Category: Event Coverage

Address the advertising challenges in the digital world to convert the non-believers

MUMBAI: What do you do when you have a discussion to moderate, a ready panel of speakers on stage, but your audience is even less than the number of speakers? Well, you take the mike and charge forward without a care in world – not to put on a show, but because some issues need a serious, straightforward and honest discussion. The audience will definitely follow.

That’s exactly what the charismatic chairman and MD of Grey Group India Sunil Lulla did when moderating a session on day three at FICCI Frames 2016. The topic was simple and burning — The Advertising Challenge amidst disruptive technology, digital innovations enabling targeted and smartadvertising — and Taboola APAC VP Ran Buck set the tone of the discussion with his key note on the issue. Buck shared his experiences on how the digital world behaved internationally from his experience of working with the brand discovery platform Taboola that helps advertisers find relevant end users.

Lulla took control of discussion and the first thing he did was to throw a question at the audience – ‘How many believed that the digital medium will be the largest advertising revenue driver in the coming years?’ — to which most of the audience responded by raising their hands. Next, he relayed an objective to the panellists — to convert all the non-believers in the room to believers by the end of the discussion. What a way to get the audience involved right from the start!

The quickest way to get the ball rolling was to go through the panel as each one pointed out opportunities or challenges in advertising in the digital world.

The panellists – POKKT Video Ads CEO and founder Rohit Sharma, Zapr Media Labs co-founder Sandipan Mondal, Ping Digital Broadcast co-founder Rajeshree Naik, Vidooly founder Subrat Kar, Yahoo India MD and VP Gurmit Singh, and Adsparx CEO Kunal Lagwankar.

Mondal, seated on the extreme end of the panel, pointed out the obvious and very straightforward reason to believe in the digital advertising boom. “It’s digital where the eyeballs are, and where more eyeballs will shift to. And advertisers follow eyeballs.” Gurmit Singh went into the details when chalking out the opportunities the digital age posed for advertisers and other stakeholders in the business. “If you follow the rate at which digital startups are being acquired by the big players and notice the value at which the deals happen, it gives you the idea how much the market analysts and value setters are betting on the digital platforms.”

“Going forward,” Singh added, “Mobile will be the biggest traction driver and it is already going big in India. There are several stats and data to showcase the tremendous growth of the smartphone penetration in India. This will be followed by the huge video boom that again poses an awesome opportunity for brands to tap into. The other trend that will have a strong impact onadvertisers and will open up new vistas for them is native advertising.”

Privacy right, Kar said, was currently a big challenge for digital advertisersand policy makers needed to come together and educate and come up with solutions for advertisers on this front.

Having worked closely in the video advertising space on digital media, there was no one better than Lagwankar to shortlist the hiccups in the business currently. “Firstly,” he said, “it is a major challenge to retain the TV experience of seamless transition between content and advertising on VOD platforms. It’s not a bandwidth issue, but a design and aesthetics one.”

“Secondly, ad-blockers take away a major chunk of the advertising revenues from publishers; and thirdly, content providers and distributors need to come up with a way to give seamless streaming of content between all platforms or screens, and address the needs of each screen individually,” Lagwankar stated.

Being the optimist that she is, Naik stated, “Any barrier is dwarfed by the opportunities the medium offers for advertisers.” As the need of the hour was to state the barriers, Naik listed out a few as well. “We need a clear understanding of the medium. Lack of understanding such as equating views as metrics to measure reach and visibility by advertisers will set the industry crumbling faster than anything.”

The often abused term ‘digital video measurement’ was tackled by the panel with a fresh perspective. Advertisers have been heard citing the lack of a standard measurement of eyeballs on the digital platform as an excuse to not spend as much advertising dollars as they do on traditional media. Newspapers have distribution and sales count; TV has got BARC; what has the web got?

“Perhaps web doesn’t need a ratings system,” came Singh’s head turning answer. “Web metrics at a large work differently, even within the different digital players. Some sites and apps use cookies and adtags to monitor and record consumer behaviour.”

“There is also SDK code in apps that can be used to track how consumers interact with ads or record other analytics for the brands,” Sharma further accentuated the point. Hence the traditional concept of ratings might not be required for a vibrant medium like the web that has other powerful technological tools to fulfil the same need for advertisers.

While the discussion on the stage covered everything including whether long form television ads would work on digital platform and content branding, a member from the audience got up and pointed out the ‘Skip button’, which was a problem of mammoth proportions.

“While we all are banking on digital videos to drive ad revenue, what are we doing about the ‘skip ad’ button that is also the second most clicked button?” the panel was quizzed.

Agreeing that traditional form of advertising would need some heavy tweaking to survive and coexist with ad blocking, Singh stated that digital medium empowered the end users to skip the ads, and further encouraged people to stay in the medium.

It ultimately came down to how an ad was relayed to the consumer, whether it was in the viewer’s face, or packaged as good content with a value addition. After all, for a viewer, a good story was a good story, be it an ad or entertainment content.

By the time the finishing bell rang, Lulla and the panellists had a hard time reaching the exit, as a sea of people hounded them for ‘one last question.’

April 4, 2016
Address the advertising challenges in the digital world to convert the non-believers

MUMBAI: What do you do when you have a discussion to moderate, a ready panel of speakers on stage, but your audience is even less than the number of speakers? Well, you take the mike and charge forward without a care in world – not to put on a show, but because some issues need a serious, straightforward and honest discussion. The audience will definitely follow.

That’s exactly what the charismatic chairman and MD of Grey Group India Sunil Lulla did when moderating a session on day three at FICCI Frames 2016. The topic was simple and burning — The Advertising Challenge amidst disruptive technology, digital innovations enabling targeted and smartadvertising — and Taboola APAC VP Ran Buck set the tone of the discussion with his key note on the issue. Buck shared his experiences on how the digital world behaved internationally from his experience of working with the brand discovery platform Taboola that helps advertisers find relevant end users.

Lulla took control of discussion and the first thing he did was to throw a question at the audience – ‘How many believed that the digital medium will be the largest advertising revenue driver in the coming years?’ — to which most of the audience responded by raising their hands. Next, he relayed an objective to the panellists — to convert all the non-believers in the room to believers by the end of the discussion. What a way to get the audience involved right from the start!

The quickest way to get the ball rolling was to go through the panel as each one pointed out opportunities or challenges in advertising in the digital world.

The panellists – POKKT Video Ads CEO and founder Rohit Sharma, Zapr Media Labs co-founder Sandipan Mondal, Ping Digital Broadcast co-founder Rajeshree Naik, Vidooly founder Subrat Kar, Yahoo India MD and VP Gurmit Singh, and Adsparx CEO Kunal Lagwankar.

Mondal, seated on the extreme end of the panel, pointed out the obvious and very straightforward reason to believe in the digital advertising boom. “It’s digital where the eyeballs are, and where more eyeballs will shift to. And advertisers follow eyeballs.” Gurmit Singh went into the details when chalking out the opportunities the digital age posed for advertisers and other stakeholders in the business. “If you follow the rate at which digital startups are being acquired by the big players and notice the value at which the deals happen, it gives you the idea how much the market analysts and value setters are betting on the digital platforms.”

“Going forward,” Singh added, “Mobile will be the biggest traction driver and it is already going big in India. There are several stats and data to showcase the tremendous growth of the smartphone penetration in India. This will be followed by the huge video boom that again poses an awesome opportunity for brands to tap into. The other trend that will have a strong impact onadvertisers and will open up new vistas for them is native advertising.”

Privacy right, Kar said, was currently a big challenge for digital advertisersand policy makers needed to come together and educate and come up with solutions for advertisers on this front.

Having worked closely in the video advertising space on digital media, there was no one better than Lagwankar to shortlist the hiccups in the business currently. “Firstly,” he said, “it is a major challenge to retain the TV experience of seamless transition between content and advertising on VOD platforms. It’s not a bandwidth issue, but a design and aesthetics one.”

“Secondly, ad-blockers take away a major chunk of the advertising revenues from publishers; and thirdly, content providers and distributors need to come up with a way to give seamless streaming of content between all platforms or screens, and address the needs of each screen individually,” Lagwankar stated.

Being the optimist that she is, Naik stated, “Any barrier is dwarfed by the opportunities the medium offers for advertisers.” As the need of the hour was to state the barriers, Naik listed out a few as well. “We need a clear understanding of the medium. Lack of understanding such as equating views as metrics to measure reach and visibility by advertisers will set the industry crumbling faster than anything.”

The often abused term ‘digital video measurement’ was tackled by the panel with a fresh perspective. Advertisers have been heard citing the lack of a standard measurement of eyeballs on the digital platform as an excuse to not spend as much advertising dollars as they do on traditional media. Newspapers have distribution and sales count; TV has got BARC; what has the web got?

“Perhaps web doesn’t need a ratings system,” came Singh’s head turning answer. “Web metrics at a large work differently, even within the different digital players. Some sites and apps use cookies and adtags to monitor and record consumer behaviour.”

“There is also SDK code in apps that can be used to track how consumers interact with ads or record other analytics for the brands,” Sharma further accentuated the point. Hence the traditional concept of ratings might not be required for a vibrant medium like the web that has other powerful technological tools to fulfil the same need for advertisers.

While the discussion on the stage covered everything including whether long form television ads would work on digital platform and content branding, a member from the audience got up and pointed out the ‘Skip button’, which was a problem of mammoth proportions.

“While we all are banking on digital videos to drive ad revenue, what are we doing about the ‘skip ad’ button that is also the second most clicked button?” the panel was quizzed.

Agreeing that traditional form of advertising would need some heavy tweaking to survive and coexist with ad blocking, Singh stated that digital medium empowered the end users to skip the ads, and further encouraged people to stay in the medium.

It ultimately came down to how an ad was relayed to the consumer, whether it was in the viewer’s face, or packaged as good content with a value addition. After all, for a viewer, a good story was a good story, be it an ad or entertainment content.

By the time the finishing bell rang, Lulla and the panellists had a hard time reaching the exit, as a sea of people hounded them for ‘one last question.’

April 4, 2016
Challenges faced by the OTT players in India; the way ahead

MUMBAI: With the majority of the OTT players operating on a freemium model, subscriptions are enjoying a new prominence as a revenue model for digital content and apps. While India saw Ditto TV working on the subscription revenue model, Balaji is all set enter the digital space with its digital platform Alt Digital Media.

The panel discussion on ‘Cracking the money code- Challenges and solutions for Digital Subscription models’ at FICCI FRAMES 2016 discussed the revenue models and the profit generation formula for this sector. Industry stalwarts included VUClip CEO Nickhil Jakatdar, Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal, ALT Entertainment chief strategy officer Eklavya Bhattacharya, Eros Digital COO Karan Bedi and Spuul India CEO Rajiv Vaidya. The session was moderated by BBC World News presenter Ros Atkins.

After throwing light on the revenue models that each of the platforms followed, the panellists broadly discussed the revenue models that are followed in India with their positives and negatives and the various challenges that OTT was facing due to certain issues like infrastructure, piracy, etc.

Initiating the discussion with how the ‘freemium’ model helped the OTT platforms, VUClip’s Jakatdar said, “The thing with such an emerging market is that if you don’t give content for free to the viewers, they will switch to some other place where they are getting it. You need to have content beyond the subscription pay wall. For example, in Malaysia, we found that Korean content works well there and is extremely popular. We got the simulcast content rights for Korea which they had to pay for, but the library content was for free.”

He further added that, “We believe in micro payments which means that viewers can pay per content they view. This means that they can buy data for a single day and don’t have to pay a monthly subscription. This is working well for us.”

“Even as we use the freemium model, the free content for is important. If we look at the free content on the platforms as an ad-revenue driver, then we may find it difficult to sustain in this space ,” he further added.

Differing with Jakatdar, ALT Entertainment’s Bhattacharya opined, “I don’t agree that the consumers will move to a different platform if you charge them. That’s going happen if you provide the same content on different platforms. It is definitely a challenge to provide exclusive quality. People don’t want to watch free content. They want to watch good content. The key for such platforms is to target the most loyal audiences and to provide them good quality and exclusive content which they can’t resist to buy. If you are creating content and hoping that you can break-even on advertising, it’s not going to work out. If you are confident about your content, people will definitely pay for it irrespective of the cost. If you create content that the consumers can’t get anywhere, they will come to you.”

April 4, 2016
Challenges faced by the OTT players in India; the way ahead

MUMBAI: With the majority of the OTT players operating on a freemium model, subscriptions are enjoying a new prominence as a revenue model for digital content and apps. While India saw Ditto TV working on the subscription revenue model, Balaji is all set enter the digital space with its digital platform Alt Digital Media.

The panel discussion on ‘Cracking the money code- Challenges and solutions for Digital Subscription models’ at FICCI FRAMES 2016 discussed the revenue models and the profit generation formula for this sector. Industry stalwarts included VUClip CEO Nickhil Jakatdar, Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal, ALT Entertainment chief strategy officer Eklavya Bhattacharya, Eros Digital COO Karan Bedi and Spuul India CEO Rajiv Vaidya. The session was moderated by BBC World News presenter Ros Atkins.

After throwing light on the revenue models that each of the platforms followed, the panellists broadly discussed the revenue models that are followed in India with their positives and negatives and the various challenges that OTT was facing due to certain issues like infrastructure, piracy, etc.

Initiating the discussion with how the ‘freemium’ model helped the OTT platforms, VUClip’s Jakatdar said, “The thing with such an emerging market is that if you don’t give content for free to the viewers, they will switch to some other place where they are getting it. You need to have content beyond the subscription pay wall. For example, in Malaysia, we found that Korean content works well there and is extremely popular. We got the simulcast content rights for Korea which they had to pay for, but the library content was for free.”

He further added that, “We believe in micro payments which means that viewers can pay per content they view. This means that they can buy data for a single day and don’t have to pay a monthly subscription. This is working well for us.”

“Even as we use the freemium model, the free content for is important. If we look at the free content on the platforms as an ad-revenue driver, then we may find it difficult to sustain in this space ,” he further added.

Differing with Jakatdar, ALT Entertainment’s Bhattacharya opined, “I don’t agree that the consumers will move to a different platform if you charge them. That’s going happen if you provide the same content on different platforms. It is definitely a challenge to provide exclusive quality. People don’t want to watch free content. They want to watch good content. The key for such platforms is to target the most loyal audiences and to provide them good quality and exclusive content which they can’t resist to buy. If you are creating content and hoping that you can break-even on advertising, it’s not going to work out. If you are confident about your content, people will definitely pay for it irrespective of the cost. If you create content that the consumers can’t get anywhere, they will come to you.”

April 4, 2016
How ready is India for the digital disruption?

MUMBAI: The Indian media and entertainment industry is enamoured by the possibilities that the digital world poses for it. Within digital, ‘video’ and ‘mobile’ seem to be most used and often abused words. To tap in and make the most of this ‘digital video’ revolution that the country is set to see in 2016, several small and big players have rolled out or planned VOD or OTT services..

But is India ready for this digital disruption? Have those who are betting high on the success of the video business really taken into consideration the groundwork and infrastructure needed to actually make profit? Moderator and Bloomberg TV India consulting editor Vikram Oza raised these questions at FICCI Frames 2016 during a panel discussion – ‘And the walls came tumbling down : Digital disruption.’ In front of him on the panel were – SPN digital business EVP Uday Sodhi, Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi, HOOQ cofounder and content head Krishnan Rajagopalan, Arre COO Ajay Chacko and Elemental Tecnologies SVP Daniel Marshal – each a pioneer of digital world in his own right.

Within the first fifteen minutes into the discussion, the audience had a good idea of where things stood in the digital video business. “While a fair bit of 3G and 4G is taking off, the industry is still at a nascent stage to make assumptions. Monetization, bandwidth and content needed to fall in place to set the groundwork going,” said Sodhi summing it up.

When posed a query on bandwidth costs and subscription issues, Gandhi gave an optimistic perspective. “Currently the data prices are very high. So much of the consumption behaviour we are seeing will drastically change as the bandwidth opens up and becomes cheaper. We need to aim for a setting when data prices become part of everyone’s utility bill. That is when no one will hesitate from paying for an OTT service.”

Marshal added his take from his experience of the international market and how it played out there. “What I have observed in the US is that there are more users with multiple subscriptions since the combined cost is still less than what people used to pay for their cable subscriptions. If India has to really see the end of this convergence, adaptability and bandwidth needs to be worked on heavily,” he suggested.

Another variable that is a hindrance for digital convergence is the complicated and poor payment gateways. “It is true that in India the present payment gateway options are a major challenge to both the service provider and the consumers. From my experience, a huge part of willing consumers put off payments because of the payment method. It is indeed a big challenge and a part of it is that people are still hesitant to trust their money with online payments. Thus the adoption is lower. TRAI tried to deal with the issue by strengthening the security process in the transaction and sort of got overzealous with it, which is costing the industry in a different way. I would say it will take another 5 years for the payment options to be easy and secure and ready to handle the digital disruption,” Sodhi opined.

With everyone jumping on the mobile video bandwagon and promising an on demand video service, was there a need for the players to differentiate their offerings? After all, according to Google research, the current range of smartphones in the market allowed users to have only few apps before their devices slowed down. While the industry remained a free market, this clearly meant that only few services would survive this tough competition and make their way to the users’ handsets.

To put matters into perspective, Gandhi said, “Currently 85 per cent of the content is owned between the five major TV networks and the two TV studios. The content offered by their OTT players may look homogenous because our first natural instinct is to put forth the existing content from our TV and movie library. But newer original content for the web is also being produced currently.”

Rajagopalan shared that his OTT service HOOQ, which already has a large presence in the international market, is banking on its large Hollywood movie library as the differentiating factor. “Apart from that we have also identified regional and smaller studios that don’t have a contract with major broadcasters’ networks in India to provide us with fresh content. So ours is an international and regional approach.”

Acknowledging the need to create web only content, instead of banking on existing libraries, Chacko added, “What an audience individually consumes is different social viewing. The content itself needs to be disruptive if it were to survive these initial years of just investment and to break even eventually. Each player will work on its strengths and try everything and anything between micropayments (or pay per view revenue model) to ad-funded content.”

It is obvious from the discussions that there is a long way to go for India to reach a point when these OTT players can reap the optimum benefits of what they are sowing as investment today. Will they be able to make it through the dry years ahead until the infrastructure and country is ready? Is it worth the time and money that they are putting in?

Chacko addressed this with a simple comparison to the eCommerce markets. “Compared to the eCommerce business there is almost no customer acquisition cost when it comes to digital media. What we gain organically is what these eCommerce brands pay millions of dollars for. Therefore, with an almost zero marketing budget one can sustain oneself in the industry as long as one has strong content,” Chacko said.

The panel also pointed out that digital video business paves way for an exponential growth. With better devices and network, the business will grow not just by tens but thousands so it made sense to invest in it.

The moderator then rolled the ball in the panellists court by asking them if their advertisers were buying these arguments that they gave in favour of the OTT/ digital business. The panellists unanimously agreed that media planners and buyers were excited about this newly evolving media. They were happy about giving an alternative to their clients and so were the advertisers, given the measurability and reach the media gave them.

April 4, 2016
How ready is India for the digital disruption?

MUMBAI: The Indian media and entertainment industry is enamoured by the possibilities that the digital world poses for it. Within digital, ‘video’ and ‘mobile’ seem to be most used and often abused words. To tap in and make the most of this ‘digital video’ revolution that the country is set to see in 2016, several small and big players have rolled out or planned VOD or OTT services..

But is India ready for this digital disruption? Have those who are betting high on the success of the video business really taken into consideration the groundwork and infrastructure needed to actually make profit? Moderator and Bloomberg TV India consulting editor Vikram Oza raised these questions at FICCI Frames 2016 during a panel discussion – ‘And the walls came tumbling down : Digital disruption.’ In front of him on the panel were – SPN digital business EVP Uday Sodhi, Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi, HOOQ cofounder and content head Krishnan Rajagopalan, Arre COO Ajay Chacko and Elemental Tecnologies SVP Daniel Marshal – each a pioneer of digital world in his own right.

Within the first fifteen minutes into the discussion, the audience had a good idea of where things stood in the digital video business. “While a fair bit of 3G and 4G is taking off, the industry is still at a nascent stage to make assumptions. Monetization, bandwidth and content needed to fall in place to set the groundwork going,” said Sodhi summing it up.

When posed a query on bandwidth costs and subscription issues, Gandhi gave an optimistic perspective. “Currently the data prices are very high. So much of the consumption behaviour we are seeing will drastically change as the bandwidth opens up and becomes cheaper. We need to aim for a setting when data prices become part of everyone’s utility bill. That is when no one will hesitate from paying for an OTT service.”

Marshal added his take from his experience of the international market and how it played out there. “What I have observed in the US is that there are more users with multiple subscriptions since the combined cost is still less than what people used to pay for their cable subscriptions. If India has to really see the end of this convergence, adaptability and bandwidth needs to be worked on heavily,” he suggested.

Another variable that is a hindrance for digital convergence is the complicated and poor payment gateways. “It is true that in India the present payment gateway options are a major challenge to both the service provider and the consumers. From my experience, a huge part of willing consumers put off payments because of the payment method. It is indeed a big challenge and a part of it is that people are still hesitant to trust their money with online payments. Thus the adoption is lower. TRAI tried to deal with the issue by strengthening the security process in the transaction and sort of got overzealous with it, which is costing the industry in a different way. I would say it will take another 5 years for the payment options to be easy and secure and ready to handle the digital disruption,” Sodhi opined.

With everyone jumping on the mobile video bandwagon and promising an on demand video service, was there a need for the players to differentiate their offerings? After all, according to Google research, the current range of smartphones in the market allowed users to have only few apps before their devices slowed down. While the industry remained a free market, this clearly meant that only few services would survive this tough competition and make their way to the users’ handsets.

To put matters into perspective, Gandhi said, “Currently 85 per cent of the content is owned between the five major TV networks and the two TV studios. The content offered by their OTT players may look homogenous because our first natural instinct is to put forth the existing content from our TV and movie library. But newer original content for the web is also being produced currently.”

Rajagopalan shared that his OTT service HOOQ, which already has a large presence in the international market, is banking on its large Hollywood movie library as the differentiating factor. “Apart from that we have also identified regional and smaller studios that don’t have a contract with major broadcasters’ networks in India to provide us with fresh content. So ours is an international and regional approach.”

Acknowledging the need to create web only content, instead of banking on existing libraries, Chacko added, “What an audience individually consumes is different social viewing. The content itself needs to be disruptive if it were to survive these initial years of just investment and to break even eventually. Each player will work on its strengths and try everything and anything between micropayments (or pay per view revenue model) to ad-funded content.”

It is obvious from the discussions that there is a long way to go for India to reach a point when these OTT players can reap the optimum benefits of what they are sowing as investment today. Will they be able to make it through the dry years ahead until the infrastructure and country is ready? Is it worth the time and money that they are putting in?

Chacko addressed this with a simple comparison to the eCommerce markets. “Compared to the eCommerce business there is almost no customer acquisition cost when it comes to digital media. What we gain organically is what these eCommerce brands pay millions of dollars for. Therefore, with an almost zero marketing budget one can sustain oneself in the industry as long as one has strong content,” Chacko said.

The panel also pointed out that digital video business paves way for an exponential growth. With better devices and network, the business will grow not just by tens but thousands so it made sense to invest in it.

The moderator then rolled the ball in the panellists court by asking them if their advertisers were buying these arguments that they gave in favour of the OTT/ digital business. The panellists unanimously agreed that media planners and buyers were excited about this newly evolving media. They were happy about giving an alternative to their clients and so were the advertisers, given the measurability and reach the media gave them.

April 4, 2016
How will the new breed of content creators fit in the digital space with big daddies around?

MUMBAI: The beauty of digital is that the younger audience can bubble up digital content for the older audience. With videos and internet becoming synonymous with each other, we tend to consume more information in the form of videos in today’s time. Reports say that Indian content gets roughly 7 billion (700 crore) views a month with a watch time of 2 billion (200 crore) hours. And what is driving this massive consumption, but the younger audience? The market is for all age groups, but is largely driven by the youngsters, the millennials. The space has also created a new age of celebrities. Brands are increasingly looking to tie-up with these content creators. The boundaries of broadcast companies, ad agencies, technology companies, music labels, etc., all are morphing into this new medium of entertainment.

Discussing the birth of a ‘New breed of content creators powered by digital’ was a panel comprising of The Viral Fever CEO Arunabh Kumar, Rajshri Entertainment Private Limited MD and CEO Rajjat Barjatiya, Terribly Tiny Tales founder Anuj Gosalia, East India Comedy founder Kunal Rao, Click Digital studios co-founder Anand Doshi and Ping Digital Broadcast co-founder and director for talent and acquisitions Anagha Rajadhyaksha. The session was moderated by Qyuki co-founder and MD Samir Bangara.

With big daddies like Hotstar, VOOT, etc, in the digital space, the question that arises is how is this content going to fit in the space or are they going to get stomped out?

Kumar responded, speaking about his own company, “Obviously there are people sitting with lot of money above us. But the simple difference TVF has is that we started with videos at the time when no one was even watching them. We remain a content company, we wanted to make certain types of shows which no one wanted to produce and hence we started making web series on our own. We wanted to make web series since 2010. We are in love with creating content. The age group of 18-24 is the progressive audience, and they are bored of the stories that come on TV. We still take time and sweat to make something and still get the same amount of joy when someone appreciates it. I don’t think there is any competition. We are still evolving and I don’t think there is any question of competition with the bigger players”.

Barjatiya said, “I think this is a very sweet spot for us. We have been producing films since 1947 and 10 years ago we started acquiring rights for content. And now we produce 3 hours of short form content for the web every day. We are a platform agnostic company and we have chosen to become the product on other platforms. We want to be the product on others’ shelves. I will never launch my own platform. We have 100 distribution partnerships with national and international companies and we are happy with this. We have got 610 billion (6,10,000 crore) views on Youtube.”

When asked about the monetisation model that Rajshri follows, Bharjatiya replied, “Organic ads consumed on a platform like Youtube, make an amount of about 10-20 paise per view depending on various factors which comes up to 55 per cent.” He further revealed that long form of premium content works well for the company. “We are getting more traffic from mobile phones and the ad-rates are also inching up. I have been observing that more and more people are watching content on phones.”

Doshi said, “I think it also depends on the time that you release your video. It also matters. If I release my video when I see a trend, it works more effectively for us. The fill rate also matters in a country like India. Right now we touch 120 million (12 crore) views every month on our network. The concern is that we get 90 per cent traction from mobile. It’s a beautiful scenario and the future is mobile phones but the ad sales are going down.”

Citing an example, Doshi pointed out one of the spoofs of Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo, Bharjatiya claimed the content from Anand, and hence monetized it. So, the money was directed to Bharjatiya while the subscribers remained with Doshi.

When asked about the shift from stand-up comedy to sketch, Rao said, “Our motto is to get people out of cinemas to us. No one reads the ads in newspapers. We wanted people to know that stand-up comedy exits. The objective is to reach out to the maximum people. Initially we had to go to places for our shows, but today we don’t have to go everywhere. Content is content; it does not have to be short or extraordinary. We give out very simple content and have roughly 3,50,000 views on our network.”

The fact that Youtube subscribers cannot be bought or marketed is very well known to all of us. The delivery platforms are blooming up efficiently which is evident by the growing number of views each of the creators gets in a month.

“In India, subscription is always connected with money. The subscribers don’t know the cost involved and hence don’t click that button often”, added Bharjatiya.

“On any OTT platform, you pay first and then watch content. But on Youtube, you can watch content first and then subscribe for it. It’s like giving ‘dakshina’,” said Kumar.

Ping Network basically produces the ‘how to’ videos and fuels search engines. “We are not in the viral business. Our focus is on utility content. As people want to know things every now and then, that is how we have grown. The power of digital is that you are true to your content. If you are pulling out a video, if it’s powerful and is good, the content will definitely work”, said Rajadhyaksha.

Gosalia added, “We give out tweet size stories and currently reach out to 12 ½ million (1.25 crore) people on social media. We have collaborated with a lot of brands which comes out in the forms of images. We work with around 30,000 writers. We also do text content for brands. We are primarily focused on quality, commitment and reachability. Videos are difficult and are completely different for us but they have done well for us in the past. For us to stay in this business where we want to scale stories, we went back to text. We are basically attacking the niche-micro fiction and are taking it global.”

Talking about the money involved, Kumar said, “Way back in 2008, we used to get Rs 20-30,000 for content. The scale has gone up now. The money involved is couple of times more than a TV episode.”

“In this business, passion is more important than money”, concluded Bharjatiya.

With these new breed of content creators powered by digital, content will only evolve and leverage various opportunities in a digital consuming world. It will be interesting to see how the industry meets the talent pool in India over the next few years.

April 4, 2016
How will the new breed of content creators fit in the digital space with big daddies around?

MUMBAI: The beauty of digital is that the younger audience can bubble up digital content for the older audience. With videos and internet becoming synonymous with each other, we tend to consume more information in the form of videos in today’s time. Reports say that Indian content gets roughly 7 billion (700 crore) views a month with a watch time of 2 billion (200 crore) hours. And what is driving this massive consumption, but the younger audience? The market is for all age groups, but is largely driven by the youngsters, the millennials. The space has also created a new age of celebrities. Brands are increasingly looking to tie-up with these content creators. The boundaries of broadcast companies, ad agencies, technology companies, music labels, etc., all are morphing into this new medium of entertainment.

Discussing the birth of a ‘New breed of content creators powered by digital’ was a panel comprising of The Viral Fever CEO Arunabh Kumar, Rajshri Entertainment Private Limited MD and CEO Rajjat Barjatiya, Terribly Tiny Tales founder Anuj Gosalia, East India Comedy founder Kunal Rao, Click Digital studios co-founder Anand Doshi and Ping Digital Broadcast co-founder and director for talent and acquisitions Anagha Rajadhyaksha. The session was moderated by Qyuki co-founder and MD Samir Bangara.

With big daddies like Hotstar, VOOT, etc, in the digital space, the question that arises is how is this content going to fit in the space or are they going to get stomped out?

Kumar responded, speaking about his own company, “Obviously there are people sitting with lot of money above us. But the simple difference TVF has is that we started with videos at the time when no one was even watching them. We remain a content company, we wanted to make certain types of shows which no one wanted to produce and hence we started making web series on our own. We wanted to make web series since 2010. We are in love with creating content. The age group of 18-24 is the progressive audience, and they are bored of the stories that come on TV. We still take time and sweat to make something and still get the same amount of joy when someone appreciates it. I don’t think there is any competition. We are still evolving and I don’t think there is any question of competition with the bigger players”.

Barjatiya said, “I think this is a very sweet spot for us. We have been producing films since 1947 and 10 years ago we started acquiring rights for content. And now we produce 3 hours of short form content for the web every day. We are a platform agnostic company and we have chosen to become the product on other platforms. We want to be the product on others’ shelves. I will never launch my own platform. We have 100 distribution partnerships with national and international companies and we are happy with this. We have got 610 billion (6,10,000 crore) views on Youtube.”

When asked about the monetisation model that Rajshri follows, Bharjatiya replied, “Organic ads consumed on a platform like Youtube, make an amount of about 10-20 paise per view depending on various factors which comes up to 55 per cent.” He further revealed that long form of premium content works well for the company. “We are getting more traffic from mobile phones and the ad-rates are also inching up. I have been observing that more and more people are watching content on phones.”

Doshi said, “I think it also depends on the time that you release your video. It also matters. If I release my video when I see a trend, it works more effectively for us. The fill rate also matters in a country like India. Right now we touch 120 million (12 crore) views every month on our network. The concern is that we get 90 per cent traction from mobile. It’s a beautiful scenario and the future is mobile phones but the ad sales are going down.”

Citing an example, Doshi pointed out one of the spoofs of Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo, Bharjatiya claimed the content from Anand, and hence monetized it. So, the money was directed to Bharjatiya while the subscribers remained with Doshi.

When asked about the shift from stand-up comedy to sketch, Rao said, “Our motto is to get people out of cinemas to us. No one reads the ads in newspapers. We wanted people to know that stand-up comedy exits. The objective is to reach out to the maximum people. Initially we had to go to places for our shows, but today we don’t have to go everywhere. Content is content; it does not have to be short or extraordinary. We give out very simple content and have roughly 3,50,000 views on our network.”

The fact that Youtube subscribers cannot be bought or marketed is very well known to all of us. The delivery platforms are blooming up efficiently which is evident by the growing number of views each of the creators gets in a month.

“In India, subscription is always connected with money. The subscribers don’t know the cost involved and hence don’t click that button often”, added Bharjatiya.

“On any OTT platform, you pay first and then watch content. But on Youtube, you can watch content first and then subscribe for it. It’s like giving ‘dakshina’,” said Kumar.

Ping Network basically produces the ‘how to’ videos and fuels search engines. “We are not in the viral business. Our focus is on utility content. As people want to know things every now and then, that is how we have grown. The power of digital is that you are true to your content. If you are pulling out a video, if it’s powerful and is good, the content will definitely work”, said Rajadhyaksha.

Gosalia added, “We give out tweet size stories and currently reach out to 12 ½ million (1.25 crore) people on social media. We have collaborated with a lot of brands which comes out in the forms of images. We work with around 30,000 writers. We also do text content for brands. We are primarily focused on quality, commitment and reachability. Videos are difficult and are completely different for us but they have done well for us in the past. For us to stay in this business where we want to scale stories, we went back to text. We are basically attacking the niche-micro fiction and are taking it global.”

Talking about the money involved, Kumar said, “Way back in 2008, we used to get Rs 20-30,000 for content. The scale has gone up now. The money involved is couple of times more than a TV episode.”

“In this business, passion is more important than money”, concluded Bharjatiya.

With these new breed of content creators powered by digital, content will only evolve and leverage various opportunities in a digital consuming world. It will be interesting to see how the industry meets the talent pool in India over the next few years.

April 4, 2016
Is digital taking over print?

MUMBAI: With the growing number of avenues available for news consumption in India, viewers are often puzzled about which source to trust. The explosion of digital, television and print media has changed the way of news consumption.

And discussing how news had moved avenues with changing time were Indian Express whole time director Anant Goenka, BBC World News television presenter Ros Atkins, Extentia Information Technology CEO Umeed Kothavala, Inshorts founder Azhar Iqubal, The Wire founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan, Zee Media Group CEO Bhaskar Das and CNN International chief New Delhi bureau Ravi Agarwal. Moderating the session was MxM India editor-in-chief Pradyuman Maheshwari.

Over the years, we have seen news moving from print to magazines to TV and now to digital platforms. Shedding some light, Zee Media’s Das said, “That the market is supposed to move, is a basic axiom. The problem that the majority of the houses are facing is that they are stuck to one business model. With digital, there are multiple ways of making money. Monetisation moves from format to format. In the end, it’s not about the medium. You can’t compare a conventional way of system with a realistic model. There are four monsters like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon. They make money. There will be monopolistic tendencies.”

Indian Express’s Anant added, “Digital has arrived. Our revenues have increased over four years and I see print is going to be there for a long time. I can say that Indian Express can survive digitally with the same reportage and structure. But I think in digital you can’t just stick to advertising. That will not be much. You will have to get audiences to pay for content.

“Every story is different, and depending on the story, we file digital first or print first. The best investigative story we like to give to print first; exclusivity is a one minute word. At the moment we find it is exclusive on the web only for a minute. Also if it is time critical to break the story, then we do break it on web”, he explained further.

Das said, “The audiences that consume newspapers today they were born before 1970 and are not post 1990 born. At the same time, most of the stars want to see their names in newspapers.

The Wire’s Varadarajan added, “With digital the ability to tell stories has enhanced due to the enhanced interactivity. The viewers can consume content according to their convenience on digital platforms. Every TV channel and newspaper today recognises digital as the future. But the old adage of dollars for print, dimes for digital and pennies for mobile still holds true for most organisations.”

Inshorts Azhar Iqbal when asked about how his news application was working and what was its future replied, “We are not making any money as of now. I don’t know how are we going to perform in the future. We are focused on ‘time is money’. As long as we can attract eyeballs, we will be able to monetize”.

Adding, Extentia Information Technology’s Umeed Kothavala said, “Digital and technology have changed the context of consumption. Along with monetization, organisations also need to keep track of the growing power of social media, citizen journalism and also the fact that there are many more options for people to get their news from”.

Anant took on Inshorts Azhar Iqubal, making his displeasure known at the latter copying news from Indian Express without the media group’s consent and rehashing it into a 60 word article for Inshorts’ usage.

On the entertainment front, Varadarajan commented how a majority of entertainment news in the print sector was paid for by artistes and hence they would always prefer their exclusive interviews to be printed in the print medium rather than digital.

CNN’s Agrawal said, ““Digital news is the present, not just the future. It is the present and is very important for us. CNN International looks at providing content globally. We don’t have a print medium. The news that we cover is from a global perspective and the information can be accessed by all the people irrespective of the geography. We as an organisation think of being the first to put out the news. We then decide on how news can be distributed across the various delivery platforms.”

BBC’s Atkins pointed out that if BBC didn’t provide relevant news to the audience, they would not come to it. “On my show BBC Outsource, if there is a credible story, say from CNN, I will show it to my audience. Given that social media is expanding and that news can be accessed through it, we have to provide credible content to the audience.”

The panellists also discussed the importance of maintaining the same level of credibility and gate-keeping standards on a digital platform as on traditional print or television platforms.

Voicing his opinion, Varadarajan said, “There are two things which are important – credibility and reliability. One should always try to achieve both these elements. If you can’t pick on one, than you should always give preference to credibility”.

“We get higher fee from most of our advertisers because the news that we are providing is credible and they know this”, added Das.

When television came in, the pundits said that it was the end of print. When roll out of the internet, they said that print and television would not be able to compete. All the mediums have so far been able to co-exist, and even grow. With so many upcoming digital avenues, what will be interesting to see is how print will retain for itself its space in the ecosystem and how digital will be a game changer that it is already has become.

April 1, 2016
Is digital taking over print?

MUMBAI: With the growing number of avenues available for news consumption in India, viewers are often puzzled about which source to trust. The explosion of digital, television and print media has changed the way of news consumption.

And discussing how news had moved avenues with changing time were Indian Express whole time director Anant Goenka, BBC World News television presenter Ros Atkins, Extentia Information Technology CEO Umeed Kothavala, Inshorts founder Azhar Iqubal, The Wire founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan, Zee Media Group CEO Bhaskar Das and CNN International chief New Delhi bureau Ravi Agarwal. Moderating the session was MxM India editor-in-chief Pradyuman Maheshwari.

Over the years, we have seen news moving from print to magazines to TV and now to digital platforms. Shedding some light, Zee Media’s Das said, “That the market is supposed to move, is a basic axiom. The problem that the majority of the houses are facing is that they are stuck to one business model. With digital, there are multiple ways of making money. Monetisation moves from format to format. In the end, it’s not about the medium. You can’t compare a conventional way of system with a realistic model. There are four monsters like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon. They make money. There will be monopolistic tendencies.”

Indian Express’s Anant added, “Digital has arrived. Our revenues have increased over four years and I see print is going to be there for a long time. I can say that Indian Express can survive digitally with the same reportage and structure. But I think in digital you can’t just stick to advertising. That will not be much. You will have to get audiences to pay for content.

“Every story is different, and depending on the story, we file digital first or print first. The best investigative story we like to give to print first; exclusivity is a one minute word. At the moment we find it is exclusive on the web only for a minute. Also if it is time critical to break the story, then we do break it on web”, he explained further.

Das said, “The audiences that consume newspapers today they were born before 1970 and are not post 1990 born. At the same time, most of the stars want to see their names in newspapers.

The Wire’s Varadarajan added, “With digital the ability to tell stories has enhanced due to the enhanced interactivity. The viewers can consume content according to their convenience on digital platforms. Every TV channel and newspaper today recognises digital as the future. But the old adage of dollars for print, dimes for digital and pennies for mobile still holds true for most organisations.”

Inshorts Azhar Iqbal when asked about how his news application was working and what was its future replied, “We are not making any money as of now. I don’t know how are we going to perform in the future. We are focused on ‘time is money’. As long as we can attract eyeballs, we will be able to monetize”.

Adding, Extentia Information Technology’s Umeed Kothavala said, “Digital and technology have changed the context of consumption. Along with monetization, organisations also need to keep track of the growing power of social media, citizen journalism and also the fact that there are many more options for people to get their news from”.

Anant took on Inshorts Azhar Iqubal, making his displeasure known at the latter copying news from Indian Express without the media group’s consent and rehashing it into a 60 word article for Inshorts’ usage.

On the entertainment front, Varadarajan commented how a majority of entertainment news in the print sector was paid for by artistes and hence they would always prefer their exclusive interviews to be printed in the print medium rather than digital.

CNN’s Agrawal said, ““Digital news is the present, not just the future. It is the present and is very important for us. CNN International looks at providing content globally. We don’t have a print medium. The news that we cover is from a global perspective and the information can be accessed by all the people irrespective of the geography. We as an organisation think of being the first to put out the news. We then decide on how news can be distributed across the various delivery platforms.”

BBC’s Atkins pointed out that if BBC didn’t provide relevant news to the audience, they would not come to it. “On my show BBC Outsource, if there is a credible story, say from CNN, I will show it to my audience. Given that social media is expanding and that news can be accessed through it, we have to provide credible content to the audience.”

The panellists also discussed the importance of maintaining the same level of credibility and gate-keeping standards on a digital platform as on traditional print or television platforms.

Voicing his opinion, Varadarajan said, “There are two things which are important – credibility and reliability. One should always try to achieve both these elements. If you can’t pick on one, than you should always give preference to credibility”.

“We get higher fee from most of our advertisers because the news that we are providing is credible and they know this”, added Das.

When television came in, the pundits said that it was the end of print. When roll out of the internet, they said that print and television would not be able to compete. All the mediums have so far been able to co-exist, and even grow. With so many upcoming digital avenues, what will be interesting to see is how print will retain for itself its space in the ecosystem and how digital will be a game changer that it is already has become.

April 1, 2016