Case Report on City-42

Media Industry of Pakistan

Title:

CITY 42-EXPANSION PLAN

Submitted To

Mr. Talha Salam

Submitted By

Sonia Rasheed 13L-5254Hanzlah Mehmood 13L-5226Tehniat Javed 13L-5251Fatima Saleem 13L-5228Najam-ul-Hassan 13L-5229

Date: May 5, 2014

CITY 42-EXPANSION PLANCity 42, a channel based in Lahore needs to come up with a new strategy to enhance the image of the channel in the minds of the audience. City 42 have survived well since its inception and doing well beyond its expectations. It has made a prominent name in the media industry. The vision of city 42 constricts the channel for expansion in other areas of Pakistan. The top management is in the favor to expansion in limited cities. The expansion of channel will lead to the alteration of vision and mission. Will it be a beneficial move for city 42 or it will lose current success in media. Key words: Positioning, Expansion, Advertisement Share, Media Industry

In the late 2012, City 42, the Lahore (Pakistan) based news channel was approaching four years since it started operating in Lahore. It was a rainy evening Mohsin Naqvi, CEO City 42, was sitting in the veranda of his house, having a cup of coffee was thinking about City 42s past performance as well as the future of the company. The signs of worry were very clear from the folds the CEO had on his forehead. He had various concerns going on in his mind. He was thinking about how to elevate the positioning of his channel in the minds of the viewers of the city of Lahore. It was reported to have a low perception level in audiences minds. He was also thinking about all the elements that were being affected due to the low image of his channel brand name.As he looked in to future, Naqvi was contemplating how the company could leverage its capabilities and expand its operations as a TV channel to other cities of Pakistan while having a low perception level in the minds of viewers in Lahore. The top management of city 42 including Mohsin Naqvi was thinking of expanding the channel to Faisalabad[footnoteRef:1] but before going towards the expansion, he wanted to improve the image of his TV channel. The new project had a lot of opportunities but the brand image was a serious matter of concern as it was affecting the overall performance of City42. [1: Faisalabad: 155 KM from Lahore and 3rd largest city of Pakistan]

Company Background

City 42 was launched in 2008 under the license name City news network. Mohsin Naqvi (Exhibit 1) Chief executive officer City 42 who had a vast experience in the journalism and media industry worked as a regional producer in CNN from (2000-2009) saw the opportunity of launching a metropolitan channel. In late 2008, the media industry of Pakistan was experiencing a boom and television media channels were launching rapidly. Mohsin Naqvi with his experience and resources managed to launch a Lahore based news channel named as City 42 with a slogan of Shehar Ki Sab Batain (All about the city). Its vision states To cover all the news of city of Lahore.. The mission of the channel is to focus on the news, events of the city Lahore for. The logo of the channel is C42 which is colored blue majorly and a little yellow. In the logo, C stands for city and 42 represents the area code of Lahore i.e. 042. City 42 started its regular transmission on 14th August 2008. The channel is focused on broadcasting news and infotainment originating from Lahore. It gathers the latest happenings of the city of Lahore.In its initial years the Channel faced a major issue of lack of skilled staff. There was a boom going in television media industry; a lot of channels were operating in the industry and more channels were entering the industry for instance City 42 entered the industry. There was a scarcity of skilled human resources at that time with strong competition for employer to attract the capable employees. Another issue, particularly for the employees of this channel was that employees were not paid their salaries for almost 3 -4 months initially. This resulted in employees turnover to a great extent. This situation became a great threat for the progress and survival of the channel. Moreover, employees lost trust in the channel; foresee a blank future of them and of the channel. This situation seemed impossible to be resolved. In 2008 elections, Pakistans people party had come into the power. Mohsin Naqvi has close ties with the Politician Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. Mohsin Naqvi is also famous for interviewing first among all journalists the ex- chairperson of PPP Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto return to Pakistan after her exile. Moshin Naqvi somehow managed to overcome the financial issues of the company through the support of President Asif Ali Zardari. By 2010 City 42 started to build its market share and channel was successful in grabbing viewers attention. The channel started to gain its trust back in the market and got more commercials for their programs. On 14th august 2011, the company extended its operations to the print media when it launched its newspaper by the name of Daily City 42. The channel has employed 70 reporters which is the highest number of reporters in Lahore covering all kinds of news related to the City of Lahore.

Media Industry Of Pakistan

The origin of media industry in Pakistan goes reverse to pre-partition years of the country when a variety of newspapers were launched for purpose of promoting partition or communalistic agenda. The first newspapernamed as Dawn was initiated byMuhammad Ali Jinnahand its first publication was in 1941, devoted to promote an independent state of Pakistan. A traditional newspaper namedas Nawa-i-Waqt was formed in 1940. It was an ambassador of Muslim elites that were amongst the stoutest supporters of an independent state of Pakistan. In a way, the Pakistani print media was formed with a mission to propagate the idea of an independent country. It was thought of as an ideal route for Muslims who were in minority in the British India. It was seen as a formula of self-preservation against dominance of Hindu majority in British India.

Types of Electronic Media

The Pakistani media reflects a multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and class-divided society. There is an apparent division between English and Urdu media. The Urdu media, predominantly the newspapers, are extensively read by the common people both in rural as well as urban areas. The English media is more generous and qualified compared to the Urdu media. English print media such as magazines or newspapers, television, radio channels, internet have captured large audiences in recent years and have greater influence among opinion leaders, politicians, the business society, the upper strata and elites of the society. The major types of electronic media and there brief history is provided below:

RadioPakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), owned by the Government, was formed on 14th August 1947, which is the day of independence of Pakistan. The corporation was a direct inheritor of Indian Broadcasting Company which later turned in toAll India Radio. At the time of independence, the country had radio stations in Lahore, Peshawar and Dhaka. New radio stations in Karachi and Rawalpindi were opened in a major program of expansion in 1948. Further, a new broadcasting house was opened in Karachi in 1950. The series of expansion saw new radio stations opened in Hyderabad (1951), Quetta (1956), another station at Rawalpindi (1960), and receiving center in Peshawar (1960). The corporation the network to many other cities and towns of the country to provide followed by new radio stations atHyderabad(1951),Quetta(1956), a second station at Rawalpindi (1960), and a receiving center at Peshawar (1960). During the 1980s and 1990s the corporation expanded its network to many cities and towns of Pakistan to provide wider and better service to local people. Radio Pakistan started first FM transmission in October 1998.Television

In Pakistan, Television started test transmissions in 1964. Pakistan Television Corporation, incorporated as a joint stock company in 1967, was converted to corporation under Companies incorporated as a joint stock company in Ordinance. Through the decades, Pakistan Television (PTV) has been excellent source of entertainment. Television has successfully spread information on range of issues to the viewers. Television remained under government's exclusive control till 1990. During the same year Network Television Marketing (NTM) and another channel Shalimar Television Network (STN) were launched in Pakistan as initial private TV channels. During 1990s, foreign satellite television channels were also added to the fore. The government ownedPakistan Television channel(PTV) has traditionally been a leading media player of the country. The channels that are owned by the government do not give much air time to the opposition views. Traditionally, a large number of Television shows consist of plays and soap operas, many of them being acclaimed critically. Numerous Asian, American and European movies and TV channels are available for viewership by majority of countrys population through Cable TV.The private media of Pakistan has flourished primarily under the Dictatorship period of General Pervez Musharraf[footnoteRef:2]. The previous decade saw an emergence of various private television channels broadcasting entertainment and news through channels such as GEO TV, ARY news and ARY Digital, AAJ TV, HUM TV, MTV Pakistan and others. Pakistani media has developed as an independent and powerful industry. According to Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the amount of private TV channels has increased from only 3 government-owned channels in year 2000 to 89 channels in year 2012. [2: Pervez Musharraf: Pervez Musharraf is retired four-star general and Politician of Pakistan who seized the power through military coup in 1999. ]

Pakistan has a really vibrant broadcasting landscape. The media enjoys freedom to a huge extent. After it was liberalized in year 2002, television industry has experienced media boom. In a fiercely competitive setting that followed, the commercial interests turned out to be paramount and the quality journalism then gave way to the sensationalism. While radio industry has not experienced a similar growth, there are various radio channels and it is considered to be an important source of information.Internet

The latest addition to the elements of the electronic communication is Internet. Internet is rapidly bringing the historic swing in to the dynamics and shape of global information segment. This medium provides immediate access to the leading data bases and records of the information around the globe.

Growth of Electronic Media in Pakistan

The electronic media[footnoteRef:3] of Pakistan has been making rapid progress in recent history. A couple of decades ago, the radio and state owned Television Channels were considered as the chief sources of information. At present, there are in excess of 77 Satellite Television Channels, around 2400 cable operators, about 30 landing Television Channels from overseas like BBC and CNN. There are more than 129 FM Stations in Pakistan (on air and in some cases licenses issued) including the 46 Radio Channels. The investment in the year 2010 was around US$ 1.5 billion. The total investment in the Electronic Media sector till 2012 far has been around US$[footnoteRef:4] 2.5 billion. In this sector, new work opportunities that are likely to be created are around 150000. Indirect employment is around 7 million. Advertisement market for the sector was US$ 431 million in 2008 and estimated to be US$ 691 million in 2009. The growth in Electronic media industry has made more much knowledge obtainable and updated information in all the scopes of life to general public of Pakistan. [3: Electronic media: Electronic media are communication mediums that are based on the electromechanical or electronic means of production. It is mostly distinguished from the print media. ] [4: 1US $= 91 Rupees in 2012 ]

PEMRAPEMRA[footnoteRef:5] formerly known as RAMBO[footnoteRef:6] was incorporated in the year 2002 under PEMRA ordinance of 2002 for the purpose of facilitating and promoting a free, fair and an autonomous electronic media including the introduction of broadcasting market in the country. [5: PEMRA: Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority ] [6: RAMBO: Regulatory Authority for Media and Broadcast Organizations ]

The purpose of PEMRA was regulation of electronic media which included Radio and Television. The regulation was required due to the decision of permitting a large amount of private Radio and TV channels to begin operations. The Ordinance gives code of conduct for the media broadcasters or cable television operators as well.

Functions of Electronic Media

Pakistan has a really vibrant broadcasting setting which is amongst the most lively and outspoken in its region.The media enjoys a freedom of expression to a huge extent. There are around 90 TV channels that broadcast soaps, music programs, political talk shows, satire, religious speech and the news of the hour.Although the television channels are criticized sometimes for politically biased and unprofessional, they certainly have made good contribution to media landscape as well as Pakistani society.The major functions of the electronic media consist of informing, educating, influencing and entertaining. The communication means of TV contains maximum size of the audience while the reach, the coverage and the effectiveness of impact of TV is growing. Following is the brief account of some functions of electronic media:To Provide InformationThe provision of dependable, verifiable, adequate and comprehensive information is one of the basic functions of electronic media. The objectivity is predictable while arranging the information for population.To ProvideEducationThe electronic media has become a very powerful and an economical tool for the purpose of education. It has very good potential provided it is used with creatively and with a vision. The media can be used for the purpose of raising awareness and educating masses to overcome numerous social problems and developing a civic sense.To Impact Public OpinionThe revolution of information technology, potential of the media to impact and analyze numerous national and international matters, suggest numerous options, to weigh best option for purpose of arriving at accurate solutions to direct their audience.To EntertainElectronic media can provide a widespread series of entertainments for different requirements and tastes of most of the segments of society.Media Facts and Figures

TV Penetration in Urban Pakistan 2009-2010[footnoteRef:7] [7: Source: CMi (Data on Urban Pakistan is based on a sample size of 10,000)]

13% of Households have Simple Antenna, 71 % have Cable Connections, Only 1% has Dish Antenna and 0.3% has access to Broadband TV. The Most Watched Time BandAccording to the survey, 9pm to 12am is the most watched time band with 59% people usually watching TV during this time. This is followed by 6pm to 9pm at 55%. Average Time Spent Watching TV80% of the urban population watches TV every day. TV Behavior Genre PreferenceOverall, 57% of the people like watching Dramas and News followed by Religious programs at 46% children in ages 12 to 17, after Kids Channel, prefer watching Movie and Sports Channel. TV Penetration in Pakistan 2011-2012[footnoteRef:8] [8: Source: CMi Wave 2012. Data is based on a sample size of 15,232]

24% of households own simple antenna,39% have cable connections, only 5% households have dish antenna and 0.2% have access to Broadband TV. The Most Watched Time BandAccording to survey, 6-9pm is the most preferred time band (65%) for watching TV. 10pm to 12am is the second favorite recreational slot for population (43%). TV Daily Reach45% of the population watches TV every day, in top 10 cities, 68% watch TV everyday as compared to 57% daily viewership in the rest of urban cities and in rural areas 36% watch TV daily. TV Behavior Genre PreferenceNews and Drama at 61% and 60% respectively, are the top liked genre followed by Religious programs at 35%.Youth (aged 12 to 17) chooses watching Drama, Music and Movie Channels. All SECs preferred entertainment Channels followed by News Channels.Competition

There is no as such direct competition to City 42. On the other hand, Value TV channel can be considered as a relevant competitor to some extent. Value TV operates on the similar function as CITY 42 i.e. Lahore focused. However, value TV has not yet succeeded to take much place in the minds of consumers against City 42. The indirect competition for City 42 comes from various news channels. Although the only other news channel that operates just in Lahore is Value TV, the competition also comes from all the news channels that are running their operations in other cities but city of Lahore as well.At a time in history, there was only a single news bulletin from state run television channel PTV at 9 o clock at night. PTV was only TV channel, so there was no competition. For quality service, having rivals is important. In the modern era, there are many TV channels and a lot of them are channels for news.News channelsin Pakistan are gaining dominance over channels for entertainment to certain degree and the public prefers to watch the current affairs programs and news instead ofsoaps and music. It has become a habit for a person to check the news channels for headlines after a little while. Some news channels of Pakistan are enlisted below: Geo News PTV News Express News ARY News Dunya News Aaj News Apna News Such TV City42 Samaa News Waqt News Din News Indus News News One Royal News Channel 5 CNBC Pakistan Dawn News Khyber News

Generally Geo News, Express News, PTV News, Aaj News, ARY News, Dunya News, Samaa news, Dawn News and CNBC Pakistan are considered to be the best channels were other competitors are considered smaller players in the industry. There is strong competition between the news channels. The Channels such as Geo News, the state owned PTV news, Dunya News, ARY News,Express news, Samaa Newsand many others compete with each other so that they can become top news channels. These channels try to beat others by getting high rankings and viewership. The numbers of news channels in Pakistan are increasing as well. This creates an increasing amount of competition for above mentioned channels. Other news channels likeMetro One, Waqt News, Din News, and Such TV are also thought off as news channels who are small players and they also face such a tough competition from major news channels.in order to survive this tough competition, these news channels always try to improve content that they air.

Target Market of City 42

According to the Vision the target market of City 42 is the city of Lahore. For past three years they have been focusing to grab attention of Lahore audience. They are making effort to broad cast shows that are basically capturing the interest of audience of Lahore. There are no shows for children as they are not targeting them. The basic audience is categorized mainly of adults, house wives and senior citizen. The varieties of shows are broadcasted to please this target market accordingly.

Departments

The success of city 42 is contributed by the coordination of different departments. Departments are held responsible for the assigned task. Employees work as a team for the accomplishment of their work. There exists a friendly relation between the departments. Employees work as a team to fulfill their assigned task and the whole departments work with collaboration with each other for the success of city 42. Following are the major departments of the CITY 42.Programming DepartmentThe programming department controls and gives direction for the execution of programs. All the directors and producers work in consultation with each other to decide which programs to be aired and at what time. Accordingly, management approves the on air time slot of particular show as proposed by its directors and producers. This department is also engaged in research and development.News Production DepartmentThe news production department deals with news screening. The news production department edits the news, select the tickers and then select the news to be telecasted. The selected new is again edited for the tickers and shapes them in a proper manner. The standard language is being used to translate the new for the presentation of tickers and news to frame it under ethics and benchmarks of the media industry.NLE DepartmentThe NLE department collects all the daily reports. The reporters after gathering the daily reports present it their producers of their particular department. The producers take those reports to the NLE department. The respective departments edit those reports and assist the particular department what type of material to be included or excluded in the report. These reports are called as packages. The packages are then sent to the programming department to be aired. The NLE department is the most important department.Technical DepartmentTechnical department contains the DSNG vans. DSNG is a satellite van that combines the news gathered through electronic and satellite resources. Electronic news gathering varies from a single broadcast journalist carrying a camera to shoot out a story or the entire crew carrying the entire system DSNG to shoot a live show. This DSNG van then sends this news transmission to the programming department to telecast.Marketing DepartmentMarketing department decides the rates of advertisements at different time to offer their customers. The marketing department reviews the rates of the competitor channels and decides the rate for their channel. Then they set a price for peak time and off-peak time respectively. The have direct link with the clients and ad agency. This department is responsible for grabbing television commercials. This department is also responsible for channel promotion and spreading the positive word of mouth regarding the channel.Creative DepartmentThe creative department team is involved in various creativity activities of the channel. this department is responsible to come up with new ideas in form of new shows, creative content for existing shows. It has a concern to design the news tickers. They take care of the web development and are concerned about what colors to be used to make the tickers attractive. They set the themes of the live shows. The social media is also controlled by the creative team. It helps the marketing department in marketing the channel as well.

Recovery DepartmentThe recovery department deals in collecting the money from clients. They have direct contact with their clients and the ad agencies. This department deals with finance part of the channel.

City 42-Core Values

City 42 team under its mission and vision are successfully serving the Lahore audience. The core values include employee motivation, change and improvement, collaboration and team work etc.Employee MotivationCity 42 considers its employees as an asset. It has fair practices regarding employee motivation. The employees are motivated through different ways like employees are sent for recreation to somewhere outside Pakistan on yearly bases. It is an expression to appreciate their employees for working hard around the year. Each year, the channel runs city42 awards in order to praise extra ordinary performance of employees in form of awards like employee of the year etc.Compensation and IncentivesCity42 facilitates its employees with compensation benefits as well. They are given increments each year. Employees are also benefited in form of bonuses for doing something different and innovative that benefits the company.Employee FeedbackCity42 also honors employees feedback on the areas like reward and recognition, corporate social responsibilities, development and innovation and enhancing the environment of city 42. This feedback is considered valuable and given special attention. According to this survey feedback city42 gets to know the employee understanding about what is expected of them and how their job is contributing to the success of the channel. The feedback survey helps the channel in formation of new policy and strategy that can benefit the channel. One of the employee stated Our suggestion is always welcomed and valued. This creates the sense of responsibility in all the employees working here.[footnoteRef:9] [9: Interviewed creative manager, Aftab Mehboob]

Supports DiversityCity42 strongly supports the diversity and EEO. Accordingly the channel has employed both males and females from different backgrounds, not only gender diversity exist but they have also beyond the religion boundary. They have employed people from different religious backgrounds i.e. Sikh, Hindu, Muslim etc. this diversity does not hinders the progress of city42 as all the employees work as a team in order to promote the channel.Culture and EnvironmentMany current and formal employees said that the company has relaxed and friendly atmosphere.it does not have a strict centralized system. City42 strongly emphasis on the collaboration and teamwork as they have defined both of them in their core value. The environment of city42 is very friendly and cooperative. Employees help each other at the time of need. Top level employees of the particular department guide low level employees of the department. They train and facilitate them which help them to deliver what is required of them. In this way, employees have a clear direction of their work. As one of the employee stated We are clear about our job and do it in our own way[footnoteRef:10] [10: Interviewed marketing manager, Salman Naqvi]

Employees have liberty to carry out their task in the convenient way, the way they like and prefer. City 42 promotes tolerance among its employees and teaches their employees to respect the ideas and suggestions of others. This helps in creating a sense of respect among employees and has become a part of environment and culture of city42. Many employees said that there is no formal dress code present, helping to support the informal sense. This is a way to make employees relax and make them focus on their work. The Work hours in City42 vary by role of the employee but the standard job time of the employees is 8 hours. However, the employees work more than the standard time to meet the required goals of the channel.

Media Dynamics

In the media industry, there is a time band split accordingly which advertisers place ads on channel with charges respectively too. The time Band Split of media in year 2012 is shown (Exhibit 2). Standard time band spilt are defined following: Morning Time:It is the time that begins from 6 am in the morning to the 12 pm in the noon. Afternoon Time:Afternoonis the period betweennoonandevening. It is the time starting from 12pm to 5pm in the evening. Evening Time:Evening in its primary meaning is the period of the day between afternoon and night. The evening time lasts from 5pm to 7pm. Prime Time:Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television programming. The time slot between 7pm to 11pm is considered to be prime time. The advertisements placed in this slot have highest charges among all the time slots. This is primarily due to large number of viewers watching television at this time. This time is ideal for mass marketing where you can reach to your audience to a maximum extent. Late Prime Time: The time before late night and after prime time is considered to be late prime time. The late prime time is attributed to time span from 11pm to 12 am. Late Night Time: The time after late prime time to the morning time is defined as the late night time. The late night time is defined from 12am to 6 pm.

City 42- Channel Dynamics

Time Band SplitCity42 have defined their charges for time band spilt for advertisement placement.Morning Time for City 42The time span from 12 am to 6pm is the morning time of channel city 42. The advertisements placed during this time are charged as Rupees 3000 per minute.Prime Time for City 42The time slot from 6pm to 12 am is considered to be prime time of Channel City 42. The advertisements placed during prime time are charged at the rate of Rupees 6000 per minute. On the contrary, Geo News advertisement charges are almost Rupees 90,000 per minute According to 2012 Survey Report, City 42 has 3.4% share after Apna TV (4%) share in top 15 Prime Time Channels across all genre. (Exhibit 3)

Product Development

The product of City 42 channels comprises of talks shows and infotainment programs. Initially City 42 focused on news only. They used to run news along with live and offline coverage of happening events of Lahore was broadcasted. At this time, City 42 had a 100% focus on news broadcasting. With the passage of two years, it shifted its focus from new to infotainment as well. This strategy is persisted up till now. The division is done that news broadcast will be given 80% slot time while remaining 20% of the time slot is attributed to the infotainment. This change in the strategy was to grab the attention of the diversified audience. They wanted to expand their target market thus they added a new segment to facilitate it. This contributed to the increased audience market share and revenues as planned by the management.As City 42 is a news channel so it does not generate entertainment programs such as dramas, soaps and musical shows. Its main focus is on news based programs that are mostly providing information, discussion and analysis of news related to important issues of the country. The highest rated shows of the channel are news night, city at 10, 180 degrees, reporters diary, CIC and Amna Kardar show.News NightThe new night is one of the oldest shows that have been on aired since the beginning of the channel i.e. 2008. It has got high rating among all the shows. This show is based on current affairs and discussion portal for political issues. It is a live political talk show where politicians along with their party members from different political parties are invited. They are asked to present and opposed against the issue raised by the anchor.City at 10It is also one of the high rated shows among its other shows. It is a morning show which is aired at 10 am in the morning. The show is aired 5 days a week i.e. Monday to Friday. In this show, the prominent celebrities of the Lahore are invited. The host enquires about personal and professional information of the respective celebrity. This show is popular among the females as this show daily focuses on the grocery price. It tells what is the grocery rate at Metro, Hyper star, and retail stores. Moreover, it also provides coverage of any promotional campaign going on related to house hold products. It is a source of great information for the people of Lahore.180 degreeIn this show politician and media celebrities are invited to share their views regarding their own profession. It is an informative show that provides audience with the insight of respective field. It is a great source of knowledge for new entrants in the following fields.Reporters diaryIt is a late night show as it uncovers the crime stories. It is a crime based show. The fiction characters are induced in the real story to provide a scenario regarding how the crime was performed and by whom. It is usually the success story in case for police department as how they investigated and found out the real criminal.CIC: It is known as City Investigation Cell. It is a crime based show. In this show the CIC team collaborates with the Police Department of Lahore. It helps in investigation of police. Along with this, they take information from police department and then raid with the help of police. in this way, they broadcast the real crime scene where criminals are caught, unveil their stories at the real crime situation.Amna Kardar ShowAmna Kardar is a famous fashion designer who hosts this show. She has link with the many renowned fashion designers of Pakistan as she has graduated from PIFD Lahore. She invites designers and make-up artists in her show to facilitate audience with their tips regarding fashion.It is a very informative as it provides fashion updates to the viewers. This show is a blend of information as well as entertainment.Daily 42After the success of channel, the CEO thought of extending the product portfolio. They opted for a related diversification i.e. Newspaper. Daily 42 was launched on 14th August, 2011. The paper is divided into various sections there is a part covering international news but major portion that is 80% of paper comprises of nation based news. In case of daily 42, they have shifted their focus from local to national news.

Event CoverageCity 42 is always first one to cover the major events taking place in Lahore. They are trendsetters in covering the events. It is done to spread the positive word of mouth for the channel. They keep an eye on every event like exhibitions, educational programs, inaugurations, local sport activities, fashion shows and etc. Moreover, In Pakistan wedding is the most important events of ones life. It is the mean through which Pakistani community show their taste, wealth, choice and overall status to others. Now-a-days weddings are a part of commercial events rather than the personal event. Apart from these Events, City 42 is majorly providing coverage of wedding ceremony of renowned political and media celebrities of Lahore. Mostly they are invited to cover all such events.

Advertisement Share of City 42

In media industry, all the channels strive hard to grasp the maximum number of companys advertisement. The channels with high viewership get advertisements from all the companies operating in Pakistan. In 2009-2010, the share of advertisement minutes in top 25 channels and top 25 prime time channels are shown (Exhibit 4 & 5).The high viewership not only results in immense sales but also allots a bargaining power to channel to charge with their desired amount. The advertisement share of news across the media is shown (Exhibit 6).In race of grasping advertisement share, city 42 has a different policy. It has a low priced strategy which is able to attract a large number of advertisements to the channel. It was a brilliant idea for a new channel like city 42 to compete with big players. It entered the media industry quite late in August (2008) when others channel has positioned themselves in the minds of the viewers since the beginning of 21st century decade. If they had charged a price almost equivalent to the industry or big competitors price rates it might not have earned the advertisements. The low price strategy act extremely well for a striving company and helped to establish name among the big players. This strategy has worked extremely well for city 42 as it has able to grasp the highest market share of advertisements, as it helped to compete against big players of media news industry such Geo news, ARY news and etc. This aided city 42 to earn the high profit for the company. It generates maximum revenue to the channel against the competitors (Exhibit 7).Every year the price of advertisements rises to an alarming situation. Marketers are worried how to manage budget with high cost of advertisement. It is quite necessary to launch an advertising campaign to increase sales of the products and to remind your product in the minds of consumers again and again. City 42 was efficient enough to grasp this opportunity and presented the organization with lowest advertisement rates in comparison with other big players demanding high cost. In 20011-2012, the share of advertisement minutes in top 15 channels and top 15 prime time channels are shown (Exhibit 8 & 9).The proactive analysis of the city 42 was quite accurate and marketers readily accepted this offer. The companys utilized this facility to the maximum to achieve their benefit. The organizations who want to target Lahore population extensively always contact city 42. This specialty of city 42 is quite attractive for promotion of Lahore based products. Moreover, the channel is watched in many adjoining cities of Lahore such as Faisalabad and Multan, so it gives an additional value to channel and a big attraction for marketers to market products in prominent cities of Pakistan.

Challenges

From the last four years, City 42 has enjoyed serving the Lahore audience. The channel has gained a lot of recognition and is successful to grasp the attention of the Lahore audience. The channel has low to medium image in mind of audience for which the CEO is highly concerned. The CEO wants to know the different perspective of the audience that how people think of his channel (Exhibit 10). He wants to improve the brand image as he may want to expand by entering the new market.Secondly, the image of the channel is triggered by the factors like low listing and difficulty in grabbing the MNCs advertisements. Cable operators have listed the channel on the end numbers which is reducing the viewership of the channel. The channel rating is also affected by this action of cable operators as they are readily switching the channel location which causes inconvenience for the viewers. In addition to this, they are Lahore based and Lahore focused channel so they have difficulty in grabbing the multinationals advertisement although they offer low rates. The companies which are more Lahore focused and available in Lahore prefer showing their advertisement on city 42.The multinational companies does not show much interest in advertising their product through city 42.

Future Plans

The city 42 is facing an issue of low image perception by viewers in Lahore. The CEO is thinking whether to enter another market or not. After Lahore, Faisalabad is considered to be the most populated city of Punjab province and no other channel is serving the Faisalabad audience. There exist an opportunity for City 42 to be the first to cater the news of Faisalabad. They did not focused on moving to Karachi because there is a channel named as Metro One already serving the Karachi audience with the Karachis local news. In case of Islamabad, it was also rejected by the channels top management because it will be hard to follow the strict federal government policies.Faisalabad is considered to be the next big opportunity for the company as the channel wants to expand in the Punjab province. The channel had an idea of collecting the financial resources through advertisement. Similarly, Faisalabad is an industrial area so grabbing the advertisement of big players of textiles and other industries was considered to be the biggest opportunity. However, there exists a conflict that if they are considering expanding their channel; it will be deviation from their mission which states to serve the Lahore audience only. The question is will it be easy and fruitful to alter their vision and mission for expansion or they should not alter it and focus on Lahore improving the positioning of their channel in the minds of audience.

References

Mediabank.slideshare. tv industry review 2010. April 2011.Mediabank.slideshare. Tv Industry review 2012. April 2013.zjeddy.wordpres. media industry in Pakistan. july 2008.weekipedia. media industry of pakistan. 2002.

EXHIBIT1Mohsin Naqvi-Curriculum Vitae

Chief EditorDaily42October 2012 Present(1 year 8 months)Chairman/CEOCity42August 2009 Present(4 years 10 months)Regional ProducerCNN2000 2009(9 years)Source: LinkedIn

EXHIBIT 2Time Band Split (2011-2012)% Share of Advertisement Minutes

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society Notes: Time-bands have retained their rankings from last year.

EXHIBIT 3Top 15 Prime Time News Channels-Across All Genres (2011-2012)% Share of Advertisement Minutes

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society

EXHIBIT 4% Share of Advertisement Minutes in top 25 Channel (2009-2010)

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society Notes: Total advertising in 2009-10 was 1,999,434 minutes The Top 25 Channels received approximately 70% of this total share of advertising

EXHIBIT 5% Share of Advertisement Minutes in top 25 Channel in Prime Time (2009-2010)

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society Notes: Total advertising during Prime Time in 2009-10 was 767,730 minutes. The top 25 Channels received approximately 70% of the total share of Prime Time advertising

EXHIBIT 6 News Share% Share of Advertisement Minutes (2009-2010)

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society

EXHIBIT 7Channel Share News% Share of Advertisement Minutes in Prime and Late Prime Time (2009-2010)

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society Notes: In late Prime Time City 42 has a share of 8% and in Prime Time it has a maximum share of 9%

EXHIBIT 8Top 15 Channels of 2012Across All Genre- % Share of Advertisement Minutes

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society Notes: Total advertising in 2012 was 2,788,825 minutes. Total TV advertising in minutes, CITY 42 ranked number 1st surpassing Geo N

EXHIBIT 9Top 15 News Channels of 2012% Share of Advertisement Minutes

Source: Media Bank, Pakistan Advertisers Society

Exhibit-10Perception of City 42 from people of different background

I found this channel C-42 or City 42 good. It is much related to the domestic news of Punjab. I like to watch many programs on this channel, some entertainment show as well news and some talk shows as well. It promotes our culture wisely. This is purely a regional channel and it includes area wise programs and incidents that were not promoted by any other news channel.By Rafeeq Ahmad Siddique Retired Officer

City 42 is new and average channel; I do not watch this channel so regularly because of the less variety of entertaining programs and it was set apart and far away from other news channels. I think they should ask cable operators to set the channel frequency in between other news channels.By Shahnawaz Ali - Engineer

I think city 42 is a good medium through which one can get all the updates regarding our city i.e. Lahore. One can get to know the events going on at different areas of the city. Its a good source of entertainment and keeping yourself up to date with the current affairs going on in the city. By Imran Javed Professor

It is a boring channel with pathetic news. Mostly it covers news that should not be announced in public that openly. It covers petty news like husband wife fights, wife crying over husbands behavior. I think it does not have enough sponsors. Graphics of the news, other shows are also poor and so on, the news casters their dressing as well as their way of telecasting news.By Sara Kamal Senior Manager

City 42 had a good repute in some past years but now-a-days they have lowered down their standards to a large extent. This is because of strikingly odd or unusual news they broadcast. They dont have much entertaining programs; moreover there was a massive political favoritism on their talk shows. By Ayaan Ali Shah -Student

I have been watching City 42 from last three years. It always show the true news regarding any issue which currently held in the premises of Lahore. It often highlights the most important problems that people of Lahore were facing in their respective areas. In my view, the only problem which channel is facing is regarding availability. Cable operators are not airing this channel properly.By Rashid Qureshi Business Man

As it says Shehar ki Khabar, they are fast in providing however its presentation is not up to the mark. Those look it like a low budgeted channel. Channel is more focused towards providing news regarding people and their personal lives. There are less news and more wedding ceremonies and other events that were displayed all day long on the channel.By Sarim Naqvi Senior Manager

I avoid watching City 42, as they have nothing of my taste; they have few boring programs with fast repetition after every few hours. They are more focused about impractical news. They have low image in my mind and other channels attract me more with their new, latest and diversified entertaining shows.By Ayesha Khan House wife

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