Is 2020 the Prime Time for Canadian Advertisers to Invest in Indian TV Channels?

The statistics are startling. South Asians are the second largest pan-ethnic group in Canada after European-Canadians, constituting 5.6% of the Canadian population. In the Greater Toronto Area, Indians from India were the single largest immigrant group in 2011 and they remain the fastest growing to date. They speak several different languages, but there’s one word that unites them all: Bollywood!

 

The word “Bollywood” does not refer to a city like Hollywood does, but is a colloquial name that strings Indian films and music together under its banner.

 

Bollywood films and music serve as “comfort food” for the millions who left their home country to settle in Canada. The colourful, high-quality productions infuse the flavours of familiarity to South Asian viewers in their new world. The music is food for their soul.

 

The Energizing Bollywood Diet:

Sujata Biswas, a self-confessed Hindi film junkie, watches TV in her Mississauga home for at least three hours every day, five days a week. Nearly all those hours are spent watching Indian blockbusters and songs on ethnic channels like B4U, Zee TV, Star Plus and Sony. Although her husband prefers to watch the news, it’s hard for him to resist the pull of peppy film songs when his wife is riveted to the screen. In a hectic life strewn with frequent travel, watching films on ethnic channels keeps them connected to each other and their home country.

 

The Biswas’s are not alone. They are the quintessential South Asian couple in today’s Canada for whom a daily diet of Bollywood films makes it easier to settle here.

 

Payal Das, a resident of Mississauga for over 20 years says that she never misses out on a single film-release in the theatres. Every weekend, she has a ticket to a new film in a local Cineplex, come rain or snow storm. For her, the reviews are not important. The films simply serve as light entertainment and stress busters. At her home, Indian film songs play continuously in the background to elevate her mood.

 

“I love B4U Music channel. They have a great mix of old and new songs. No other channel provides that variety of music,” she says.

 

Ritu Varambally agrees. She has been in Canada for 22 years but remains connected to her culture through ethnic TV channels such as B4U Music, Zing, Jalwa, Sony Mix as well as Netflix, Amazon and Spotify. The choice of entertainment channels is wider now but the love remains fixated on Bollywood music. The songs keep her spirits dancing,

 

Are Indian TV Channels on the Menu for Advertisers?

As we head closer to 2020, the sharp rise in popularity of Indian films and music on the small screen are staring us in the face. They were worth 1.6 billion US dollars in 2018. About 10 to 15% of viewership comes from overseas box office collections and 15 to 20% through cable, satellite TV and video-on-demand digital hosts such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos.

 

Just a few years back, Bollywood films recorded 3.6 billion tickets sold generating US$1.3 billion in revenues from theatre screenings and TV among other media formats. This was twice that of Hollywood in the same year that generated 2.6 billion tickets. With trends surging steadily every year, we arrive at the next question: what does this mean for advertisers in Canada?

 

Can mainstream giants recognize the massive potential to make millions just as some ethnic businesses do? Do they have the vision to reach out and invest in this golden opportunity?

 

It’s hard to ignore that by 2031, one in four people in the GTA may be of South Asian Origin, says Statistics Canada. They are educated, affluent and influential. Millions will be glued to the glamorous world of Bollywood film and music channels such as those from the B4U family — for most of their waking hours. Will mainstream advertisers finally wake up to reach out them in 2020?

 

Article Source: https://www.medium.com