ITV

Category: Comment

  • 2014: A year of change for GECs

    2014: A year of change for GECs

    2014 was a year of change and evolution for Zee TV. The game is not over yet, I think we are still evolving everyday and so are our audiences and that is the real excitement. This year, we saw a lot of buzz and excitement on the channel, around the new properties and we are carving our own identity year-on-year in the general entertainment space.

    The channel created some extraordinary concepts in 2014 and now we are seen as a channel that has clutter-breaking ideas within the traditional format. We have launched shows with very different type of protagonists from Jamai Raja to Bandhan.

    We also came up with a weekend block of Zee Super weekends with Maharakshak Aryan and Neeli Chatri Waale and the other non-fiction shows. So, there was an attempt to provide differentiated content to the viewers and yet something that they will be familiar with very easily. This year, we have also observed a very quick traction for all our new shows. Be it for Kumkum Bhagya or Jamai Raja and even Neeli Chatri Waale which has seen strong growth within eight and nine weeks of its launch.  

    We are happy that people are attracted to the differentiated content that we are providing. 2014 was also a year of experiments in the non-fiction category, right from finding talent in India’s Best Cinestars Ki Khoj to Dil Se Naachein Indiawaale. Moreover, we are now coming back to the traditional Zee show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs as we enter the last leg of the year.

    The idea is to be happy with whatever you do because I think from a product and positioning point of view we have changed in the last nine months. We made a conscious shift about how we look and feel. There is certain uniformity in what we are doing and a certain sense of it coming together. The numbers have been good, so satisfied at that level. We are aligned with the legacy of Zee and yet evolving in a direction that we want to take the channel in.

    I see the same evolution being mirrored in the rest of the industry as well. Channels are providing content that is in the familiar zone but with very different types of protagonists and very different propositions. You may feel like you are watching a show which is in a genre that looks familiar but the story, characters, subjects, the way stories are presented are all different. There is a sense of innovation which broadcasters are giving and audiences are accepting. I think this is a beginning of a good phase.

    Not only Zee, but talking about the whole industry, what we as broadcasters will continue doing is living and breathing what our audiences want and giving them that.

    In 2014, we at Zee have started a new journey and it will take us to a very different place from where we were before. I hope the audiences will be with us in the journey.

    (These are purely personal views of Zee TV programming head Namit Sharma and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • 2014 – The Year of the Mobile

    2014 – The Year of the Mobile

    2014 was a new era in the rise of mobile, content marketing and big data for many businesses. Right in its embryonic stage, mobile has irrevocably transformed digital marketing. It’s been an eventful year for marketers with the rise of omni-channel, mobile-first marketing, and a rapid growth in geo-tagging management – to name, but a few. The digital marketing industry will evolve even further in 2015, bringing a new set of marketing strategies and opportunities to look forward to. Here are some recent trends marketers should be attentive to for the year ahead.

    We have already heard a lot about the mobile craze everywhere but 2014 bucked that trend. We are now going to witness major consumer transactions happening via mobile driven by mobile payment options such as paytm and freecharge. There is a perfect atmosphere of strong consumer evolution to mobility for every aspect of their lives, as well as enterprises treating mobility as a strategic advantage. We also saw mobile usage of social media overtake desktop usage. The mobile-centric Instagram, grew to over 300 million active users. There are more mobile phones (7.2 billion) on planet than number of people (7.16 billion).

    It happens very rarely that a prediction in digital industry comes true. There were a lot of talks about 2014 being a year of mobile and that statement has come true, with 2014 witnessing an enormous growth in smartphones and so will 2015. Mobile presents a huge opportunity for marketers to reach their target audiences. Google research shows that 7 per cent of mobile searches led to a purchase within 24 hours, rising to 18 per cent for local searches. Smartphones are also changing communication habits – particularly for younger generations – with 94 per cent of communication time for 12 to 15 year olds spent on text-based activities such as instant messaging and social media, and only 3 per cent spent on voice calls.

    In 2015, we will see the widely discussed mobile-first marketing approach finally develop to take advantage of these high consumption levels. Retailers will push more high-volume, low-cost products through their mobile commerce platform, to gain enhanced data on consumer behaviour, locality, adaptation, and ROI.

    In the 2014 elections, we saw most politicians using social media for campaigning. Not only Indian politicians used social media but during the presidential elections in 2008 and 2012 president Barack Obama’s team most effectively used social media campaigns. In India, we saw the Modi selfie on voting day, live rally broadcasts on mobiles, AAP using it for driving new member joinees and for getting citizen participation in its initiatives.

    Global revenue from app stores is expected to rise 62 per cent this year to $25 billion. From ecommerce companies to travel outfits to government departments, everyone is launching mobile apps and driving significant sales and user engagement through same such as paytm, free charge and other mobile centric means for micro small payments. It’s almost like a DoTcom evolution of 15 years ago – no one wants to miss the bus. The same followed by a rise in the mobile handsets sales, led by newer and fancier smartphones is a major catalyst in making 2014 an era of the mobile and paving way for the coming year. India is already the 3rd largest market for smartphones and will overtake USA shortly.

     Telecom operators have finally started to see a lot of data usage from their customers and their 3G infrastructure investments have started to show financial results. Consumers are in a happy mode with lot of choices – lot of people have more than one handset and kids and teenagers are not the only one using them for social media.

    India has emerged as the strongest market for digital companies who see a huge growth opportunity here. For Facebook, Whatsapp, Google – India is one of their top markets. Regardless of where an Internet company is launched today, India very quickly becomes a large user base for it.

    Rural India is also not untouched from this craze and has started seeing relevant information and entertainment services readily available to them via mobile. Venture capitalists and investors are willing to bet long term on sustainability of mobile led digital evolution and are pumping in millions of dollars.

    So what does all this mean as a marketer?

    1- Jump on mobile bandwagon quickly, else you will lag behind

    2- Gear Up for Big Data & analytics to play a bigger role in next phase of mobile evolution

    3- Gut based decisions will start getting replaced by more number driven decisions

    4- 3Ms need to be central to your marketing plans –i.e., Millions of people engaging with Multiple offerings on their Mobile devices.

    Mobile has started to impact almost every sector of our life – payments, healthcare, shopping, eating, travel, investments, and education etc. and it is important for marketers to understand the changing trends and design their marketing strategies accordingly. Mobiles provide a personal connect to user base and customers which helps impactful brand engagement with the audiences, which is all a brand campaign is about.  It’s an era of dialogue creation, with integrated campaigns across platforms made even more convenient via mobile. 2015 promises to ride this wave of momentum as smartphones will become more secure, more contextual, more location-aware, more targeted, and more integrated. We will witness the most engaging mobile experiences till date come to life in 2015. There will be an integration of Mobility, the cloud, and the Internet of Things creating significant opportunities for businesses to expand and for consumers to enjoy. But these opportunities will also come with newer challenges.

    (These are purely personal views of Digital Quotient chief operating officer Vinish Kathuria and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • “Thanks to fruitful elections, balance sheets look better in 2014”: Rajat Sharma

    “Thanks to fruitful elections, balance sheets look better in 2014”: Rajat Sharma

    The news industry has taken a full circle – from providing welfare information to entertainment to astrology to cricket to sensationalism and now almost pure news taking back the centre stage. In a recent phase, news channels were dominated by frivolous content and Hindi news channels stood as the main suspects. The industry has worked really hard get over it to regain its lost respect. I can now safely say that “NEWS IS BACK”.

    While the news channels have proved themselves as an effective platform for promoting culture, movies, sports and many other activities, at the same time they have played a pivotal and decisive role in tackling core issues like corruption, rape, terrorism and inflation. Relentless coverage of Delhi rape case, Anna Hazare’s Lokpal agitation, 26/11 etc. to name a few stand a testimony to that fact.

    Despite the fact that news channels comprise an enormously important element of the socio-economic and geo-political ecosystem of the country, most such channels are facing monetary issues – characterised by negative pressures on the revenue toplines and ever increasing costs. The current year though may prove to be an exception and the respective balance sheets may look better than explained, because the industry has seen a relatively long and fruitful election season.

    The carriage fees regime stemming out of the analogue pipeline (despite a couple of phases of digitisation already complete) still plagues the industry. However, with the recent developments over the last couple of years, we hope that the actual correction (from digitisation) will start happening in the near future.

    The increased bandwidth due to transition to the DAS regime, will not only push the carriage fee down, but also bring in the transparency that shall further help proper monetary compensation for the operators so that the pressure can further reduce on broadcasters. This will help boost the profitability and further the cause of more investments in developing quality content that will be dished out with better audio/video quality.

    What could have been another blow to the industry, which is already reeling under multiple pressures, a 12 min/hour advertising cap that was introduced by TRAI for all the channels. We are happy that after a series of discussions with TRAI and TDSAT, High Court has finally put a stay on the same.

    I think it’s time now that broadcasters should unite and work towards the growth of broadcasting industry that not only provides employment to thousands but is an important pillar of India’s democracy. In an example of this unity, IBF & NBA along with other industry stakeholders, have created BARC as an alternate to TAM which we are sure will be a transparent and incorruptible currency.

    (These are purely personal views of India TV chairman and editor in chief Rajat Sharma and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • 2014 was the year of innovations in digital advertising: CVL Srinivas

    2014 was the year of innovations in digital advertising: CVL Srinivas

    From a media perspective 2013 was the year of the perfect storm and something tells me that there is lots waiting to unfold in 2015.  Was 2014 the lull before another storm? The major event that dominated 2014 was of course the general election and the wave of optimism and hope that has been spreading ever since the new government came to power. Not only was this the most bitterly fought election from a media standpoint; it was the most well orchestrated win combining strategy with clever tactics.  Advertising was only one part of the strategy. 2014 will go down in history as the year that gave a new meaning to marketing of political parties. We now realise that the general election was only the beginning. With a slew of schemes, clever branding and initiatives that touch the common man, the government is turning out to be a very savvy marketer. One hopes the product lives up to its promise.

    The extension granted to TV digitisation was a bit of a dampener for the broadcast sector. There has been some indication that the phase III licensing for radio will soon go through. Meanwhile, India became the second biggest market for Facebook, the overall Internet penetration crossed 200 million and mobile Internet became the most dominant force of change. And yet we have bandwidth issues, call drops and sometimes feel like going back to the old faithful ‘landline’.  As a nation we need to play catch up in digital infrastructure and going forward I hope this is given the highest priority.

    As for the advertising industry, 2014 saw a 12.5 per cent growth (as per GroupM TYNY estimates) as against a global ad spend growth of 4.5 per cent. Apart from political advertising, if there was one sector that stood out was ecommerce. This sector will end up with more than 50 per cent growth over last year closing the year at Rs 2500 crore of ad spend. The upsurge in this sector is expected to continue. FMCG (which remains by far the biggest sector in terms of ad-spend contributing about a third of total advertising) continued to invest in advertising despite supply side pressures, poor volume growth and an uncertain monsoon season. We expect FMCG to end the year with 12-14 per cent growth. Auto has seen a revival both in terms of sales and ad spends. The sector is expected to see a 15-17 per cent ad spend growth in 2014. With petrol/diesel prices coming down, we expect more action in the months to come. Telecom brands are back after a lull, adding to the overall positive trend. All in all it was a good year, although anything less than 15 per cent ad spend growth still seems low for our market. As expected digital advertising grew at 35 per cent, while TV continued to do well with approximately 15 per cent growth. Regional language dailies helped grow the print sector. Cinema turned out to be the dark horse, with 25 per cent growth though on a relatively small base. Unlike the past few years, we had a clear blip during the festive season this year across all media.

    2014 saw a great deal of innovation in digital media advertising. GroupM and our agencies have been at the forefront of many exciting developments. Digital video has emerged as one of the biggest growth drivers of digital ad spend. Mashup, our digital video content unit has seen a lot of traction, we have made over 1500 pieces of digital video content in the past year. Across the industry, we saw many memorable campaigns launched first on digital media. More brands have taken to social media platforms to keep the conversation going, social listening is emerging as a key input for advertising and media planning.  We have worked with clients (like Nestle) to establish social command centers that have given our media and content planners real time insights. Mobile as a medium continues to grow and will soon account for nearly 20 per cent of the digital ad spend. Madhouse is our mobile center of excellence that is now in its third year of operation. Another emerging trend is audience planning, where digital inventory is combined with data to ensure better ROI for brands. GroupM’s Xaxis is a platform that is at the forefront of innovation in this space.

    We have lots to look forward to in 2015 including the ICC Cricket World Cup.

    Here’s wishing you all a Very Happy New Year.

    (These are purely personal views of GroupM south Asia CEO CVL Srinivas and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • Mobile commerce: The key to impulse shoppers

    Mobile commerce: The key to impulse shoppers

    E-commerce industry’s success stories and reliability are the key factors determining its popularity. Customers have gained a new edge of convenience with products and services available at a click. Apparently, a new wave of innovation in the name of mobile commerce is gaining prevalence by driving new avenues for the e-commerce industry in India.

     

    Accessing an e-commerce portal on desktops and laptops has never been a hindrance; however, accessing the same website on phones have bulged various problems because they were primarily designed for big screens. Considering the mounting usage of mobile phones over big screen computers, mobile commerce has emerged as a key to impulse shoppers.

     

    Mobile commerce offers dual benefit – ease of navigation tools and the flexibility to shop; therefore, attracting a large number of customers. Nowadays, more and more e-commerce websites have become mobile friendly, which has accelerated the footfall on such websites by a huge number. The trend is gradually catching up in India like our European counterparts.

     

    According to a study conducted by global financial group ING, Europeans are now shopping frequently via mobile phone, British being the most impulsive shoppers. India has adapted to this innovation extensively and is observing its acceptance from customers on a large scale. Currently, a major chunk of our tech savvy population is inclined towards mobile commerce. Various studies have shown that mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are leading to an increase in impulse buying among consumers. There is also a lot of scope for growth in this segment as only 40 per cent users make purchases using their mobile devices.

     

    Impulse shopping is triggered among consumers due to the availability of simple and easy to use technology that is used widely in m-commerce platforms. Its usage is rapidly increasing with evolution of mobile technologies. This innovative transformation is creating seamless opportunities for prospective businesses. While adding greater convenience to customers by providing more personalised services, mobile commerce equally benefits the retailers by reducing their cost of production.

     

    According to an independent study conducted by Manusis Technologies, 42 per cent purchases made on mobile devices are based on impulsive decisions. The attractive offers and discount coupons offered by mobile apps create a sense of urgency among buyers. Often, they make hurried purchases fearing an impending stock-out situation or rising prices of the commodity. Eventually, it positively impacts the store owners’ sale and revenues.

     

    M-commerce is a great opportunity for these retailers and e-commerce owners to tap impulse purchases from customers. Snapdeal, one of India’s biggest e-commerce stores, has witnessed an increase in sales via mobile purchases in the past year. Many of these purchases might have been made at the spur of the moment.

     

    (These are purely personal views of StoreHippo.com CEO and founder Rajiv Kumar and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • World TV Day: From ‘we’ to ‘me’

    World TV Day: From ‘we’ to ‘me’

    In today’s fast-paced world where everything is available at the click of a button, does one remember the good old days when wanting and waiting went hand-in-hand?

    The longing to watch Chitrahaar or Mahabharat is something the millennials will never know. With umpteen number of music channels and general entertainment channels (GECs), where shows go on for eons even if the storyline died its natural death hundreds of episodes before, showing whatever the viewer wants to watch 24/7.

    Want to watch a drama, choose from the GECs. If music, click on one of the music channels; animation, there are enough and more channels kids can choose from. Unlike the ones who saw the rise of the Indian television.

    For the ones who were born and grew up with television, shows like Hum log, Nukad,  Shaktiman, Rangoli and many others still holds a special place. And the clumsily-dressed characters made summer holidays even more special.

    The characters were simple yet with a progressive mindset. Today it is quite the opposite; heavy makeup and regressive thinking. The connection build over the years made Lalitaji a household name and owning a TV set was really a ‘Neighbour’s Envy, Owner’s Pride’ and Mile sur mera tumhara was not less than the national anthem. The half-an-hour news capsules covered many stories as there was less noise and more news. Although, there are certain anchors, which make primetime news more entertaining than the melodrama, today.

    Not only this, in the 80s and 90s, before the private television boomed, the entire family finished their chores before the favourite show or movie started.  Children finished their homework without being reminded, mothers prepared the meal and fathers left early from offices. The ‘we’ time was cherished.

    With the onset of DD Metro, Zee and Star Plus, the audiences got the first taste of life beyond the international shows as well as shows with high production value. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, Hip Hip Hurray and Tara brought with them the modern touch to family television viewing.  

    And then came many more channels showcasing different genres from national to international markets giving a preference to one over the other.

    Today, it’s all about me, me and me. Children watch what they want to watch while parents are busy with their favourite channels. Segmentation is the need of the hour is what the broadcasters say, giving birth to 813 channels (as per the 15 September 2014 list on MIB), but in filling the 24 hours in the day, the quantity has taken over the quality.

    Today, how many of us eagerly wait for a show to begin or even alter our plans? Thanks to the long and sometimes dragging storylines as well as digital medium where on the command of a mouse everything will replay at our convenience, TV viewing has surely changed.

    Nonetheless, till entertainment is there the mundane and monotonous lifestyle will be saved by the flipping of numerous channels. LOL!

     

  • “How India is leading the way in BBC innovation”

    “How India is leading the way in BBC innovation”

    It is always exciting to be in Delhi, to catch up with the latest political news and see a city that changes every time you visit. But for the BBC, India isn’t now only a fascinating story and a place with a large audience that is deep in the heart of the BBC. India is now a thriving hub of media and technology innovation.

     

    Yesterday, I visited the instant messaging app firm Line, in Gurgaon. It has 30m users in India, with just five employees here. The BBC, I’m proud to say, is the first news organisation to distribute its content via Line. I had a fascinating conversation with Line about how it’s very young users react to the news, using the emoticons or emojis which chat apps are famous for. We discussed whether serious news and emoticons go together. But if users want to react to BBC News emotionally that’s fine by me. Images that say “amazing news”, “scary news”, “funny news”, “important news” can only show the power of BBC news’ impact on people.

     

    For those of you who are users of chat apps and social media I hope that your reaction to my speech today about how well the BBC is innovating today in India will be, in the language of the chat app, smiley, smiley, smiley, smiley.

     

    I’m going to speak about some of the BBC’s innovative projects in India and how they stand as a symbol of a revitalised and modernised BBC World Service throughout the world. And I will give you a glimpse of the further reinvention of the BBC that will be seen in India and globally in future years. I believe that the greatest days for the BBC around the world are yet to come, based on the incredible transformation that has happened in recent years.

     

    First, let me detail the basis of the recent strength of the BBC. When I started my role as the director of BBC World Service Group in 2009, we had an estimated weekly audience of 238m globally. 177m of our audiences, the majority, were radio listeners and 82m were TV viewers and only 16.4m were online users. Six years on, our weekly radio audience has declined to 127m, but the TV audience has massively increased to 126m and online users have sharply risen to 46m, almost three-fold. Although our radio audience has declined sharply as Shortwave listening fades, our overall global audience now stands at 265m. Despite losing 50m radio listeners our total audience has gone up by over 10 per cent. We have achieved this through offering distinctive content via new platforms, in response to rapidly changing technologies and audience behaviours.

     

    But while we develop onto new platforms the BBC’s core strengths remain – our accuracy, our impartiality, our independence. And those values mean we continue to be rated the world’s most trusted news brand – that’s something that I hope is never going to change.

     

    In India trust in the BBC is still high and we remain a key player. Our BBC News website is the top international news site in India. The number of its page views is equal to the number of pages viewed by users of CNN, the New York Times and Huffington Post combined. Relied on by millions to understand the world and see how the world sees India, it serves a mainly young population. 73 per cent of users of BBC News website are under 35. We provide Indian audiences with a dedicated international homepage for BBC.Com, which curates the breadth of the BBC for Indian audiences – whether in News or in our world-beating factual genres like BBC Earth. Our BBC News app has an average of 11m page views per month in India.

     

    BBC World News is one of the highest rated international news channels here. It reaches around 32m households in India, which constitute over 8 per cent of BBC World News’s total household distribution globally. And our Hindi services have grown on new platforms – TV, online and mobile.

     

    Amongst its international competitors in India, the BBC is not only the most trusted, but research shows it is perceived to be relevant, high quality, unbiased, distinctive and providing a clear global view.

     

    So I believe the BBC has a growing role but it is one that will differ significantly from the heyday of shortwave radio. To understand how that role is inevitably altering let me give you a quick tour of the global media context, as seen from BBC News.

     

    In recent years the challenges in reaching global audiences have been intensifying. The platform on which BBC World Service historically was strongest – shortwave radio – has come under great pressure as FM radio, TV and mobile phones offer audiences compelling alternatives. In India, BBC Hindi is still available on shortwave and achieves an audience of 5.5 million which the BBC greatly treasures, but that audience has been declining fast as audiences switch to more audible radio and other platforms like TV.

     

    Globally, state-funded and commercial players are investing heavily to increase their reach and influence. In the past decade, we have witnessed a host of new international players emerging, including Qatar’s Al Jazeera and China’s CCTV. While many news organisations, including the BBC, have to operate in a very tight financial environment, countries such as China are spending billions pumping news to audiences around the world.

     

    At a local and regional level, news provision is rapidly increasing. India, for example, has nearly 800 TV channels, more than 240 private FM radio stations and over 94,000 registered periodicals.

     

    The Indian audience has grown, recovering from the last few years of decline. This comes thanks to investments in digital and TV for the Hindi Service, including the launch of the Global India programme on TV, which pulls in 6m weekly viewers. These increases now more than offset the loss of shortwave listeners to the Hindi Service. Our services in India, shifting from old platforms to new ones, are a strong illustration of a shift going on all over the world. In this, as in other areas, India is leading the way.

     

    This success has been mainly the result of our investment in digital and TV, and changing the way we work. However, we need to do a lot more to materialise our ambition, which is to double our international audience to half a billion by 2022.

     

    The massive shift of news consumption towards mobile and social media demands we work in different ways in a modernised operation.  Users consume our journalism everywhere, increasingly in real time on mobile devices and across social media. Working in platform based silos won’t work anymore. 

     

    Our London and Delhi newsrooms are a mix of talents from around the world and its output is enhanced by contribution from highly skilled journalists from our language services. We have individuals who come from the countries we are reporting, speaking the relevant languages fluently. They are bilingual reporters who work with our globally known English News teams, able to operate in English and their own language in various platforms.

     

    We believe this is one of the most ambitious and innovative undertakings in international journalism. It is cost effective but, much more importantly, it means our agenda which already strives to be truly and even-handedly global, is driven further by our multinational, multilingual approach.

     

    We have also been restructuring our overseas bureaux into multimedia, multilingual production units to work in an integrated way across platforms and languages. And the BBC Delhi bureau is also leading the way on this.

     

    In Delhi we have created a new digital first newsroom. It consists of a single multimedia team, which is working across languages for bbchindi.com and bbc.com/news. And that means that the story of India is increasingly being told to the world through our brilliant Indian teams, including from BBC Hindi, alongside the traditional high class ex-pat correspondents. It is vital that the BBC’s global output reflects the world it is reporting on. And I am delighted by the way the BBC India teams are contributing to that.

     

    As a result of our innovative ways of working and our distinctive editorial agenda we have been able to produce some unique output, covering topics that other media find uncomfortable to cover. I am particularly proud of our coverage of gender issues in India. I give you a few examples to illustrate this.

     

    Since the Delhi bus rape in December 2012, we have consciously kept gender issues high on our agenda. The incident triggered an ambitious, highly popular season of programming called ‘100 Women’, in October last year and this year. The aim was to turn the spotlight on women’s lives around the world and feature more women’s voices and women’s stories on the BBC’s global news channels.

     

    We have published moving pieces by our bilingual reporters in India, including a piece by Rupa Jha who highlighted the stigma and taboo around the issue of menstruation in the country. She reported on how women are considered impure and even cursed during menstruation and how at least one in five girls drop out of school during their periods due to lack of access to sanitary products.

     

    In another piece, our Delhi-based bilingual reporter, Divya Arya, looked at how lack of toilets in rural India is endangering the safety of women who have to walk long distances to go to open-air toilets in the fields. She travelled to a village less than 50 miles from Delhi to speak to women who have to wait for the dark and move in groups to keep safe when going to toilet.

     

    And our teams do original reporting and stage discussion on other important aspects of India.

     

    Last week the BBC broadcast an extended debate from the India International Centre here in Delhi on India’s role in World War One. In conjunction with our partners the British Council we brought the often neglected enormous sacrifice of Indians in WW1 to a global audience. The pride of the descendants of those Indian soldiers was wonderful to hear.

     

    And the BBC’s unrivalled network of correspondents around the world can keep an increasingly global India in touch with how the world sees it. For instance when PM Modi was in New York in September our reporter based there was able to tell the world of the powerful reaction to the PM, broadcasting in English, Hindi and Urdu, for BBC on TV, radio and online. (We keep our reporters pretty busy these days).

     

     

    All of our strongest stories about India are produced in Hindi and English. Local reporters who tell the stories from their country to the whole world are now an essential part of the BBC’s international newsgathering approach. They provide a depth and subtlety of understanding that complements the indispensable insights of the BBC’s “ex-pat” foreign correspondents. This shift to bilingual journalism is one of the most important changes in the BBC’s face to the world in recent years. It is an historic and irreversible shift.

     

    We are also innovating in our use of social media. BBC Hindi is operating as ‘Social First’, meaning social platforms are as important as publishing on its own homepage. BBC Hindi Facebook page has a fan base of 2.7 million and is growing faster than most of its competitors. BBC Hindi breaks news on Twitter and other social platforms first and produces infographics exclusively for social media.

     

    New Products

     

    Developing new digital products for mobile apps and web is a key priority for us. More than half of BBC World Service markets are “mobile first”, which means over 50 per cent of users’ first point of access to the internet is through their mobile phones. More than 70 per cent of BBC Hindi’s Unique Visitors online access our content through mobile devices. 

     

    Given the explosion in different types of mobile devices, all BBC World Service websites have been converted to responsive design, which adapts a site according to the device it’s being viewed on. BBC Hindi’s responsive mobile browser site was launched in March 2013 and its desktop went responsive in September this year. This has contributed to a rapid and steady growth of the Hindi website’s traffic. The number of Hindi’s monthly unique visitors across all platforms has jumped from 1.3m in April 2013 to 4.5m in October 2014 – remarkable tripling of audience in 18 months.

     

    In editorial terms, we’ve adapted our storytelling approach. The Hindi service has been one of the first services to pilot a “mobile first” strategy this year, making the stories shorter and punctuated with more pictures and graphics.  There was a 20 per cent uplift in mobile traffic after the first month of piloting these new editorial techniques.

     

    For the coverage of the Indian general elections earlier this year, we used two new platforms, WhatsApp and WeChat, to reach Indian voters and the Indian diaspora globally. We used these chat apps, which are widely used in India, to create a new editorial service in English and Hindi.

     

    This was the first time any international news organisation had used these platforms in this way. We had thousands of subscribers across both platforms and it meant we were able to deliver trusted news content, which was a big issue for many Indian voters with regards to domestic news providers, straight onto people’s mobile phones.

     

    Last month we launched a new ‘lifeline’ Ebola service for people in West Africa on Whatsapp, based on that innovation in India. This was the first time the BBC has used a chat app specifically for health information content.

     

    Recently BBC Hindi also made its content available on smartphone instant messaging platform Line, which is one the world’s top five chat apps. The launch of the BBC Hindi LINE app follows the recent launch on LINE of an English language BBC News account which has already acquired 300000 subscribers globally and over 100000 in India.

     

    Last year, we launched a number of innovative programmes global programmes, based on social media. For instance, we set up a new social media unit, BBC Trending, to spot and investigate social media trends around the world. The team produces a weekly World Service radio programme, a blog and a unique video product which is built to be shared.  Trending’s content is enhanced by BBC Monitoring and language services’ contribution which gives it a truly global flavour. Due to BBC Trending success, we have been expanding it to other languages including Arabic and Mundo and we hope also to launch in Hindi.

     

    I would like to give you some examples of how BBC Trending works and goes behind the stories.

     

    BBC Trending picked up the growing tension over the ‘’kiss of love’’ protest in Kerala at its very early stages and contextualised the social confrontation in India between young people and the conservative cadres of religious groups for a global audience.

     

    Last week, BBC Trending made a video on the “We are South of India’’ song, which became a YouTube hit and was made by a comedy group from the south of the country to educate northern people about the diversity of their culture down south. This is an example of the conversation India is having with itself and shared with the wider world through BBC Trending.

     

    When the newly elected Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, launched a campaign to encourage Indians to clean up the country, there was a huge fanfare. But despite the huge coverage on the day, no other media outlets checked if it actually worked on social media.  BBC Trending looked at the lack of spread of the trend forensically.

     

    And those BBC Trending stories get reported back to India in both English and Hindi.

     

    Partnership

     

    We see editorial partnerships as a key way to reach a wider audience, enhance our content and help raise media standards around the world.

     

    We have built a network of FM partner stations around the world.  Here in India – we have a partnership with ETV which broadcasts the BBC Hindi TV programme, Global India, on its channels across the Hindi-speaking states. We have received encouraging indications of the substantial audiences already being achieved by Global India. I think this reflects a hunger among Indian audiences for content that relates India and the world, content that is largely missing from local providers who tend to be ruthlessly focussed on an India-only view of the world. The BBC can play a vital role in opening the eyes of audiences to the world.

     

    However, although partners are important to the BBC on TV and in digital, there is one area where the BBC is not able to rebroadcast its news content in India – on FM radio.  Since the election of the new government the former Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar, said this on deregulation of news on FM radio:

     

    “About (broadcasting) news on FM radio, it is an issue close to my heart. Sometimes I am unable to understand the government logic. When 24×7 news channels have the freedom to show news the way they want to…, what have radio channels done that they can’t air news? “

     

    “Why only restrict radio channels to AIR (All India Radio) bulletins (feed)? There can be three-four more options. We are looking at this issue very positively and we will take a decision soon.”

     

    That was an encouraging statement and we hope the new minister will take this idea forward.

     

    India is a highly modern and open society in so many ways. Its economically liberal IT sector, with an open internet at its core, is a huge advantage to the growth of India. But India’s out-dated approach to the control of news on FM radio betrays an unconfident approach. The BBC hopes that indications of reform from the Minister of Information are followed through with real action.

     

    The components of a dramatically modernised BBC World Service are clear: a commitment to distinctive journalism that reports stories that others won’t, with utter fairness; delivering that journalism on any platform that audiences use; a global editorial ethos based on a multilingual and diverse global workforce; and the systematic use of social media to engage with audiences, to gather their news and anticipate their information needs.

     

    But how will the BBC evolve further? It will need to continue to change as fast, even faster. I believe that if it does so, with the right support from the wider BBC, the best days of the World Service are yet to come. The remarkable advantage of committed public funding, a revitalised ethos of global journalism, the talents of the global BBC team and a commitment to technological innovation give the BBC inestimable advantages.

     

    Here are some clues for what we will do in future in India and around the world:

     

    The rapid proliferation of digital devices, the growth of digital video viewing and the declining cost of bandwidth create huge new opportunities for the BBC – an organisation with the strongest video news in the world. We are no longer constrained  by the time limits of TV news bulletins. BBC teams are experimenting with a variety of technologies that will produce continuous video news streams for digital devices on the subjects and places that most interest the world.

     

    Do you want news about the South Asia region? Do you want Asian business news? Do you want to know about new global developments in health technology? Do you want to know about Indian success stories in the UK and around the world? Each of those subjects will be able to be delivered as a video stream to your specification. We call this “channel in a box” – in other words a channel, or a visit stream, made in a black electronic box not a studio.

     

    And our multilingual teams are prototyping new techniques to produce these video streams in multiple languages. I expect all the services I mentioned should be able to be delivered in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali and possibly other South Asian languages.  We will be organising our teams in multilingual subject-based global teams that make full use of our journalistic skills from across the world. This will shortly create the most innovative global content production of any news organisation in the world.

     

    In recent months the BBC World Service has started to add languages rather than cutting them, as happened over previous decades. We launched an emergency service in Thai after the military coup in Bangkok. And just this week we started a temporary crisis offer, funded through BBC Media Action, in Liberian English to help tackle the Ebola crisis.

     

    But I believe that with new technology and low cost translation methods the BBC could be producing content in 50 languages in five years’ time, with video streams/channels in about half those languages. That will help in achieving the BBC’s aim of a 500m global audience. More importantly, it would mean that in a world that has too much inaccurate, distorted and sensationalist news there will be a truthful news source available to a high proportion of the global population.

     

    As you may know, I will shortly be leaving the BBC. But I believe that the robust health of the BBC around the world, along with the ideas I have mentioned and the innovation that is already in train, provide a firm platform for continued success. All that is needed is for the BBC, the politicians who ultimately decide about the World Service and the British public who now pay for it, to realise that it is within their grasp to create the greatest days of the BBC World Service.

     

    If the BBC seizes that opportunity it will be following the example of many of the innovations by the BBC’s teams in India. In this, as in many other areas, India is helping to lead the way to help create the Future of the BBC World Service.

     

    (These are purely personal views of BBC World Service Group director Peter Horrocks and indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to these views.)

    (Peter Horrocks was speaking at the Observer Research Foundation)

  • Marketing costs and independent films, an uneasy mix, says Rahul Puri

    Marketing costs and independent films, an uneasy mix, says Rahul Puri

    How many of us actually watch small films? Films that perhaps don’t have the big star cast or the big directors. Maybe there are films that don’t have the backing of big studios and will rely heavily on word of mouth from the target group, referring it to peers. How many of us really go to the theatre, pay Rs 250+ and watch these films?

     

    I doubt the answer to my question is, many, if we are being honest. The reality is that in spite of most of us moaning about the quality of storytelling in films, we generally base our film watching decisions on factors like star cast and the amount of marketing visibility. The small films usually lack these ingredients and therefore, they are not top-most in the minds of the viewers when it comes to choice for consumption. And this is usually despite the potential of their story.

     

    Forgive me for this roundabout way of getting to the point. There is a huge issue of marketing films in our business and the smaller, independent films (the films a lot of people laud as ‘good cinema’) usually ends up with the short end of the stick. An old time distributor would call these films ‘art-house’ or say they aren’t commercial and therefore, they can’t be marketed well. But there is a distinction between something that is targeted to a niche and something that is completely unmarketable.

     

    One of the large issues that our business has to address over the next few years are niche films and how we deal with them and create a viable business model for them. The West has art house theatres and a thriving independent circuit including channels, festivals and markets where films out of the mainstream can find a way to be commercial in nature.

     

    India has to find a way to resolve this issue too. We have many terrific films that don’t make it to theatres and therefore, we deprive our audiences of seeing some really great films. Look at the films that win National Awards. How many of us actually see them outside their home state? Would it not make sense for the rest of the country to see them? Are these stories that wouldn’t resonate with other Indian audiences? I can’t say the answer is yes for sure but in general it has to be true.

     

    Marketing costs and promotional expenses is one of the main bone of contention here. A film is considered impossible to release if it can’t justify a certain spend on marketing and promotion. The absolute amount of this figure has grown over the years thanks to increase in prices of media as well as the growth of media outlets and platforms. Today a film is deemed to have had a poor release if it doesn’t do the latest reality shows, launch a motion poster at a 5 Star hotel or do an eight city tour for press and promotion. All this, plus traditional forms of advertising and other marketing tools costs money. Lots of it. Where do little, independent films get this money from?

     

    Moreover, if a small film does get this finance, how do they decide what is actually effective and what is not? Marketing campaigns have a template to them these days and all agencies try to enforce this upon producers stating previous successes or competitors spend. This sometimes is relevant but mostly it’s about consuming the all important inventory that most of the agencies, channels and platforms need to exhaust in order to enhance profitability. Whether it’s needed, effective or even useful for a particular film is secondary at times. Thus, a small film is over burdened making it more unprofitable thus perpetuating the cycle that these films are generally a huge risk.

     

    So what’s the solution? Well, better and more innovative marketing planning, campaigns and execution. Most of which is probably available and there are agencies and marketing gurus out there capable of delivering. It will just take a producer or a studio the gumption of saying no to the herd mentality and giving it a real shot. The filmmakers really deserve it.

  • So who does DAS benefit and what does RIO have to do with it?

    So who does DAS benefit and what does RIO have to do with it?

    When the BJP government was last in power with Ms Swaraj at the helm of the MIB, the digitisation process was first mooted in its original form of CAS. The populist notion was to bring down cable prices with the false concept of pay for what you want, so pay less. But little did the government realise that the customer’s cable bill was so significantly subsidised because of ‘under declaration’ that the ‘spoilt’ consumer in the cheapest cable market in the world would either have to reduce his current offering by half or more or if he wanted the same channel line up, would actually have to pay twice as much!

    At that time, the broadcasters were resentful as reduced reach was imminent in an advertising driven market and for DPOs it was definitely not favourable as they would need to reduce the number of analogue channels to piggyback digital cable on some of the frequencies which was otherwise used for analogue channels. (This was because both digital and analogue had to be offered on the same network). And this reduction of analogue channels impacted their carriage potential and hence revenues.

    So who won? None of the key stake holders- broadcaster, DPO or consumer.

    So who does DAS in its new avatar benefit?

    Certainly not the consumer from his cable bill point which was the original populist premise. Sure, the DPOs and broadcasters, once the dust settles down. With the transparency of set top boxes and doing away with ‘under declaration’, the MSO can now collect from the ground higher revenues and hence a bigger chunk eventually to the broadcaster. (Cable revenues were significantly lower than DTH revenues even though cable homes far exceeded DTH homes.) Who else benefits? The government, for sure, by way of higher taxes.

    And the losers of course in the value chain would be no doubt the consumer now shelling out higher ARPUs. And of course the LCO who till now reigned king keeping the bigger chunk of collections.
    So what’s wrong with DAS?

    Fundamentally, the current consumer pricing structure, the RIO rates and the business model. If DAS was to benefit the consumer why is there no B to C model, why are there no retail prices with direct offers from broadcasters to consumers with pipeline commissions to DPOs. Why are RIO rates unrealistic? Why are DPOs free to do retail pricing? The problem is RIO is a regulatory created framework and broadcasters have maxed out after years of price freeze not knowing what to expect.  

    If DAS has to succeed then this whole pricing scenario has to be re-looked. How can the broadcaster market his product if the DPO controls retail pricing? Or given the RIO pricing (which will now be used as a basis for negotiation) will the broadcaster really allow the DPO to play the role of a wholesaler and buy in bulk and retail at attractive customer offerings significantly lower than RIO.

    When regulation hinders market dynamics, it creates more absurdities. Any consumer product needs an MRP. Packages or stand alone. RIO is definitely not helping this process. It’s best the two beneficiaries – the DPOs and the broadcasters finally come together, see eye to eye and work out what is the magical pricing so that packaging and pricing is offered by both and directly to the consumer. If the DPO truly acts as a wholesaler he can surely better any packages the broadcaster directly offers unless of course the broadcaster/channel can go it alone which no doubt will be the true test of content and certainly a success yardstick to measure addressability.

    So can the government bury RIO and keep the consumer in mind!  TV entertainment is mass and needs to be looked at (retailed) as a service similar to that of consumer products! Let’s have an MRP, let’s also have a distributor pricing better than MRP. There is scope for both models to co-exist- DPOs mixing it up and offering multi-broadcaster packages and broadcasters also retailing with negotiated discounts to DPOs for pipeline usage and payment gateway.

    A 100 million plus pay TV homes is a very robust subscription market!

    Lastly, with the BJP now back surely we hope they will complete what they chaotically started. With the honourable I&B Minister Arun Jaitley and MoS Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore now at the helm it certainly looks like MIB is priority and our industry will definitely be both in competent hands and in their cross hairs!

     

    (These are purely personal views of consultant Sanjev Hiremath and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)

  • “India is not yet mature for RIO deals”: Sanjev Hiremath

    “India is not yet mature for RIO deals”: Sanjev Hiremath

    The current scenario in India is not very viable to allow for reference interconnect offer (RIO) to take off. No broadcaster would want to be on a RIO agreement because the moment you are on RIO, your distribution is affected. Broadcasters want their channels to be carried by all operators and also in good packs for maximum reach.

     

    Subscription too would be lower at least initially. The RIO rate X subscribers on CPS basis will mostly likely be lower than the existing negotiated price for that channel.

     

    India is not yet an addressable pay TV subscription market and RIO deals will not work anytime soon; neither for the broadcaster nor for the DPO. The addressable billing system, consumer communication and B to C marketing needs to kick-in. 

     

    Currently, broadcasters want reach and DPO wants carriage or at the least it does not want to pay for the channel and keep its content cost down. There is competition among DPOs too and cost of content is critical to all. RIO is a regulatory mandate in the absence of a deal and a good basis for negotiations. Money saved on carriage on RIO (as there is no carriage) can be used for discounts to structure deals. 

     

    In the immediate future, some channels will get impacted due to poor uptake or because of it being a niche or premium channel. Some of these channels will likely go on RIO especially stand alone ones. As and when billing for content gets established we move to a more mature market where broadcasters will get decent subscription revenues, niche channels will be able to survive and premium channels will make more money being a-la-carte on a CPS deal.

     

    We are in a transition phase of moving to the real objective of DAS, pay as per channels viewed/subscribed – in short, ADDRESSABILITY!

     

    (These are purely personal views of consultant Sanjev Hiremath and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)