Business Research Methods

STAR CHANNEL IN GUJARATI

MRIS PROJECT

STAGE 3 - REPORT

Submitted to

Professor: Arvind Sahay

Academic Associate: Anandan Pillai

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course

Business Research Methods

ON 16TH MARCH 2009

BY

Arpita Kar

Bhole Amogh Arvind

Mudita Verma

Nerurkar Nikhil Suresh

Vishesh Kumar

Vivek Subramanian

Group 11

(PGP-I, Section B)

Secondary Research

We looked at different Gujarati channels and the kind and range of programmes they deliver. The sources were the channels' websites. There are four channels as listed below:

Channel Name Type

Zee Gujarati General Entertainment

DD Gujarati General Entertainment

ETV Gujarati General Entertainment

TV9 News

Past research (Desai, 2005) has indicated that younger Gujarati audiences are inclined toward film and film-based content. Considering that not many Gujarati movies are produced in a year (Roy, 2005), it is likely that Gujarati channels are mainly watched by middle-aged audiences. This was confirmed by a few informal chats with Gujarati youngsters. Hence, the segment targeted for the depth interviews was middle-aged Gujarati speaking viewers. Depth interviews were conducted with 9 respondents. The survey for the interview is presented in exhibit 1.

Design of the depth interview survey

Past surveys (Desai, 2005) and TRP ratings (Indiantelevision.com, 2004) have demonstrated the dominance of Hindi channels in the Gujarati household. An example is the announced shutting down of Zee Gujarati in April, 2009 for lack of profitability (Zee News Limited, 2008). Hence, while trying to find out the desired content for a Gujarati channel, we had a benchmark to compare against- the viewers' favourite Hindi programs. Thus, in our depth interviews

1. We found out whether the respondent watched Gujarati channels, and if yes, which