mr Sunil Manocha, Senior Vice-President, Nimbus Communications.

"We want to identify and acquire good, popular movies," Mr Manocha said. "The World Cup has left everyone on a high, and advertisers are looking for more value-for-money options." Nimbus has already put the first holiday feature, Om Jai Jagadish on the air for Holi on March 19. Compared to earlier holiday movies on DD, this one was relatively new, and got an average viewership rating of 7.8, he said. Advertisers included Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Marico, Dabur and Nestle.

There are 12 public holidays this year, and the next one, which falls on April 11 for Ram Navami will see Mujhe kuch kehna hai on air. There is a total of 1,800 seconds of ad time available on each feature, and ad rates vary between Rs 55,000 and Rs 75,000, Mr Manocha said.

Nimbus is not entirely new to the game. Last year, it acquired and sold three holiday movies for DD— Sarfarosh, Dulhe Raja and Hasina Maan Jaayegi — in the latter part of the year.

"Given the economics, we cannot put a Devdas on air," Mr Manocha said, referring to the blockbuster movie which will premiere on SET-Max later this month.

Nimbus will begin with the weekend movies on DD2 on April 19. There is a total ad time of 1,000 seconds on each, and the rate varies between Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000, he said.

Viewership numbers for the World Cup indicated that there was not a significant difference between Sony and DD for cricket viewing in the main metros. And, last year the DD metro channels posted their highest revenue shares in three years. From January-October 2002, DD-Regionals had a share of 4.7 per cent of the total ad revenues for TV, up from a share of just 3 per cent in 2001, according to TAM Media Research. The reason is an improvement in content and aggressive marketing, particularly in Mumbai, TAM said.

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