ITV

Category: Year Enders

  • MAM 2016: When marketing, advertising hopped on to Digital India

    MAM 2016: When marketing, advertising hopped on to Digital India

    ‘Live streaming’, ‘Video on demand’, ‘data crunching’, ‘branded content’, ‘geo-targeting’, ‘digital measurement’, ‘native advertising’, ‘programmatic’, ‘digitisation’, ‘demonetisation’….2016 has generated enough buzzwords for the Indian marketer. So much so that it is hard to place one’s finger on that one thing that defined 2016’s marketing trends. Whatever be that theme, 2016 was definitely a year of disruption.

    Certainly it was disruptions galore. Disruption in how the audience consumes content (Hotstar, Netflix anyone?); disruption in how TV is viewed with major push towards digitisation; disruption in what content advertisers pay for (HUL’s Brooke Bond Red Label and the Six Pack Band, Tata Tiago driving TVF’s Tripling); disruption in media planning and buying (Amagi’s Mix); disruption in how we use money (payment banks and e-wallets) and finally disruption in pricing.

    One prime differentiator for brands this year was pricing or even no- pricing! The year started with the popular debate on Net Neutrality sparked by Airtel Zero and Facebook’s internet.org. Both had ambitious plans to provide internet across India at zero cost to preferential consumers. These projects couldn’t take off without blessings from TRAI, but differential pricing was also a major weapon used by OTT players in their race to be India’s primary SVOD service.

    Not to mention Baba Ramdev-pioneered Patanjali Ayurveda that gave global and incumbent Indian FMCG giants sleepless nights with its highly competitive pricing, even taking over other major advertiser by setting aside Rs 300 crore or Rs. 3 billion in ad spends. The nationalistic flavour that dominated the year further added to the brand’s marketing success.

    Patanjali wasn’t the only brand that cashed in on India’s new found nationalism in 2016. Another good example is Bajaj V, Bajaj Automobile’s latest launch in the 150 cc category, a part of steel used in which came from the now-decommissioned Indian navy’s warship INS Vikrant. The long-running and innovative marketing campaign, conceptualised and experimented with long-form content by Leo Burnett, picked up several medals in this year’s awards season.

    Nationalism aside, one of the major disruptors that the Indian marketers had to keep up with in 2016 was the Indian government itself. With some 60-odd policy changes throughout the year across various sectors, with remarkable execution time, the government kept the nation — and the markers — on their toes. Demonetisation of high value currency notes being the latest. While one would expect government and its departments to take several months to act on a single policy change, the PM Modi-led government remained exceptionally pro- active throughout 2016 — some critics dubbed it extremely destructive, but that’s another story — including the Star-Up India initiative that would further pump out a new breed of digital brands by 2017.

    ‘Marketing isn’t magic. There is science to it.’ This famous quote by Hubspot’s social media scientist and award winning marketer Dan Zarrella was felt strongly in 2016. Marketing in India saw a major facelift with increasing stress on technology. Whether it was the rise of messenger apps over social media, FB opening its door to easy and convenient live streaming, chat bots fronting the direct marketing initiatives by new age services, drones becoming the messengers of communication, media agencies putting more emphasis on data procurement and trend mapping through new tools, or AR/VR changing the ball game altogether…. ‘martech’ has taken a leap of faith worth a few decades in just a year. And for once, India wasn’t lagging at the tail end of this disruption. In some cases it was actually in the eye of the storm.

    Social media and technology giant Facebook recently announced India as its second most important market after the US and has in fact invested heavily in several India- only initiatives for both its users and brands. The result is that several brands, which were solely dependent on YouTube for the ‘digital video’ aspect of their marketing mix are now taking Facebook seriously. Although YouTube remains the market leader in digital video ad spends, 2016 Facebook has drawn significant attention from brands thanks to the advanced targeting options and different format options it offers with its video service (360 degree, live video, etc). Given the major setbacks that Facebook faced in this market, first with internet.org and then its mistake with measurement figures, this positive acceptance by brands was a major plus.

    2016 also saw several major Indian brands dabbling in Virtual Reality. Tata Motor’s virtual desk drive through mass distributed Google cardboards is a classic example. While innovations brought freshness in the sector, it has only set the stage for a more substantial use of VR/AR for marketing in 2017.

    When it comes to the start-ups and e-commerce world, the general trend was that of austerity. With cash crunch in the investment world and investors asking to recheck acquisition costs and several start-ups nearing their re-evaluation period, many companies saw themselves moving from GMVs to NPS to measure their value. With their burn rates going down, ecommerce giants couldn’t continue their marketing blitzkrieg as they did in 2015.

    While 2016 remained loyal to the ad spend estimates, third quarter saw a major fall in advertising spends across mediums following marketing budget cuts in major FMCG brands in the aftermath of demonetisation. Advertising was the first sector to be impacted due to this government move. Though the effect was felt across the whole medium, cut in television advertising spends accounted to almost Rs 600 crore (Rs. 6 billion) — some estimates put it as high as 2500 crore or Rs 250 billion. Print and out of home were the second most impacted segments. At the cost of over-generalising, the industry has seen a drop of almost 25 per cent in advertising spends in the current quarter. Advertising is also likely to be the last sector to return to normalcy as long as brands continue to treat it as expenditure and not an investment.

    Though comparatively digital advertising suffered less due to demonetisation, the digital video saw a major setback, while SEO and other forms of digital advertising managed to stay afloat. Nonetheless, it is imperative that most major agencies would revise their advertising forecast for 2016- 2017 estimates factoring in demonetisation.

    It goes without saying that digital became one of the primary mediums of advertising for brands in 2016 with traditional agencies planning major account with the ‘digital first’ as a concept. The rapidly growing digital advertising spends got a major boost as social media planning became a buzzword. Industry experts and senior planners are hopeful that this trend will continue through 2017 with the availability of cheaper and faster data across India. The ongoing dialogue of a cashless economy saw digital brands such as payment banks and e-wallets emerge as a major spender. The government’s push towards cashless transaction of money is most likely to give rise to a new breed of digital brands, which is good news for the digital advertising world.

    However, television continued to be the most preferred medium; especially with brands going after maximum reach and engagement. Television in India proved its efficiency as an advertising medium, thus ruling ad spends. But, major media management agencies such as GroupM and Dentsu Aegis Network are moving towards ‘video planning and buying’. Being platform-agnostic is the way forward.

    Overall, 2016 started with a good pace but slowed down for the advertising world towards the second quarter. The industry took a major hit in the third quarter and is yet to recover from the demon(etisation) bit. While media gurus are bullish on long-term effects of demonetisation, they don’t have high hopes of the industry returning to normalcy anytime before the end of the financial year.

    While the advertising world awaits ‘achhe din’ (a period of prosperity) in 2017, it bid adieu to 2016, the year when marketing and advertising leap-frogged into ‘Digital India’.

  • MAM 2016: When marketing, advertising hopped on to Digital India

    MAM 2016: When marketing, advertising hopped on to Digital India

    ‘Live streaming’, ‘Video on demand’, ‘data crunching’, ‘branded content’, ‘geo-targeting’, ‘digital measurement’, ‘native advertising’, ‘programmatic’, ‘digitisation’, ‘demonetisation’….2016 has generated enough buzzwords for the Indian marketer. So much so that it is hard to place one’s finger on that one thing that defined 2016’s marketing trends. Whatever be that theme, 2016 was definitely a year of disruption.

    Certainly it was disruptions galore. Disruption in how the audience consumes content (Hotstar, Netflix anyone?); disruption in how TV is viewed with major push towards digitisation; disruption in what content advertisers pay for (HUL’s Brooke Bond Red Label and the Six Pack Band, Tata Tiago driving TVF’s Tripling); disruption in media planning and buying (Amagi’s Mix); disruption in how we use money (payment banks and e-wallets) and finally disruption in pricing.

    One prime differentiator for brands this year was pricing or even no- pricing! The year started with the popular debate on Net Neutrality sparked by Airtel Zero and Facebook’s internet.org. Both had ambitious plans to provide internet across India at zero cost to preferential consumers. These projects couldn’t take off without blessings from TRAI, but differential pricing was also a major weapon used by OTT players in their race to be India’s primary SVOD service.

    Not to mention Baba Ramdev-pioneered Patanjali Ayurveda that gave global and incumbent Indian FMCG giants sleepless nights with its highly competitive pricing, even taking over other major advertiser by setting aside Rs 300 crore or Rs. 3 billion in ad spends. The nationalistic flavour that dominated the year further added to the brand’s marketing success.

    Patanjali wasn’t the only brand that cashed in on India’s new found nationalism in 2016. Another good example is Bajaj V, Bajaj Automobile’s latest launch in the 150 cc category, a part of steel used in which came from the now-decommissioned Indian navy’s warship INS Vikrant. The long-running and innovative marketing campaign, conceptualised and experimented with long-form content by Leo Burnett, picked up several medals in this year’s awards season.

    Nationalism aside, one of the major disruptors that the Indian marketers had to keep up with in 2016 was the Indian government itself. With some 60-odd policy changes throughout the year across various sectors, with remarkable execution time, the government kept the nation — and the markers — on their toes. Demonetisation of high value currency notes being the latest. While one would expect government and its departments to take several months to act on a single policy change, the PM Modi-led government remained exceptionally pro- active throughout 2016 — some critics dubbed it extremely destructive, but that’s another story — including the Star-Up India initiative that would further pump out a new breed of digital brands by 2017.

    ‘Marketing isn’t magic. There is science to it.’ This famous quote by Hubspot’s social media scientist and award winning marketer Dan Zarrella was felt strongly in 2016. Marketing in India saw a major facelift with increasing stress on technology. Whether it was the rise of messenger apps over social media, FB opening its door to easy and convenient live streaming, chat bots fronting the direct marketing initiatives by new age services, drones becoming the messengers of communication, media agencies putting more emphasis on data procurement and trend mapping through new tools, or AR/VR changing the ball game altogether…. ‘martech’ has taken a leap of faith worth a few decades in just a year. And for once, India wasn’t lagging at the tail end of this disruption. In some cases it was actually in the eye of the storm.

    Social media and technology giant Facebook recently announced India as its second most important market after the US and has in fact invested heavily in several India- only initiatives for both its users and brands. The result is that several brands, which were solely dependent on YouTube for the ‘digital video’ aspect of their marketing mix are now taking Facebook seriously. Although YouTube remains the market leader in digital video ad spends, 2016 Facebook has drawn significant attention from brands thanks to the advanced targeting options and different format options it offers with its video service (360 degree, live video, etc). Given the major setbacks that Facebook faced in this market, first with internet.org and then its mistake with measurement figures, this positive acceptance by brands was a major plus.

    2016 also saw several major Indian brands dabbling in Virtual Reality. Tata Motor’s virtual desk drive through mass distributed Google cardboards is a classic example. While innovations brought freshness in the sector, it has only set the stage for a more substantial use of VR/AR for marketing in 2017.

    When it comes to the start-ups and e-commerce world, the general trend was that of austerity. With cash crunch in the investment world and investors asking to recheck acquisition costs and several start-ups nearing their re-evaluation period, many companies saw themselves moving from GMVs to NPS to measure their value. With their burn rates going down, ecommerce giants couldn’t continue their marketing blitzkrieg as they did in 2015.

    While 2016 remained loyal to the ad spend estimates, third quarter saw a major fall in advertising spends across mediums following marketing budget cuts in major FMCG brands in the aftermath of demonetisation. Advertising was the first sector to be impacted due to this government move. Though the effect was felt across the whole medium, cut in television advertising spends accounted to almost Rs 600 crore (Rs. 6 billion) — some estimates put it as high as 2500 crore or Rs 250 billion. Print and out of home were the second most impacted segments. At the cost of over-generalising, the industry has seen a drop of almost 25 per cent in advertising spends in the current quarter. Advertising is also likely to be the last sector to return to normalcy as long as brands continue to treat it as expenditure and not an investment.

    Though comparatively digital advertising suffered less due to demonetisation, the digital video saw a major setback, while SEO and other forms of digital advertising managed to stay afloat. Nonetheless, it is imperative that most major agencies would revise their advertising forecast for 2016- 2017 estimates factoring in demonetisation.

    It goes without saying that digital became one of the primary mediums of advertising for brands in 2016 with traditional agencies planning major account with the ‘digital first’ as a concept. The rapidly growing digital advertising spends got a major boost as social media planning became a buzzword. Industry experts and senior planners are hopeful that this trend will continue through 2017 with the availability of cheaper and faster data across India. The ongoing dialogue of a cashless economy saw digital brands such as payment banks and e-wallets emerge as a major spender. The government’s push towards cashless transaction of money is most likely to give rise to a new breed of digital brands, which is good news for the digital advertising world.

    However, television continued to be the most preferred medium; especially with brands going after maximum reach and engagement. Television in India proved its efficiency as an advertising medium, thus ruling ad spends. But, major media management agencies such as GroupM and Dentsu Aegis Network are moving towards ‘video planning and buying’. Being platform-agnostic is the way forward.

    Overall, 2016 started with a good pace but slowed down for the advertising world towards the second quarter. The industry took a major hit in the third quarter and is yet to recover from the demon(etisation) bit. While media gurus are bullish on long-term effects of demonetisation, they don’t have high hopes of the industry returning to normalcy anytime before the end of the financial year.

    While the advertising world awaits ‘achhe din’ (a period of prosperity) in 2017, it bid adieu to 2016, the year when marketing and advertising leap-frogged into ‘Digital India’.

  • Sports TV 2016: Digital explosion, player consolidation & confusion

    Sports TV 2016: Digital explosion, player consolidation & confusion

    2016 was a roller-coaster for Indian sports in the truest sense. It was akin to a Bollywood pot-boiler of the country’s sportspersons bringing cheer and applause in various disciplines, including Rio Olympics, to melodrama and suspense of wrestler Narsingh Yadav’s doping issue and whether he or Sushil would represent India to superb action on and off the field (off the field ones involving mostly our politician-administrators and their disdain for rules of the games) to romance to multiple climaxes in a game-changing year that could well herald Indian sports broadcasting becoming a two-horse show with digital media piggy-back riding sports in general.

    The year began on a strong note with Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) joining hands with majority Walt Disney-owned ESPN to launch two new English channels, Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD. The channels started broadcasting on 17 January 2016 with the Australian Open and going on to telecast several high profile and popular sporting events, both Indian and international, throughout the year. The co-branded Sony-ESPN channels replaced Sony KIX.

    Sony’s bouquet of sports channels (Sony Six, Sony Six HD, Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD) also broadcast the Euro Cup, one of the hottest sporting properties and the second most followed event in the football fraternity after the World Cup. The numbers were good with a league phase match between Italy and Spain garnering as much as 1.7 million impressions on BARC ratings. A quarter-final match between Poland and Portugal, the eventual winners, managed 290,000 impressions. The whole tournament totted up a cumulative TV audience of 62.7 million viewers . The final between Portugal and France witnessed 12.4 million Indian viewers, reaching a peak between 1:00 AM to 1:30 AM on 11 July 2016 with 7.4 million viewers. Kolkata notched up the highest percentage (19.3 per cent) of total viewership followed by Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Aizwal.

    For SPNI, which promoted the event extensively and started selling ad inventory six months before the tournament began at a fairly high rate (Rs 250,000 for a 10-second spot) , it was a positive sign for the future of football broadcasts in the Indian market as such rates were unheard of three to four years ago. That Sony was building up to a climax became clear later in the year.

    Setting rest to speculations, Sony Pictures Networks announced on 31 August 2016 that it had entered into definitive agreement with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) to acquire the Ten Sports network in a deal worth $385 million. Owned by Taj Television, the distribution arm of ZEEL,TEN Sports operated five channels— TEN 1, TEN 2, TEN 3, TEN Golf HD and TEN 1 HD.

    As and when the acquisition is completed— it is subject to regulatory approvals — SPNI’s bouquet of sports channels will be the biggest in India, heralding not only consolidation in a fragmented sports market, but also making the Indian sports broadcast realm a two-horse race (Star India on one side and Sony-ESPN combine on the other) as Nimbus Sports with two channels and few premier events rights (French Open for one) remains a comparatively small player.

    The other big gun in the sports arena, Star India added more channels to its sports-channel stable with the mid-July launch of Star Sports Select HD 1 and Select HD 2. The channels will not only widen the Star Sports bouquet, but would also add marketing fire-power to Star India as the new channels were launched to exclusively offer Premier League, Bundesliga, Tennis Grand Slams and Formula 1. What makes the sports scene exciting is that Star India has sunk not only billions of dollars in acquiring strong sporting properties, including rights of Indian cricket, but is also building new properties like India Soccer League and Pro-Kabaddi for both men and women.

    But cricket ruled the Indian hearts of Indian fans keeping them on tenterhooks for on and off the field activities. The most successful Indian league, the Indian Premier League or IPL, despite criticism revolving around it becoming stale, continued to rule the waves with addition of two new teams and Vivo coming on board as the title sponsor in a deal estimated to be worth Rs. 2 billion or Rs. 200 crore, marking a 25 per cent increase in what PepsiCo paid earlier for a five-year deal.

    According to a few media reports, IPL earned close to Rs 2,500 crore or Rs. 250 billion in revenues, which included TV and digital rights, teams’ sponsorships, ticket sales and merchandising. On social media too, IPL made just the right amount of noise, but it lagged behind last season’s buzz, according to media firm Maxus’ MESH report on the IPL. Overall, IPL2016 generated 3.1 million mentions throughout the tournament in 2016. While IPL 2016 lagged behind in mentions throughout the tournament as against IPL2015, the final week of this season saw a jump of 74 per cent in conversations.

    On the TV platform, IPL continued setting new trends. 54 per cent of the total Indian audience remained glued to the event on pay television. Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad were the best markets in terms of TV viewing, cumulatively reaching 361 million people. The final, played between Sunsrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore, was the most viewed match of the season; getting about 44.68 million impressions. Summed across the five channels over five weeks, the total viewership stood at 1.02 billion BARC impressions, one of the highest-ever in Indian television history.

    Year 2016 also saw the rise of `other alternative’ sports or those disciplines that can be kept in a tray where non-cricket and non-tennis games are kept. Pro-Kabaddi League came up with two editions this year. The first edition of the league saw a rise of 36 percent in terms of TV viewership compared to last year. The event was beamed on five channels – Star Gold, Star Sports 2 and 3, Plus Suvarna and Maa Movies, apart from the digital platform of Hotstar, which also saw a 33 percent growth in terms of ‘total minutes viewed’ over the first 11 days of Season 3.

    The fourth season of the Pro-Kabaddi League or PKL also happened in 2016. The ratings showed a growth pattern, making PKL one of the prime sporting properties in the Indian market. Star Sports said that the league had seen a cumulative growth of 51 per cent, regularly posting 10 million average impressions that were about 2.3 times higher than last year, turning a rural sport into a cult hit. Time for Bharat to take a bow!

    A fairly good show by the likes of pro boxing matches featuring India’s Vijender Singh, Indian Badminton League, ISL and Pro Wrestling League convinced sportspersons, event managers and advertisers that if properly packaged non-cricket sports too can attract viewership, audiences in stadia and generate revenues for all stakeholders.

    The year also witnessed the rise of the digital platform, in general, and marketing tactics by them to further increase penetration riding on the craze for popular sports in India. For example, Hotstar bought the digital rights of IPL last year to push its boundaries. While 35 million people had watched the IPL play-offs in the 2015 season, the numbers swelled remarkably in 2016 reaching 80 million. It would be quite safe to predict that there were a billion views on the digital platform this season for sporting events.

    Throughout the year, Hotstar’s premium services saw a huge drive to add new members. The registration was kept fairly simple and all major football leagues in Europe and Germany were broadcast on the digital platform. Cricket ODI matches and Tests on Star Sports were broadcast with an average delay of about five minutes, which garnered a lot of traction and spurred downloads of the app.

    With Sony LIV giving good competition with El Clasico and other events, it seems popular sports can actually drive the growth of digital platforms, especially subscription-based OTT services. The total watch time on OTT platforms in 2016 went up by 60 percent, driven also by the fact newcomer Reliance Jio started giving away the Hotstar app free to its subscribers.

    Proliferation of HD services too (mostly separately and differently priced for consumers), like OTT platforms, joined the gravy train trying to entice viewers through sporting events. For example, Indian fans of the English Premier League were in for a surprise when Star Sports announced that Indians will not be able to watch the matches beyond 31 October 2016; they would have to perforce sign up for the Star Sports HD channel package, which included Star Sports Select HD1 and HD2.

    With the arrival of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as players with huge fan-bases and forever-at-loggerheads managers Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, Star knew the Indian following would not diminish — and they were not disappointed. If a consumer subscribed to all the sports channels in HD on a DTH platform, the package would cost approximately Rs. 700 per month. Many ardent non-cricket fans chose the high ticket option, while the remaining moved over to the digital platform as a significant number of live sports events were watched on Hotstar where the premium service cost Rs199 per month.

    However, one of the many climaxes, which added to the roller-coaster ride of sports broadcasting in India, involved the sports administrators. BCCI’s continuing face-off with the Supreme Court-mandated Lodha Committee recommendations on proposed clean-up of cricket — buffeted by allegations of match-fixing, conflicts of interests and brazen politicking — could pose a question mark on cricket matches organised by BCCI and their eventual telecasts.

    A shadow has even been cast over the 10th edition of IPL too. If the BCCI and Supreme Court don’t come to an amicable solution on former’s defiance and the latter’s hardening of stance, IPL future could be hazy having cascading effects on issues like broadcast rights and on some stakeholders like SPNI, Star India and team franchises who all have sunk in billions of Indian rupees in the juggernaut called IPL and India cricket.

    The year may have come to an end, but sports promises to continue providing more excitement. As they say, the match ain’t over till it is over.

  • Sports TV 2016: Digital explosion, player consolidation & confusion

    Sports TV 2016: Digital explosion, player consolidation & confusion

    2016 was a roller-coaster for Indian sports in the truest sense. It was akin to a Bollywood pot-boiler of the country’s sportspersons bringing cheer and applause in various disciplines, including Rio Olympics, to melodrama and suspense of wrestler Narsingh Yadav’s doping issue and whether he or Sushil would represent India to superb action on and off the field (off the field ones involving mostly our politician-administrators and their disdain for rules of the games) to romance to multiple climaxes in a game-changing year that could well herald Indian sports broadcasting becoming a two-horse show with digital media piggy-back riding sports in general.

    The year began on a strong note with Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) joining hands with majority Walt Disney-owned ESPN to launch two new English channels, Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD. The channels started broadcasting on 17 January 2016 with the Australian Open and going on to telecast several high profile and popular sporting events, both Indian and international, throughout the year. The co-branded Sony-ESPN channels replaced Sony KIX.

    Sony’s bouquet of sports channels (Sony Six, Sony Six HD, Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD) also broadcast the Euro Cup, one of the hottest sporting properties and the second most followed event in the football fraternity after the World Cup. The numbers were good with a league phase match between Italy and Spain garnering as much as 1.7 million impressions on BARC ratings. A quarter-final match between Poland and Portugal, the eventual winners, managed 290,000 impressions. The whole tournament totted up a cumulative TV audience of 62.7 million viewers . The final between Portugal and France witnessed 12.4 million Indian viewers, reaching a peak between 1:00 AM to 1:30 AM on 11 July 2016 with 7.4 million viewers. Kolkata notched up the highest percentage (19.3 per cent) of total viewership followed by Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Aizwal.

    For SPNI, which promoted the event extensively and started selling ad inventory six months before the tournament began at a fairly high rate (Rs 250,000 for a 10-second spot) , it was a positive sign for the future of football broadcasts in the Indian market as such rates were unheard of three to four years ago. That Sony was building up to a climax became clear later in the year.

    Setting rest to speculations, Sony Pictures Networks announced on 31 August 2016 that it had entered into definitive agreement with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) to acquire the Ten Sports network in a deal worth $385 million. Owned by Taj Television, the distribution arm of ZEEL,TEN Sports operated five channels— TEN 1, TEN 2, TEN 3, TEN Golf HD and TEN 1 HD.

    As and when the acquisition is completed— it is subject to regulatory approvals — SPNI’s bouquet of sports channels will be the biggest in India, heralding not only consolidation in a fragmented sports market, but also making the Indian sports broadcast realm a two-horse race (Star India on one side and Sony-ESPN combine on the other) as Nimbus Sports with two channels and few premier events rights (French Open for one) remains a comparatively small player.

    The other big gun in the sports arena, Star India added more channels to its sports-channel stable with the mid-July launch of Star Sports Select HD 1 and Select HD 2. The channels will not only widen the Star Sports bouquet, but would also add marketing fire-power to Star India as the new channels were launched to exclusively offer Premier League, Bundesliga, Tennis Grand Slams and Formula 1. What makes the sports scene exciting is that Star India has sunk not only billions of dollars in acquiring strong sporting properties, including rights of Indian cricket, but is also building new properties like India Soccer League and Pro-Kabaddi for both men and women.

    But cricket ruled the Indian hearts of Indian fans keeping them on tenterhooks for on and off the field activities. The most successful Indian league, the Indian Premier League or IPL, despite criticism revolving around it becoming stale, continued to rule the waves with addition of two new teams and Vivo coming on board as the title sponsor in a deal estimated to be worth Rs. 2 billion or Rs. 200 crore, marking a 25 per cent increase in what PepsiCo paid earlier for a five-year deal.

    According to a few media reports, IPL earned close to Rs 2,500 crore or Rs. 250 billion in revenues, which included TV and digital rights, teams’ sponsorships, ticket sales and merchandising. On social media too, IPL made just the right amount of noise, but it lagged behind last season’s buzz, according to media firm Maxus’ MESH report on the IPL. Overall, IPL2016 generated 3.1 million mentions throughout the tournament in 2016. While IPL 2016 lagged behind in mentions throughout the tournament as against IPL2015, the final week of this season saw a jump of 74 per cent in conversations.

    On the TV platform, IPL continued setting new trends. 54 per cent of the total Indian audience remained glued to the event on pay television. Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad were the best markets in terms of TV viewing, cumulatively reaching 361 million people. The final, played between Sunsrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore, was the most viewed match of the season; getting about 44.68 million impressions. Summed across the five channels over five weeks, the total viewership stood at 1.02 billion BARC impressions, one of the highest-ever in Indian television history.

    Year 2016 also saw the rise of `other alternative’ sports or those disciplines that can be kept in a tray where non-cricket and non-tennis games are kept. Pro-Kabaddi League came up with two editions this year. The first edition of the league saw a rise of 36 percent in terms of TV viewership compared to last year. The event was beamed on five channels – Star Gold, Star Sports 2 and 3, Plus Suvarna and Maa Movies, apart from the digital platform of Hotstar, which also saw a 33 percent growth in terms of ‘total minutes viewed’ over the first 11 days of Season 3.

    The fourth season of the Pro-Kabaddi League or PKL also happened in 2016. The ratings showed a growth pattern, making PKL one of the prime sporting properties in the Indian market. Star Sports said that the league had seen a cumulative growth of 51 per cent, regularly posting 10 million average impressions that were about 2.3 times higher than last year, turning a rural sport into a cult hit. Time for Bharat to take a bow!

    A fairly good show by the likes of pro boxing matches featuring India’s Vijender Singh, Indian Badminton League, ISL and Pro Wrestling League convinced sportspersons, event managers and advertisers that if properly packaged non-cricket sports too can attract viewership, audiences in stadia and generate revenues for all stakeholders.

    The year also witnessed the rise of the digital platform, in general, and marketing tactics by them to further increase penetration riding on the craze for popular sports in India. For example, Hotstar bought the digital rights of IPL last year to push its boundaries. While 35 million people had watched the IPL play-offs in the 2015 season, the numbers swelled remarkably in 2016 reaching 80 million. It would be quite safe to predict that there were a billion views on the digital platform this season for sporting events.

    Throughout the year, Hotstar’s premium services saw a huge drive to add new members. The registration was kept fairly simple and all major football leagues in Europe and Germany were broadcast on the digital platform. Cricket ODI matches and Tests on Star Sports were broadcast with an average delay of about five minutes, which garnered a lot of traction and spurred downloads of the app.

    With Sony LIV giving good competition with El Clasico and other events, it seems popular sports can actually drive the growth of digital platforms, especially subscription-based OTT services. The total watch time on OTT platforms in 2016 went up by 60 percent, driven also by the fact newcomer Reliance Jio started giving away the Hotstar app free to its subscribers.

    Proliferation of HD services too (mostly separately and differently priced for consumers), like OTT platforms, joined the gravy train trying to entice viewers through sporting events. For example, Indian fans of the English Premier League were in for a surprise when Star Sports announced that Indians will not be able to watch the matches beyond 31 October 2016; they would have to perforce sign up for the Star Sports HD channel package, which included Star Sports Select HD1 and HD2.

    With the arrival of Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as players with huge fan-bases and forever-at-loggerheads managers Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, Star knew the Indian following would not diminish — and they were not disappointed. If a consumer subscribed to all the sports channels in HD on a DTH platform, the package would cost approximately Rs. 700 per month. Many ardent non-cricket fans chose the high ticket option, while the remaining moved over to the digital platform as a significant number of live sports events were watched on Hotstar where the premium service cost Rs199 per month.

    However, one of the many climaxes, which added to the roller-coaster ride of sports broadcasting in India, involved the sports administrators. BCCI’s continuing face-off with the Supreme Court-mandated Lodha Committee recommendations on proposed clean-up of cricket — buffeted by allegations of match-fixing, conflicts of interests and brazen politicking — could pose a question mark on cricket matches organised by BCCI and their eventual telecasts.

    A shadow has even been cast over the 10th edition of IPL too. If the BCCI and Supreme Court don’t come to an amicable solution on former’s defiance and the latter’s hardening of stance, IPL future could be hazy having cascading effects on issues like broadcast rights and on some stakeholders like SPNI, Star India and team franchises who all have sunk in billions of Indian rupees in the juggernaut called IPL and India cricket.

    The year may have come to an end, but sports promises to continue providing more excitement. As they say, the match ain’t over till it is over.

  • Guest Column: The new gods of digital newsrooms

    Guest Column: The new gods of digital newsrooms

    Modern journalism began in the early 1600s, triggered, as any new vocation or market usually is, by technology, ie, the invention of the printing press. At first, a very crude community narrow-sheet was born, which was circulated to a few households in the vicinity. It took almost a hundred years of slow evolution for today’s broadsheet daily to acquire shape, with a large distribution footprint, photographs and advertising. It took another century for the next innovation in news journalism, the birth of radio broadcasting. But evolution was quicker after that, with television news appearing just a few decades after radio.

    Nearly 400 years later, around 1990, internet news disrupted the whole landscape. And that was a seminal turning point for mainstream journalism.

    Technology only changes the practices, never the principles of any established vocation – this was the irrefutable wisdom until the Internet turned a million axioms on their heads. Simply put, the principles of journalism – who, what, why, where, when, how, integrity of facts, stringent adherence to the truth, always giving the right of response to the accused/aggrieved – remained inviolable, even as the dissemination medium changed from ink on paper to sound on analogue waves to sound with moving pictures on electronic satellite signals. Technology could never change the principles, only the methods and practices, of telling a news story.

    But the Internet did the unthinkable, forcing mainstream journalism to modify its principles. I like to describe the pre-digital era of news as “the voice of God journalism” – the Gods, of course, were the all powerful editors. Since I won my editorial spurs in that bygone era, I too belong to that Tribe of Gods, where every morning, a bunch of stiff guys would troop into the conference room, with pencils and notepads, and decide the order of news stories for the day. It was such a unilateral exercise! “Let’s lead with Gandhi, then do that parliament debate … and just stuff a bit of sports and movies towards the end”. Done. The viewer was a complete “outsider”, her interests were peripheral, because “Gods” had the divine right to mandate the run order of news stories.    

    I grope for the correct adjective here. Archaic? Anathema? Anachronistic? Absurd? Perhaps all four of these, and a billion more, could be justifiably used if “the voice of God journalism” were to invade and dominate a digital newsroom today. Why? Because a digital newsroom is not a unilateral, linear, one way transmission of stories. In the nanosecond after you publish anything, readers and viewers pounce at it with their likes, hates, shares, comments, denials, corrections, updates, meme tweaks on WhatsApp, cartoon caricatures on Instagram, vociferous protests, loud applause etc etc etc … an intelligent or distasteful cacophony gets lit, and you have to respond to it, agree with it, deny it, debunk it, decorate it, ie do something, anything with it or to it, but you simply can’t ignore it. Because if you choose to be the unmoved, stoic, non-responsive “Godly” editor of the early 90s, you will be out of a job. Pronto.

    Let me illustrate with a simple choice that we had to make the other day. We were dealing with two big “demonetization stories” – one was a rather complex unraveling of the tax rules enshrined in the new Income Disclosure Scheme, wherein you would have to pay X% tax/penalty if illegal cash was deposited by Y date; and if you failed to do that, you would be liable for Z additional penalties. The other was a heart rending story of a 75-year old woman, the youngest sister of five brothers.

    For the last 50 years, she had kept 250 precious envelopes in her safe, containing cash given to her on bhai dooj. In her world view, that cash was a sacred gift from her brothers, not to be ever spent. Her heart was broken when her son forced her to open each envelope, take out nearly Rs 1.50 lac in notes of various denominations, and deposit them in banks. Her faith was rattled, shaken. What an astonishing human story, capturing the unusual pathos that demonetization has inflicted on ordinary people. In the unilateral, Godly days of yore, the tax rules would have played upfront, while the human interest story would be tucked towards the end, to be soon forgotten. But in today’s digital newsrooms, the story of this rudely disenfranchised 75-year-old woman would gain unrelenting velocity on social media, would whiz around cyber space, getting Facebooked, WhatsApped and Instagrammed, touching the hearts of a million people, instigating thousands of comments/shares/likes.

    No God could stem the viral force of this venerable lady’s touching story, which would simply obliterate the dry prose of tax rules, and reign supreme in the world of digital news.   

    public://unnamed_2.jpg The author is the co-founder and chairman of Quintillion Media, including BloombergQuint. He is the author of two books, viz ‘Superpower?: The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise’, and ‘Super Economies: America, India, China & The Future Of The World’. The views expressed are personal and Indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to them

     

  • Guest Column: The new gods of digital newsrooms

    Guest Column: The new gods of digital newsrooms

    Modern journalism began in the early 1600s, triggered, as any new vocation or market usually is, by technology, ie, the invention of the printing press. At first, a very crude community narrow-sheet was born, which was circulated to a few households in the vicinity. It took almost a hundred years of slow evolution for today’s broadsheet daily to acquire shape, with a large distribution footprint, photographs and advertising. It took another century for the next innovation in news journalism, the birth of radio broadcasting. But evolution was quicker after that, with television news appearing just a few decades after radio.

    Nearly 400 years later, around 1990, internet news disrupted the whole landscape. And that was a seminal turning point for mainstream journalism.

    Technology only changes the practices, never the principles of any established vocation – this was the irrefutable wisdom until the Internet turned a million axioms on their heads. Simply put, the principles of journalism – who, what, why, where, when, how, integrity of facts, stringent adherence to the truth, always giving the right of response to the accused/aggrieved – remained inviolable, even as the dissemination medium changed from ink on paper to sound on analogue waves to sound with moving pictures on electronic satellite signals. Technology could never change the principles, only the methods and practices, of telling a news story.

    But the Internet did the unthinkable, forcing mainstream journalism to modify its principles. I like to describe the pre-digital era of news as “the voice of God journalism” – the Gods, of course, were the all powerful editors. Since I won my editorial spurs in that bygone era, I too belong to that Tribe of Gods, where every morning, a bunch of stiff guys would troop into the conference room, with pencils and notepads, and decide the order of news stories for the day. It was such a unilateral exercise! “Let’s lead with Gandhi, then do that parliament debate … and just stuff a bit of sports and movies towards the end”. Done. The viewer was a complete “outsider”, her interests were peripheral, because “Gods” had the divine right to mandate the run order of news stories.    

    I grope for the correct adjective here. Archaic? Anathema? Anachronistic? Absurd? Perhaps all four of these, and a billion more, could be justifiably used if “the voice of God journalism” were to invade and dominate a digital newsroom today. Why? Because a digital newsroom is not a unilateral, linear, one way transmission of stories. In the nanosecond after you publish anything, readers and viewers pounce at it with their likes, hates, shares, comments, denials, corrections, updates, meme tweaks on WhatsApp, cartoon caricatures on Instagram, vociferous protests, loud applause etc etc etc … an intelligent or distasteful cacophony gets lit, and you have to respond to it, agree with it, deny it, debunk it, decorate it, ie do something, anything with it or to it, but you simply can’t ignore it. Because if you choose to be the unmoved, stoic, non-responsive “Godly” editor of the early 90s, you will be out of a job. Pronto.

    Let me illustrate with a simple choice that we had to make the other day. We were dealing with two big “demonetization stories” – one was a rather complex unraveling of the tax rules enshrined in the new Income Disclosure Scheme, wherein you would have to pay X% tax/penalty if illegal cash was deposited by Y date; and if you failed to do that, you would be liable for Z additional penalties. The other was a heart rending story of a 75-year old woman, the youngest sister of five brothers.

    For the last 50 years, she had kept 250 precious envelopes in her safe, containing cash given to her on bhai dooj. In her world view, that cash was a sacred gift from her brothers, not to be ever spent. Her heart was broken when her son forced her to open each envelope, take out nearly Rs 1.50 lac in notes of various denominations, and deposit them in banks. Her faith was rattled, shaken. What an astonishing human story, capturing the unusual pathos that demonetization has inflicted on ordinary people. In the unilateral, Godly days of yore, the tax rules would have played upfront, while the human interest story would be tucked towards the end, to be soon forgotten. But in today’s digital newsrooms, the story of this rudely disenfranchised 75-year-old woman would gain unrelenting velocity on social media, would whiz around cyber space, getting Facebooked, WhatsApped and Instagrammed, touching the hearts of a million people, instigating thousands of comments/shares/likes.

    No God could stem the viral force of this venerable lady’s touching story, which would simply obliterate the dry prose of tax rules, and reign supreme in the world of digital news.   

    public://unnamed_2.jpg The author is the co-founder and chairman of Quintillion Media, including BloombergQuint. He is the author of two books, viz ‘Superpower?: The Amazing Race Between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise’, and ‘Super Economies: America, India, China & The Future Of The World’. The views expressed are personal and Indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to them

     

  • “There would be a lot on TRAI’s plate in 2017” – RS Sharma

    “There would be a lot on TRAI’s plate in 2017” – RS Sharma

    RS Sharma, chief regulator of India’s telecoms and broadcast carriage services, is a plain-speaking person who doesn’t mince words. He is forthright inhis thoughts on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s role, which, according to several reiterations, is work towards creating a regulatory environment to remove ambiguities and litigations. While doing so, if the regulator has over-reached, Sharma says, he and his colleagues are willing to correct themselves if stakeholders convince them of their viewpoints as part of a healthy and democratic process of debateand discussions.

    A senior-level bureaucrat, whose last assignment in the government was Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Sharma as the Chairman of TRAI is convinced that pressures notwithstanding, it’s the job of a regulator to be not only technology agnostic, but also stakeholder-neutral in its efforts to create a level-playing field for all for the growth of telecoms and broadcast sectors. Being tech-savvy (he is one of those in the government who was active on Twitter much before it became a buzzword as a communication tool within government setups) helps in a highly technological world.

    Indiantelevision.com’s Consulting Editor Anjan Mitra engages Sharma on various issues and Sharma, true to his self, doesn’t flinch away from answering the queries, even those critical of TRAI’s role.

    Edited excerpts from the interview:

    As the chief regulator what would be your overview of the telecom and the broadcast sectors?

    Both the sectors are very vibrant in our country.  In the telecoms sector, we have almost a billion plus people connected through mobile phones and other devices. However, we need to essentially now focus on the issue of data speed and availability. In this regard we have already given various recommendations to the government, both in the wireless as also in the fixed line segments.

    The focus is on implementation of Bharat Net (taking broadband to all parts of India, including rural areas, via fibre optics), promotion of digital cable TV for supply of broadband, facilitating an environment for creating Wi-Fi hotspots and liberalizing the satellite bandwidthregime so satellites can also be used to provide broadband services, which also means an Open Sky policy. All these initiatives,if implemented, are expected to increase availability and improvement of internet infrastructure for the people of this country, which is the first most important prerequisite of Digital India — broadband as a utility to the citizens. We see telecom space developin that direction.

    The broadcasting sector too is vibrant where we now have about 900 plus TV channels, which have a wide range of programming catering to a wide section of the people through various delivery platforms. Fortunately, by the end of this calendar year, the fourth phase of digitization (of TV services) could be completedwhere all stakeholders have contributed and participated equally. We should also not forget the Indian TV network is one of the largest networks in the world and when it gets fully digitized, it would be a real achievement.

    So, to facilitate further smoothening of the digitization path, we would be bringing out three important guidelines on issues relating to tariff, interconnection and quality of service. After having worked almost through the year (2016) and examining the broadcast and cable sector comprehensively, the final guidelines on the three issues would be issued that will herald a new, but common framework for all platforms.

    When are these final guidelines likely to be issued by TRAI now that legal hurdles to implementation of digitization or DAS have been cleared by courts?

    The final recommendations will be issued at the end of this month, which will also coincide with end of this year and the guidelines, hopefully, will bring about more harmony in the TV sector and various delivery platforms prevalent in the country.

    At TRAI, we can only create an environment for TV (carriage) services, while it’s the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB)’s role to actually push networks and stakeholders to adhere to the digital deadlines and enforce the schedule. But we are ready to provide any assistance to MIB if asked for.

    (This interview was taken earlier in December after the Delhi High Court had dismissed all cases relating to extension of  deadline of Phase III of digitization. Subsequently on December 23, 2016, MIB extended the deadline for Phase IV of DASto 31 March, 2017 owing to uncertainties in the market.  The last and fourth phase was to have been completed on 31 December, 2016. Same day, Madras High Court passed an interim order, valid till next hearing mid-January 2017, directing TRAI to maintain status quo and refrain from issuing any further guidelines relating to the broadcast sector, especially if those guidelineshad any bearing on copyright issues raised by petitioner Star India and Vijay TV, amongst other things.)

    A regulator’s job is to be a facilitator and help create a business environment that’s win-win for all stakeholders. But why is it that many directives and guidelinesare legally challenged by the industry?

    Everybody in this country has a right to take recourse to legal help and I would not like to comment at all on the issue as to why our directives are challenged by the industry. However, all that I would say is that there is a due process of law and which takes care of many such issues. While many of our directives are upheld by the courts and TDSAT(the Telecoms Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal), some of them are struck down too. It’s a process available to Indians under the Constitution.

    What were the underlying objectives of TRAI when it started drafting a new set of guidelines for the broadcast and cable sector?

    Our main objective — and purpose for all guidelines for both the broadcast and telecoms sectors — is to reduce ambiguity in regulations. The broadcast segment is no exception.The aim is to create a kind of regulatory environment where there is less ambiguity and lesser scope for litigations. Litigations take place because of ambiguity (in rules and regulations).Especially in the broadcasting sector there are no or few contracts (amongst stakeholders), which result in people going to courts of law. So, TRAI is trying to streamlinethe sector. It is not only the TRAI regulations that are (legally) challenged, but stakeholdersalso litigate amongst themselves. We want to create a much more rational level playing field for all stakeholders, including the consumer.

    However critics, including domestic and foreign industry bodies, say TRAI ends up over regulating. What do you have to say about this criticism?

    In sectors where there are multiple stakeholders litigating amongst themselves, somebody will have to establish basic rules. If stakeholders interact among themselves without any rules, that is fine with us. However, we also have to understand that the most important stakeholder in all this is the consumer and it should not happen that the consumer ultimately is the sufferer. Though TRAI doesn’t believe in unnecessary regulations, at the same time some regulation defining the playing area isnecessary for an orderly growth of the industry.

    When industry bodies do benchmarking of Indian regulations versus FCC or Ofcom or some other Asian markets, India and China emerge as highly regulated markets. Comment.

    I don’t want to comment on those benchmarks as I am not really aware of them or the methodology used. But I certainly don’t agree that we are regulating when regulation is not necessary. We also believe in minimal regulation. Because of high level of litigation-related activities happening in the Indian broadcast sector, we feel there is a need to clarify issues. It is better to have some basic rules of the game rather than having ambiguous situations, which results into too many litigations and waste of time.

    So, you feel the draft broadcast regulations are aimed at streamlining the sector and bring about more transparency?

    Certainly yes and that’s what we hope will be achieved ultimately. Recent courtjudgments have also clearly held that the processes in this kind of interconnection environment should be transparent. So, less ambiguity and more transparency are two guiding principles that have helped us in draftingthose regulations, though we are still open to amendments.

    Why is the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF)critical of many TRAI stands if the regulatory bodyis working towards transparency?

    We have had very intense and vibrant engagement with the industry on all the consultation papers.Stakeholders’ comments have been very precise and in a way it has been an enriching experience for TRAI. So, as and when we do come out with final recommendations, we hope to have plugged any loopholes in the drafts.Every stakeholder has a right to be critical and IBF too is expressing its views. I think it is all part of a healthy democratic and transparent process of interaction.

    What is TRAI’s stand on new technologies being introduced in the telecom and broadcast sectors?

    Our view on technology is that we must promote innovation and technology in these sectors. We should not try to throttle them (new techs) just because there are legacy business models. Business models must adapt to technology, rather than technology being stifled in order to protect business models. That essentially has been our approach to technology.

    There’s lot of fusion taking place in the technological world and India must not shy away from embracing them. For example, in certain countries 4G is passé and they are talking about 5G, which too would ultimately arrive in India. As both our telecom and broadcast and cable networks would be one of the largest in the world soon, if infrastructure development is robust, why should India or its consumers be five years behind in technology and be deprived of latest marvels of technology? As a developing country we need technology more. Reason is simple: a better technology is not only cost-effective, but also helps in more productive use of resources. Technology will help the country in more efficient use of bandwidth, for example, which is not a commodity that’s in unlimited supply.

    Why then a new content delivery tech like OTT, for example,is being attempted to be regulated with a legacy mindset?

    TRAI is not looking at any extra regulation as we feel regulations, in general, should be technology agnostic. However, if there are any barriers to adoption of a technology, TRAI would try to either remove those or work towards relaxing those barriers. For example, there is a consultation paper on sharing of infrastructure in the broadcasting sector. At present,sharing of infrastructure is not permitted essentially because of certain licence conditions. On this issue,we feel — though final recommendations are awaited— a broadcast carriage company need not necessarily share infrastructure even after TRAI comes out with guidelines.But if there is a condition in thelicence that prohibits sharing, we may, probably, have to relax those conditions. Our broader approach is if some licence conditions stop a business from optimal utilization of resources, we should try to remove such regulatory barriers.

    We should facilitate adoption of new technologies, not really regulate or mandate them. If there are regulatory barriers, then appropriate action for introduction of newer technologies should be taken.

    Though TRAI has dealt with it in a piecemeal fashion earlier, what is the regulator’s overall stand on the contentious issue of Net Neutrality?

    We have already dealt with the issue of Net Neutrality from the zero tariff perspective sometime in February. Now the government has asked us to provide it with comprehensive recommendations on the issue. We are in the process of further studying the feedback from people and stakeholders on the issue after which some additional consolations would take place. As the drafting of our final position may take a couple of months more, I am unable to spell out TRAI’s stand on Net Neutrality at this point of time. But I hope it should suffice when I say TRAI is not against any new technology whether it is OTT or 5G or anything else.

    Q: Earlier, you referred to an issue relating to Open Sky policy aimed at making leasing of capacity on Indian and foreign satellites liberal. That matter is not moving within the government. Any comment?

    I don’t want to comment on that as ultimately it is for the government to act on TRAI’s recommendations. We have recommended a number of times (in favour of a more liberalized satellite policy).On such policy matters, it’s the government’s prerogative to take some action. However, TRAI will keep tracking the issue. But there’s no denying for the success of Digital India, providing broadband via satellites in difficult geographical terrains like India’s North-Eastern states is a crucial aspect. But on such matters the government’s decision is final.

    Don’t you think that the time has come for India to have a comprehensive convergence law and a fully converged regulator?

    I certainly agree we need to, probably, have alaw on convergence. But I am not the competent authority to comment on such a regulatory regime’s structure and mandate as it is the government’s job and prerogative to do so. However, I do feel because of technological developments, a lot of convergence is happening in various sectors, including telecom and broadcast segments. Probably, we need to revisit our regulatory structures. But, as I said earlier, it is the government’s prerogative.

    As the chief regulator you must be coming in for pressure from many sides, including political. How do you keep yourself neutral?

    For the last 15-16 months that I have been at TRAI, I have not been subject to any pressure. I am very happy that we at TRAI are doingour job of being a facilitator and see that both the segments grow in an unhindered fashion.

    What would are the achievements of TRAI in 2016 and what is the agenda for 2017?

    As we are not an operation agency, we don’t have quantifiable targets,unlike the Aadhaar (unique identity for Indians) project, of which I was a crucial part, where we had a measurable target of for a particular period of time.TRAI primarily has three functions. Function No. 1 is to advise government on issues referred to us. Function No. 2 is that TRAI can also take up issues suo moto and advise the government accordingly. Function No. 3 is to issue regulations related to tariff. I think, we have discharged our duty in a satisfactory manner during 2016.

    What we plan to do in 2017 is something interesting. While there will be always issues that willneed TRAI’s urgent attention — for example, the government may ask foradvice on spectrum prices — we are trying to create a calendar for the next year. So we hope by the end of this year we will come up with calendar highlighting the works that need to be taken up in 2017 and which will act as a roadmap.

    What are the issues likely to figure in that roadmap?

    There are many issues. For example, various issues relating to data and bandwidth are important and TRAI would like to examine those, including data and  consumer protection. Then there are matters like Internet of Things (IoT) and other new areas where our approach will always remain to regulate minimally. I would also like TRAI to take up the implementation of the framework that we are putting in place for the broadcast sector. Then there are issues like audience measurement and digital terrestrial broadcasting. There would be lots on the plate in 2017 for TRAI.

  • “There would be a lot on TRAI’s plate in 2017” – RS Sharma

    “There would be a lot on TRAI’s plate in 2017” – RS Sharma

    RS Sharma, chief regulator of India’s telecoms and broadcast carriage services, is a plain-speaking person who doesn’t mince words. He is forthright inhis thoughts on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s role, which, according to several reiterations, is work towards creating a regulatory environment to remove ambiguities and litigations. While doing so, if the regulator has over-reached, Sharma says, he and his colleagues are willing to correct themselves if stakeholders convince them of their viewpoints as part of a healthy and democratic process of debateand discussions.

    A senior-level bureaucrat, whose last assignment in the government was Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Sharma as the Chairman of TRAI is convinced that pressures notwithstanding, it’s the job of a regulator to be not only technology agnostic, but also stakeholder-neutral in its efforts to create a level-playing field for all for the growth of telecoms and broadcast sectors. Being tech-savvy (he is one of those in the government who was active on Twitter much before it became a buzzword as a communication tool within government setups) helps in a highly technological world.

    Indiantelevision.com’s Consulting Editor Anjan Mitra engages Sharma on various issues and Sharma, true to his self, doesn’t flinch away from answering the queries, even those critical of TRAI’s role.

    Edited excerpts from the interview:

    As the chief regulator what would be your overview of the telecom and the broadcast sectors?

    Both the sectors are very vibrant in our country.  In the telecoms sector, we have almost a billion plus people connected through mobile phones and other devices. However, we need to essentially now focus on the issue of data speed and availability. In this regard we have already given various recommendations to the government, both in the wireless as also in the fixed line segments.

    The focus is on implementation of Bharat Net (taking broadband to all parts of India, including rural areas, via fibre optics), promotion of digital cable TV for supply of broadband, facilitating an environment for creating Wi-Fi hotspots and liberalizing the satellite bandwidthregime so satellites can also be used to provide broadband services, which also means an Open Sky policy. All these initiatives,if implemented, are expected to increase availability and improvement of internet infrastructure for the people of this country, which is the first most important prerequisite of Digital India — broadband as a utility to the citizens. We see telecom space developin that direction.

    The broadcasting sector too is vibrant where we now have about 900 plus TV channels, which have a wide range of programming catering to a wide section of the people through various delivery platforms. Fortunately, by the end of this calendar year, the fourth phase of digitization (of TV services) could be completedwhere all stakeholders have contributed and participated equally. We should also not forget the Indian TV network is one of the largest networks in the world and when it gets fully digitized, it would be a real achievement.

    So, to facilitate further smoothening of the digitization path, we would be bringing out three important guidelines on issues relating to tariff, interconnection and quality of service. After having worked almost through the year (2016) and examining the broadcast and cable sector comprehensively, the final guidelines on the three issues would be issued that will herald a new, but common framework for all platforms.

    When are these final guidelines likely to be issued by TRAI now that legal hurdles to implementation of digitization or DAS have been cleared by courts?

    The final recommendations will be issued at the end of this month, which will also coincide with end of this year and the guidelines, hopefully, will bring about more harmony in the TV sector and various delivery platforms prevalent in the country.

    At TRAI, we can only create an environment for TV (carriage) services, while it’s the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB)’s role to actually push networks and stakeholders to adhere to the digital deadlines and enforce the schedule. But we are ready to provide any assistance to MIB if asked for.

    (This interview was taken earlier in December after the Delhi High Court had dismissed all cases relating to extension of  deadline of Phase III of digitization. Subsequently on December 23, 2016, MIB extended the deadline for Phase IV of DASto 31 March, 2017 owing to uncertainties in the market.  The last and fourth phase was to have been completed on 31 December, 2016. Same day, Madras High Court passed an interim order, valid till next hearing mid-January 2017, directing TRAI to maintain status quo and refrain from issuing any further guidelines relating to the broadcast sector, especially if those guidelineshad any bearing on copyright issues raised by petitioner Star India and Vijay TV, amongst other things.)

    A regulator’s job is to be a facilitator and help create a business environment that’s win-win for all stakeholders. But why is it that many directives and guidelinesare legally challenged by the industry?

    Everybody in this country has a right to take recourse to legal help and I would not like to comment at all on the issue as to why our directives are challenged by the industry. However, all that I would say is that there is a due process of law and which takes care of many such issues. While many of our directives are upheld by the courts and TDSAT(the Telecoms Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal), some of them are struck down too. It’s a process available to Indians under the Constitution.

    What were the underlying objectives of TRAI when it started drafting a new set of guidelines for the broadcast and cable sector?

    Our main objective — and purpose for all guidelines for both the broadcast and telecoms sectors — is to reduce ambiguity in regulations. The broadcast segment is no exception.The aim is to create a kind of regulatory environment where there is less ambiguity and lesser scope for litigations. Litigations take place because of ambiguity (in rules and regulations).Especially in the broadcasting sector there are no or few contracts (amongst stakeholders), which result in people going to courts of law. So, TRAI is trying to streamlinethe sector. It is not only the TRAI regulations that are (legally) challenged, but stakeholdersalso litigate amongst themselves. We want to create a much more rational level playing field for all stakeholders, including the consumer.

    However critics, including domestic and foreign industry bodies, say TRAI ends up over regulating. What do you have to say about this criticism?

    In sectors where there are multiple stakeholders litigating amongst themselves, somebody will have to establish basic rules. If stakeholders interact among themselves without any rules, that is fine with us. However, we also have to understand that the most important stakeholder in all this is the consumer and it should not happen that the consumer ultimately is the sufferer. Though TRAI doesn’t believe in unnecessary regulations, at the same time some regulation defining the playing area isnecessary for an orderly growth of the industry.

    When industry bodies do benchmarking of Indian regulations versus FCC or Ofcom or some other Asian markets, India and China emerge as highly regulated markets. Comment.

    I don’t want to comment on those benchmarks as I am not really aware of them or the methodology used. But I certainly don’t agree that we are regulating when regulation is not necessary. We also believe in minimal regulation. Because of high level of litigation-related activities happening in the Indian broadcast sector, we feel there is a need to clarify issues. It is better to have some basic rules of the game rather than having ambiguous situations, which results into too many litigations and waste of time.

    So, you feel the draft broadcast regulations are aimed at streamlining the sector and bring about more transparency?

    Certainly yes and that’s what we hope will be achieved ultimately. Recent courtjudgments have also clearly held that the processes in this kind of interconnection environment should be transparent. So, less ambiguity and more transparency are two guiding principles that have helped us in draftingthose regulations, though we are still open to amendments.

    Why is the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF)critical of many TRAI stands if the regulatory bodyis working towards transparency?

    We have had very intense and vibrant engagement with the industry on all the consultation papers.Stakeholders’ comments have been very precise and in a way it has been an enriching experience for TRAI. So, as and when we do come out with final recommendations, we hope to have plugged any loopholes in the drafts.Every stakeholder has a right to be critical and IBF too is expressing its views. I think it is all part of a healthy democratic and transparent process of interaction.

    What is TRAI’s stand on new technologies being introduced in the telecom and broadcast sectors?

    Our view on technology is that we must promote innovation and technology in these sectors. We should not try to throttle them (new techs) just because there are legacy business models. Business models must adapt to technology, rather than technology being stifled in order to protect business models. That essentially has been our approach to technology.

    There’s lot of fusion taking place in the technological world and India must not shy away from embracing them. For example, in certain countries 4G is passé and they are talking about 5G, which too would ultimately arrive in India. As both our telecom and broadcast and cable networks would be one of the largest in the world soon, if infrastructure development is robust, why should India or its consumers be five years behind in technology and be deprived of latest marvels of technology? As a developing country we need technology more. Reason is simple: a better technology is not only cost-effective, but also helps in more productive use of resources. Technology will help the country in more efficient use of bandwidth, for example, which is not a commodity that’s in unlimited supply.

    Why then a new content delivery tech like OTT, for example,is being attempted to be regulated with a legacy mindset?

    TRAI is not looking at any extra regulation as we feel regulations, in general, should be technology agnostic. However, if there are any barriers to adoption of a technology, TRAI would try to either remove those or work towards relaxing those barriers. For example, there is a consultation paper on sharing of infrastructure in the broadcasting sector. At present,sharing of infrastructure is not permitted essentially because of certain licence conditions. On this issue,we feel — though final recommendations are awaited— a broadcast carriage company need not necessarily share infrastructure even after TRAI comes out with guidelines.But if there is a condition in thelicence that prohibits sharing, we may, probably, have to relax those conditions. Our broader approach is if some licence conditions stop a business from optimal utilization of resources, we should try to remove such regulatory barriers.

    We should facilitate adoption of new technologies, not really regulate or mandate them. If there are regulatory barriers, then appropriate action for introduction of newer technologies should be taken.

    Though TRAI has dealt with it in a piecemeal fashion earlier, what is the regulator’s overall stand on the contentious issue of Net Neutrality?

    We have already dealt with the issue of Net Neutrality from the zero tariff perspective sometime in February. Now the government has asked us to provide it with comprehensive recommendations on the issue. We are in the process of further studying the feedback from people and stakeholders on the issue after which some additional consolations would take place. As the drafting of our final position may take a couple of months more, I am unable to spell out TRAI’s stand on Net Neutrality at this point of time. But I hope it should suffice when I say TRAI is not against any new technology whether it is OTT or 5G or anything else.

    Q: Earlier, you referred to an issue relating to Open Sky policy aimed at making leasing of capacity on Indian and foreign satellites liberal. That matter is not moving within the government. Any comment?

    I don’t want to comment on that as ultimately it is for the government to act on TRAI’s recommendations. We have recommended a number of times (in favour of a more liberalized satellite policy).On such policy matters, it’s the government’s prerogative to take some action. However, TRAI will keep tracking the issue. But there’s no denying for the success of Digital India, providing broadband via satellites in difficult geographical terrains like India’s North-Eastern states is a crucial aspect. But on such matters the government’s decision is final.

    Don’t you think that the time has come for India to have a comprehensive convergence law and a fully converged regulator?

    I certainly agree we need to, probably, have alaw on convergence. But I am not the competent authority to comment on such a regulatory regime’s structure and mandate as it is the government’s job and prerogative to do so. However, I do feel because of technological developments, a lot of convergence is happening in various sectors, including telecom and broadcast segments. Probably, we need to revisit our regulatory structures. But, as I said earlier, it is the government’s prerogative.

    As the chief regulator you must be coming in for pressure from many sides, including political. How do you keep yourself neutral?

    For the last 15-16 months that I have been at TRAI, I have not been subject to any pressure. I am very happy that we at TRAI are doingour job of being a facilitator and see that both the segments grow in an unhindered fashion.

    What would are the achievements of TRAI in 2016 and what is the agenda for 2017?

    As we are not an operation agency, we don’t have quantifiable targets,unlike the Aadhaar (unique identity for Indians) project, of which I was a crucial part, where we had a measurable target of for a particular period of time.TRAI primarily has three functions. Function No. 1 is to advise government on issues referred to us. Function No. 2 is that TRAI can also take up issues suo moto and advise the government accordingly. Function No. 3 is to issue regulations related to tariff. I think, we have discharged our duty in a satisfactory manner during 2016.

    What we plan to do in 2017 is something interesting. While there will be always issues that willneed TRAI’s urgent attention — for example, the government may ask foradvice on spectrum prices — we are trying to create a calendar for the next year. So we hope by the end of this year we will come up with calendar highlighting the works that need to be taken up in 2017 and which will act as a roadmap.

    What are the issues likely to figure in that roadmap?

    There are many issues. For example, various issues relating to data and bandwidth are important and TRAI would like to examine those, including data and  consumer protection. Then there are matters like Internet of Things (IoT) and other new areas where our approach will always remain to regulate minimally. I would also like TRAI to take up the implementation of the framework that we are putting in place for the broadcast sector. Then there are issues like audience measurement and digital terrestrial broadcasting. There would be lots on the plate in 2017 for TRAI.

  • High profile executive departures in 2016

    High profile executive departures in 2016

    MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: As the year comes to a close, let’s take a dekko at the major parting of ways between individuals and companies and also in companies themselves that hit the Indian broadcast, cable, satellite TV sectors. The list is definitely not comprehensive but the effort has been to try and cover what we at indiantelevision.com consider major split ups, including in the government.

    Arun Jaitley: One of the most powerful politicians in the country was entrusted by PM Modi some very important portfolios when the BJP-led government came to power mid-2014.

    In a cabinet reshuffle in November 2014, Jaitley was also handed the important ministry of information & broadcasting (MIB) and he headed three ministries at one time, including the all-powerful Ministry of Finance.

    However mid-2016, MIB was handed to M. Venkaiah Naidu. Critics said it was PM’s way of sending a message to Jaitley, but with three ministries under him, it was asking too much from the man even as brilliant as he is. Jaitley retains the portfolios of  Corporate Affairs and Finance — and, probably, could turn out to be PM Modi’s best lieutenant in the all-out war on black economy declared via  demonetisation of high-value currency notes and other proposed measures .  

    Jawhar Sircar: A senior bureaucrat-academecian, he quit the government to take up in 2012 the challenging post of CEO of India’s pubcaster Prasar Bharati, overseeing the monolithic Doordarshan and the widely-reached All India Radio.

    An outspoken person and a hard taskmaster, Sircar attempted to bring about a revolution in Prasar Bharati’s way of functioning and improve its revenue and reach.

    Partially successful, he met with lot of resistance trying to change a slothful giant. In private, he admitted that what frustrated him was that the pubcaster is manned by a bunch corrupt, no-good, job-for-life-security-seeking blokes, who wanted to retain the status quo.

    With his tenure scheduled to end in first quarter of 2017, a “tired” Sircar (as per his own admissions on social media) finally threw in the towel and sought early retirement in October 2016, which was granted by the government. Sircar returned to his home base in Kolkata to lead a  retired life and giving talks on issues related to primarily arts. 

    Arnab Goswami: The popular anchor had made shouting out his guests as the trademark of his prime time show – News Hour on Times Now. So one only expected his departure to be as noisy – though it was unfathomable by many who thought he and the channel were one – conjoined at the hip.

    And Arnab did not disappoint. The media went berserk: mainline and trade portals, social media, could not stop talking about his departure for weeks, months, and they have not stopped even as the year is coming to a close.

    Goswami’s new venture, believed to be on the cutting edge of technology — and news – is christened Republic.

    Ashok Venkatramani: The CEO of ABP News saw the news network being reinvented, rebranded and recreated from Star News to ABP News a few years ago without losing viewership and business. Venkatramani strengthened the companys financials, brough in systems and rigour making ABP News a viable business operation. He improved the company’s margins, keeping costs under control, even as he expanded ABP News Network’s portfolio to five TV channels, six mobile products, six websites and three additional revenue verticals. Venkatramani quietly resigned without any hullabaloo in November after serving out his notice period. He was replaced by Atideb Sarkar, the son of ABP editor in chief Arup Sarkar.

    Rahul Shivshankar: He left News X in November 2016 to fill the the big shoes left behind by Arnab Goswami. The Kartikeya Sharma owned NewsX flourished under his ediorial leadershup of three years during the TAM era. The journey after BARC’s evolution was not  as good, but the former Headlines Today journalist has his own following.

    Known to be an insightful, incisive journalist, Shivshankar joined Times Now on 15 December as Chief Editor, returning to the company after six years.

    Shivshankar was Senior Editor in his previous stint at the Times Now. And he seems to have done well as Arnab’s replacement. Times Television Network CEO MK Anand has come on record to state that the news network’s viewership share has stayed intact, unaffected by the larger than life news anchor’s departure.

    Sameer Ahluwalia: In one of the more controversial moves, Zee Business head Sameer Ahluwalia parted ways with Zee Media Corp Ltd (ZMCL)  Ahluwalia was associated with the Zee Network for 19 years  and was known to be a close confidante of ZMCL chairman Subhash Chandra.

    Samir’s name was embroiled in the case of the alleged extortion of Rs 100 crore along with Zee News Editor-in-chief Sudheer Chaudhary. To make matters clear, the management had immediately accepted his resignation.

    RK Arora: Zee Media has seen a lot of changes in 2016, with RK Arora being one of those who made an entry and then an exit. Known for his industry acumen and powerful contacts, RK Arora quit Zee Media as executive director and chief cxecutive officer after a stint of around 15 months.

    Arora had joined Zee in May 2015 and parted ways in August 2016. The former News Nation strategic and operational head and ITV Network senior executive has moved onto a new venture JK Media and got into the business of running television news once again.

    Zee Media Group CEO News cluster Bhaskar Das: Leadership to him means delivering outcomes and not outputs. Identifying and mitigating pain-points come naturally to him. With a career spanning over three years, he was responsible for driving up the revenue of all news channels from the cluster that includes channels such as Zee News, Zee Business, Zee 24 Taas (Marathi) and 24 Ghanta (Bengali).

    Earlier this year, he was moved to Zee Entertainment’s media sales arm, Zee Unimedia. As the president and chief growth and innovation officer, he heads the group’s news business operations, including the digital properties.

    CNBC TV18 CEO Anil Uniyal: After working with the TV18 Broadcast for more than 15 years, Uniyal decided to hop on to the Raghav Bahl-Bloomberg venture. An insight provocateur, catalyst, a leader, he  served the network in various positions such as business director for Forbes, head of TV 18 Media operations, COO for Network 18 and lastly CEO for CNBC TV 18 and CNBC Awaaz. Uniyal joined as the CEO to lead Bahl’s joint venture with  Bloomberg.

    CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bazaar editor Sanjay Pugalia: Right after the exit of Uniyal, Pugalia called it a day at Network18. He moved on after 12 years as editor of CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar. Further, under his leadership CNBC Awaaz went to the number 1 position in its segment. Pugalia played an important role in the launch of Star News in India. He went on to join as president and editorial director of both, Raghav Bahl’s The Quint and Bloomberg Quint.

    India TV  CEO Paritosh Joshi: It’s all about respect and relationships for him. Acting as a strategist at India TV since 2012, he was brought on board as CEO in November 2015. While everyone hoped that this would be a long association, it was clearly taxing for him as he continued to commute between two metros. He has completed the circle and is back to being a strategist. The primary reason behind his exit was to return to his family in Mumbai. After quitting as the CEO of Star CJ Network in 2012, Joshi planned on starting his own venture in the media and entertainment space. He founded Principal, an advisory to advise clients on corporate strategy, marketing, revenue enhancement and other issues.

    Zee Digital Debashish Ghosh: With the explosion in the OTT and VOD ecosystem, opportunities are coming a-plenty for professionals. Zee Digital Convergence CEO Debashish Ghosh put in his papers at Zee Digital and hopped on board the Chinese tech and consumer electronics major LeEco. The salt and pepper coloured hair head took over as the new COO at LeEco’s India outfit in June 2016. While at Zee, he had taken charge of all the digital businesses of the Essel Group in India as CEO and whole time board director of India.com network in February 2013. He started his career with the Times of India Group in 1990 and worked as head of technology and advertising operations to becoming Times Business Solutions CEO in 2012.

    Zee TV Business Head Pradeep Hejmadi: From a broadcasting company to an audience measurement system and back to broadcasting, Hejmadi has seen it all. With multi-dimensional understanding of the media businesses, he moved from Nickelodeon India as director for business and operations to spearhead TAM media research as senior VP. He was responsible for revenue generation, client management, new business development and new product development. In July 2014, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) appointed him as the business head of its flagship Hindi entertainment channel Zee TV.  Hejmadi called his last at Zee in May  2016 after spending two years with the company.

    Disney India CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur:  Kapur was one of the newsmakers  of the year 2016. He is married to the beuatiful Vidya Balan and his brothrs Aditya and Kunal have made a mark for themselves in Bollywood as on-screen talent.

    Siddharth quit Disney India as managing director in October to explore his own business interests. He was replaced by Mahesh Samat, the former CEO, who returned to the position that he held between 2008 and 2012, and officially took charge on November 28.

    While working for the company, Kapur introduced the Indian Broadway version of the timeless classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which was a huge success, apart from launching a slate of Bollywood projects for the studio and fine tuning the network’s channel bouquet.

    He joined UTV in 2005, took over as chief executive officer of UTV Motion Pictures in 2008 and after the integration of UTV with The Walt Disney Co. (India) in 2012, held the role of managing director-studios.

    He was promoted as managing director of Disney India in 2014.

     

    S.N. Sharma: He left a company he helped cofound to assist Reliance Industries boss Mukesh Ambani’s Jio to roll out a national cable TV and broadband network. But earlier this year, cable vet SN Sharma quit Jio to go back to his  original home DEN Networks.

    His former boss  Sameer Manchanda gave him a call and told him he needed his help to whip the floundering national MSO into shape. SN – not one to ignore a challenge – took up the assignment. Pradeep Parmeswaran the DEN CEO stepped down,  paving  the way for Sharma to come back, and continued  as an advisor to the company.

    Sharma has his task cut out but he has been taking strong but effective  steps with the company’s national jont ventures and he is steering it strongly into broadband. He  has confessed his stint at Reliance Jio has imbibed in him a telecom rigour which should go a long way in helping steer  DEN Networks into the fast lane.

     

    Jagdish Kumar Pillai: The buzz was anyway gaining in strength; that Jagdish Kumar was counting his days at the national MSO – probably the most respected nationally. And that he had got the go-ahead to depart from both the Hathway Cable & Datacom management and director Viren Raheja who has been spearheading his father Rajan  Rahejas’s  cable TV venture.

    With cable TV ARPUs being restrained the company is being restructured with Jagidish quitting and being replaced by Hathway broadband president  Rajan Gupta who was named the managing director. President – video business T. Panesar was also elevated as CEO-video business.

    Jagdish who was with the MSO for around half a decade said he was taking a sabbatical before making his  next move.

     

  • High profile executive departures in 2016

    High profile executive departures in 2016

    MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: As the year comes to a close, let’s take a dekko at the major parting of ways between individuals and companies and also in companies themselves that hit the Indian broadcast, cable, satellite TV sectors. The list is definitely not comprehensive but the effort has been to try and cover what we at indiantelevision.com consider major split ups, including in the government.

    Arun Jaitley: One of the most powerful politicians in the country was entrusted by PM Modi some very important portfolios when the BJP-led government came to power mid-2014.

    In a cabinet reshuffle in November 2014, Jaitley was also handed the important ministry of information & broadcasting (MIB) and he headed three ministries at one time, including the all-powerful Ministry of Finance.

    However mid-2016, MIB was handed to M. Venkaiah Naidu. Critics said it was PM’s way of sending a message to Jaitley, but with three ministries under him, it was asking too much from the man even as brilliant as he is. Jaitley retains the portfolios of  Corporate Affairs and Finance — and, probably, could turn out to be PM Modi’s best lieutenant in the all-out war on black economy declared via  demonetisation of high-value currency notes and other proposed measures .  

    Jawhar Sircar: A senior bureaucrat-academecian, he quit the government to take up in 2012 the challenging post of CEO of India’s pubcaster Prasar Bharati, overseeing the monolithic Doordarshan and the widely-reached All India Radio.

    An outspoken person and a hard taskmaster, Sircar attempted to bring about a revolution in Prasar Bharati’s way of functioning and improve its revenue and reach.

    Partially successful, he met with lot of resistance trying to change a slothful giant. In private, he admitted that what frustrated him was that the pubcaster is manned by a bunch corrupt, no-good, job-for-life-security-seeking blokes, who wanted to retain the status quo.

    With his tenure scheduled to end in first quarter of 2017, a “tired” Sircar (as per his own admissions on social media) finally threw in the towel and sought early retirement in October 2016, which was granted by the government. Sircar returned to his home base in Kolkata to lead a  retired life and giving talks on issues related to primarily arts. 

    Arnab Goswami: The popular anchor had made shouting out his guests as the trademark of his prime time show – News Hour on Times Now. So one only expected his departure to be as noisy – though it was unfathomable by many who thought he and the channel were one – conjoined at the hip.

    And Arnab did not disappoint. The media went berserk: mainline and trade portals, social media, could not stop talking about his departure for weeks, months, and they have not stopped even as the year is coming to a close.

    Goswami’s new venture, believed to be on the cutting edge of technology — and news – is christened Republic.

    Ashok Venkatramani: The CEO of ABP News saw the news network being reinvented, rebranded and recreated from Star News to ABP News a few years ago without losing viewership and business. Venkatramani strengthened the companys financials, brough in systems and rigour making ABP News a viable business operation. He improved the company’s margins, keeping costs under control, even as he expanded ABP News Network’s portfolio to five TV channels, six mobile products, six websites and three additional revenue verticals. Venkatramani quietly resigned without any hullabaloo in November after serving out his notice period. He was replaced by Atideb Sarkar, the son of ABP editor in chief Arup Sarkar.

    Rahul Shivshankar: He left News X in November 2016 to fill the the big shoes left behind by Arnab Goswami. The Kartikeya Sharma owned NewsX flourished under his ediorial leadershup of three years during the TAM era. The journey after BARC’s evolution was not  as good, but the former Headlines Today journalist has his own following.

    Known to be an insightful, incisive journalist, Shivshankar joined Times Now on 15 December as Chief Editor, returning to the company after six years.

    Shivshankar was Senior Editor in his previous stint at the Times Now. And he seems to have done well as Arnab’s replacement. Times Television Network CEO MK Anand has come on record to state that the news network’s viewership share has stayed intact, unaffected by the larger than life news anchor’s departure.

    Sameer Ahluwalia: In one of the more controversial moves, Zee Business head Sameer Ahluwalia parted ways with Zee Media Corp Ltd (ZMCL)  Ahluwalia was associated with the Zee Network for 19 years  and was known to be a close confidante of ZMCL chairman Subhash Chandra.

    Samir’s name was embroiled in the case of the alleged extortion of Rs 100 crore along with Zee News Editor-in-chief Sudheer Chaudhary. To make matters clear, the management had immediately accepted his resignation.

    RK Arora: Zee Media has seen a lot of changes in 2016, with RK Arora being one of those who made an entry and then an exit. Known for his industry acumen and powerful contacts, RK Arora quit Zee Media as executive director and chief cxecutive officer after a stint of around 15 months.

    Arora had joined Zee in May 2015 and parted ways in August 2016. The former News Nation strategic and operational head and ITV Network senior executive has moved onto a new venture JK Media and got into the business of running television news once again.

    Zee Media Group CEO News cluster Bhaskar Das: Leadership to him means delivering outcomes and not outputs. Identifying and mitigating pain-points come naturally to him. With a career spanning over three years, he was responsible for driving up the revenue of all news channels from the cluster that includes channels such as Zee News, Zee Business, Zee 24 Taas (Marathi) and 24 Ghanta (Bengali).

    Earlier this year, he was moved to Zee Entertainment’s media sales arm, Zee Unimedia. As the president and chief growth and innovation officer, he heads the group’s news business operations, including the digital properties.

    CNBC TV18 CEO Anil Uniyal: After working with the TV18 Broadcast for more than 15 years, Uniyal decided to hop on to the Raghav Bahl-Bloomberg venture. An insight provocateur, catalyst, a leader, he  served the network in various positions such as business director for Forbes, head of TV 18 Media operations, COO for Network 18 and lastly CEO for CNBC TV 18 and CNBC Awaaz. Uniyal joined as the CEO to lead Bahl’s joint venture with  Bloomberg.

    CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bazaar editor Sanjay Pugalia: Right after the exit of Uniyal, Pugalia called it a day at Network18. He moved on after 12 years as editor of CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar. Further, under his leadership CNBC Awaaz went to the number 1 position in its segment. Pugalia played an important role in the launch of Star News in India. He went on to join as president and editorial director of both, Raghav Bahl’s The Quint and Bloomberg Quint.

    India TV  CEO Paritosh Joshi: It’s all about respect and relationships for him. Acting as a strategist at India TV since 2012, he was brought on board as CEO in November 2015. While everyone hoped that this would be a long association, it was clearly taxing for him as he continued to commute between two metros. He has completed the circle and is back to being a strategist. The primary reason behind his exit was to return to his family in Mumbai. After quitting as the CEO of Star CJ Network in 2012, Joshi planned on starting his own venture in the media and entertainment space. He founded Principal, an advisory to advise clients on corporate strategy, marketing, revenue enhancement and other issues.

    Zee Digital Debashish Ghosh: With the explosion in the OTT and VOD ecosystem, opportunities are coming a-plenty for professionals. Zee Digital Convergence CEO Debashish Ghosh put in his papers at Zee Digital and hopped on board the Chinese tech and consumer electronics major LeEco. The salt and pepper coloured hair head took over as the new COO at LeEco’s India outfit in June 2016. While at Zee, he had taken charge of all the digital businesses of the Essel Group in India as CEO and whole time board director of India.com network in February 2013. He started his career with the Times of India Group in 1990 and worked as head of technology and advertising operations to becoming Times Business Solutions CEO in 2012.

    Zee TV Business Head Pradeep Hejmadi: From a broadcasting company to an audience measurement system and back to broadcasting, Hejmadi has seen it all. With multi-dimensional understanding of the media businesses, he moved from Nickelodeon India as director for business and operations to spearhead TAM media research as senior VP. He was responsible for revenue generation, client management, new business development and new product development. In July 2014, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) appointed him as the business head of its flagship Hindi entertainment channel Zee TV.  Hejmadi called his last at Zee in May  2016 after spending two years with the company.

    Disney India CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur:  Kapur was one of the newsmakers  of the year 2016. He is married to the beuatiful Vidya Balan and his brothrs Aditya and Kunal have made a mark for themselves in Bollywood as on-screen talent.

    Siddharth quit Disney India as managing director in October to explore his own business interests. He was replaced by Mahesh Samat, the former CEO, who returned to the position that he held between 2008 and 2012, and officially took charge on November 28.

    While working for the company, Kapur introduced the Indian Broadway version of the timeless classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which was a huge success, apart from launching a slate of Bollywood projects for the studio and fine tuning the network’s channel bouquet.

    He joined UTV in 2005, took over as chief executive officer of UTV Motion Pictures in 2008 and after the integration of UTV with The Walt Disney Co. (India) in 2012, held the role of managing director-studios.

    He was promoted as managing director of Disney India in 2014.

     

    S.N. Sharma: He left a company he helped cofound to assist Reliance Industries boss Mukesh Ambani’s Jio to roll out a national cable TV and broadband network. But earlier this year, cable vet SN Sharma quit Jio to go back to his  original home DEN Networks.

    His former boss  Sameer Manchanda gave him a call and told him he needed his help to whip the floundering national MSO into shape. SN – not one to ignore a challenge – took up the assignment. Pradeep Parmeswaran the DEN CEO stepped down,  paving  the way for Sharma to come back, and continued  as an advisor to the company.

    Sharma has his task cut out but he has been taking strong but effective  steps with the company’s national jont ventures and he is steering it strongly into broadband. He  has confessed his stint at Reliance Jio has imbibed in him a telecom rigour which should go a long way in helping steer  DEN Networks into the fast lane.

     

    Jagdish Kumar Pillai: The buzz was anyway gaining in strength; that Jagdish Kumar was counting his days at the national MSO – probably the most respected nationally. And that he had got the go-ahead to depart from both the Hathway Cable & Datacom management and director Viren Raheja who has been spearheading his father Rajan  Rahejas’s  cable TV venture.

    With cable TV ARPUs being restrained the company is being restructured with Jagidish quitting and being replaced by Hathway broadband president  Rajan Gupta who was named the managing director. President – video business T. Panesar was also elevated as CEO-video business.

    Jagdish who was with the MSO for around half a decade said he was taking a sabbatical before making his  next move.