The Failure of Zee's Sawaal Dus Crore Ka

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She remarked, "When I first caught the telecast of SDCK in the second week of November, I was appalled by its poor and tacky production. There were flies sitting on the participant's faces and many of them were sweating not because of tension but heat in the studio." Though plans of revamping SDCK and of signing new anchors to host the show were made public, Zee TV eventually pulled the program off the air. Having drawn criticism from all quarters, Zee TV was forced to rethink its strategy to win the Indian television TRP⁵ wars.

The Background

Zee TV, a Hindi television channel from Zee Telefilms Ltd. (ZTL) was launched in October 1993. ZTL was originally incorporated as Empire Holdings Limited in 1982. The company dealt mainly in leasing, hire purchase and other financial services until 1992, when the company was reincorporated after its memorandum of association was modified to include new businesses.

The company was then re-christened ZTL. In the 1990s, the Government did not allow private channels to uplink from India. Therefore, Subhash Chandra, CEO, ZTL, co-promoted Asia Today Limited (ATL) with a capital base of $ 11 million, contributed by a consortium of NRIs.

ATL was incorporated in Hong Kong to broadcast ZTL's channels. ZTL's channels included Zee TV, Zee Music, Zee English, Zee MGM, Zee News, ZED TV, Zee Cinema, Siticable and the Alpha range of regional language channels. Launched in December 1991, Star Plus was the fifth channel from the STAR TV Network. STAR, a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation⁶, was Asia's leading multi-platform content and service provider.

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5] Television Rating Points (TRP's) is a measuring tool, based on surveys, to assess the popularity of television programs

6] News Corporation Limited was one of the world's largest media companies with total assets of approximately $ 38
billion (December 2000 figures) and total annual revenues of approximately $ 14 billion. News Corporation's
diversified global operations in the United States, Canada, Continental Europe, Australia, Latin America and the
Pacific Basin included production and distribution of motion pictures and television programming; television, satellite and
cable broadcasting; publication of newspapers, magazines and books; production and distribution of promotional
and advertising products and services; development of digital broadcasting; the development of conditional
access and subscriber management systems; and creation and distribution of popular on-line programming.

Case Details

Case Code : BSTR004
Themes: ---
Case Length : 9 Pages
Period : 1991-2001
Organization : Zee TV, Star TV
Pub Date : 2001
Teaching Note : Available
Countries : India
Industry : Media and Entertainment

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