Category: Year Enders

Let’s differentiate ‘News Channels’ from ‘Views Channels’ to save real journalism: TV9 Karnataka & News9 director Mahendra Mishra

That there is a political-promoter-news channel nexus in the South of India is something that we have been aware for quite sometime. In all the four states-Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala – hardly a day goes by without the politician promoters using her/his media vehicle as a mouthpiece. After money and muscle, it’s media’s turn across South for politicos who seem to have gained mastery over the game. For them, the news channel appears to be the strongest weapon to run the political business.

Now the big question is what happens to the sanctity of news if politicians convert the newsroom into their party office as we come across quite often…

The words that define news are – independent, unbiased and factual. Clearly these words don’t reflect the character of these ‘news channels’.

As a news channel, we are supposed to be the ‘conscience-keeper’ of the society. Also, we are the pillar on which the democracy rests. Aren’t we going to do just the opposite by adulterating ‘news’ with our personal agenda?

We tend to believe that aam aadmi is intelligent enough to understand the design behind such attempts, but what we forget is that it’s the same aam aadmi that is spending time to consume (if not digest) the ‘adulterated’ news content being put out by these channels.

It eventually leads to the dilution of the ‘real’ news consumption which sounds demoralising for the journalistically-driven news channels. It’s surely not a healthy sign for the growth of Indian news television, especially in the regional space.

Secondly, these ‘adulterated’ news channels spoil the fearless, uncompromising and unyielding breed of journalists who are out there to make a real difference. Once you have worked with one of these news channels, it’s highly unlikely that your journalistic fire will still be alive.

Essentially, these ‘views’ channels thrive on the propaganda, leading to a nearly deoxygenated journalistic environment. How do we expect fearless journalism to flourish in such a debilitating ambience? It’s a serious challenge we are going to face in the years to come.

To top that, since these channels hardly command ‘sizeable’ viewership in their respective markets, they resort to underselling the channel. It means that real ‘news’ channels are also under pressure to sell the ‘air-time’ at comparable rates. This is the reason why most of the regional ‘views’ channels are bleeding badly across south today, but in the process, they have ensured that the real ‘news’ channels also suffer.

Another important point is that the national television content regulators like News Broadcasters Association can’t really monitor the newscasts of these channels as most of them have deliberately stay away from being part of any such regulator. It poses serious risk for the audiences who may easily fall prey to their ‘luring’ tactics.

Generally speaking, south India has around 20 news channels-directly/indirectly promoted by politicians, mostly in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka while there are just a few which can be classified under the non-political and unbiased category.

As TAM data suggests, the viewership share of regional news channels has grown by 15-20 per cent in south India in 2011, unlike other genres, as compared to the previous year and interestingly, this trend looks to continue in the years to come. The striking point here is that most of the growth has come from the political news channels being launched/or running across all languages in south.

Is it clean, pure journalism that is driving this growth in South India? The answer is a straight ‘NO’. Then, can we call it a positive trend?

Take Karnataka for instance. The state saw three major launches of political news channels-Janashri (Janardhan Reddy), Samaya 24/7(Karnataka’s Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani with Ex-CM B S Yeddyurappa’s backing) and Kasthuri Newz 24(H D Kumaraswamy).These channels put together have grown to occupy around 20 per cent of the total news viewership in Karnataka in 2011.

I don’t see any reason why these channels shouldn’t exist or grow.These channels have as much right to telecast or show what they want as anyone else. But I believe that it’s unfair to call them a ‘news channel.’ My contention is why should a ‘views channel’ be allowed to run in the garb of a ‘news channel’.

Let’s create another category for such channels and spare people getting confused with ‘news channels’. Let there be a different mechanism to handle this category. The idea is to ensure that people must not be fed ‘views’ in the form of ‘news’. Let’s not fake things. Let’s grow up and accept the facts as they are.

I think 2011 will be seen as a year when these ‘views’ channels threatened to adulterate ‘news’ beyond recognition. And it went almost unnoticed. It’s high time that the country, especially south wakes up to the underlying risks of ‘adulterated’ journalism. This is going to be the biggest test for the ‘real’ news channels in the years to come. If the sancity of the news has to be restored, this battle has to be won. That’s the only way out…

February 16, 2012
Year of flux and expansion for English movie channels : Pix business head Sunder Aaron

The past year has been a great step forward for the entire English Movie Channel category which has gained both in size and viewership.

2011 – Looking Back before Seeing Forward:

The overall viewership for the category increased by a whopping 50 per cent. Channels have also realised the importance of creating brand extension programmes for their viewers to gain viewer loyalty and top of mind recall. Many new brand extension programmes have been launched by many channels to build a close relationship with their viewers.

The Pix Movie Club is a great example of connecting with viewers beyond their television screens. The club is college-based community for students which allows them to watch new Hollywood theatrical releases for free. The main link between the channel and the club is Hollywood and not the content on the channel. Many sponsors and advertisers are also very keen to be associated with such properties since it establishes a direct and personal connection with prospective consumers.

Distribution fees and carriage did not abate in 2011, and it was amazing in some circumstances to see new channels that address limited audiences launching and paying a high price just to make a splash in the market.

Looking at the ratings pattern for the genre over last year you will see that the English movie category is competing as fiercely as the GEC channels. The channels are putting forth tight scheduling and great content to garner maximum eyeballs.

There is fierce competition among the top four channels for the top spot. No channel remains at the same position for too long unlike the year of 2010.

Pix has its own interesting trends worth quickly highlighting. 2011 has been a great year for us in many ways. The year began with Pix introducing major blockbuster films which we acquired through our exclusive output deal for all films under the SPE banner. It gave me immense joy to crack this deal since this was a foundation for a brand new Pix!

The channel transitioned from a storyteller to a one stop destination for latest Hollywood blockbusters with current titles. The evolution is a continuous process for us and the channel is going from strength to strength. This is a very exciting time for us and even more so for our viewers who took a keen interest in the channel and its new content.

Trends in 2012

Content: Competition for content in 2012 will be more aggressive than ever. When it comes to the English movies category, fans of Hollywood films couldn’t be happier given they now have so many channels to choose from.

Most of the popular titles come from studios and, therefore, scarcity cannot be avoided. Economics teaches us that with high demand and limited product prices will escalate. This trend started in 2011 and will only mount further in 2012. I expect high pricing to remain for the next year at least.

Digitisation: Digitisation means channels must become more relevant for its viewers, since consumers will themselves hand select channels they want on their television set top box. This also marks a change in the television landscape which has been long overdue in India.

Digitisation should also lead to greater transparency and rationalisation for all the stakeholders involved in the industry including consumers, operators and broadcasters. Indian cable systems that offer multi channel TV in India are technologically outdated and need to catch up with the rest of the world. The economics of multi channel television are better for operators as well as broadcasters.

When you consider the great variety of channels that consumers have to choose from at low subscription prices, India may arguably have the greatest television market in the world. Keep in mind, our industry here is still very young; it’s less than 20 years old whereas private TV started in the 1950’s in the US. The evolution of television, the “Televolution”, will continue for some time.

Digitisation is just the next stage of growth for all of those concerned. While we can look at the other markets around the world for lessons and guidance, we should also be careful not to believe that they are offering us lessons on the right or wrong way of doing things.

The Indian television market is its own vast, and unique creature. Our own methods of packaging, pricing etc. will develop naturally as digitisation proliferates.

Distribution: While we can expect digitisation to have an effect on the carriage fees and cost of placements, it’s hard to anticipate what exactly will happen and na?ve to expect carriage fees to go away entirely.

Many of the channels and networks that launched with big carriage budgets meant to attain clear and immediate success are playing a valuation game rather than making their P/L a priority. At some point this will catch up with them.

Perhaps 2012 will see some shake outs of these channels, and should digitisation be immediately successful, we might see several of them convert their business models. Hopefully in 2012, we will see lots more services being launched by cable operators including VOD, SVOD, PPV, broadband and data services, Internet radio and, perhaps, even telephony.

Marketing: Marketing will play a more important role in a digitised environment than ever before. Marketers will need to utilise new and unique means to differentiate their brand from competition, while remaining cost efficient.

In the highly competitive English Movie Channel category, the top 4 channels have similar programming and brand offerings. This makes it essential for the channels to market and promote themselves distinctly.

For example, if I were to take a hoarding at Marine Drive to promote the Pix Super Movie of the Month, it may be successful in a typical (and costly) way, but it won’t create any differentiation for the brand (all movie channels have advertised themselves on prominent hoardings at one point or another). But if my communication has a differentiated message and/or is delivered via a distinct and innovative media vehicle, then the marketing communication would create a ‘differentiating’ factor for the brand as well as driving viewers to the channel.

At Pix we try to conduct as much ‘Differential Marketing’ as possible, to really distinguish Pix from the rest of the category. It’s not always easy, and it’s certainly not always cheap. In fact, it often requires experimentation which can prove to be expensive. However, given the changing television landscape, the brands which don’t run work on their Differential Marketing will run the risk of losing out.

February 15, 2012
2011: Destroying myths in the English movie channel space: Times Television Network CEO, English Entertainment Channels Ajay Trigunayat

The television industry in 2011 has seen a very positive growth curve, as English entertainment witnessed robust augmentation. Times Television Network decided to foray into the English movie channel category with the launch of Movies Now, in line with its commitment of bringing the best in entertainment to the urban affluent audience.

In the year 2011, the players have faced and overcome a number of challenges which have been hampering the overall growth of the category. The first challenge was to set right the perceived notions about the category which are actually contrary to reality!

One myth was that English movie channels viewership is driven by new titles. 89 per cent of viewership was library led in the English Movie channel category. The same has risen to 94 per cent now.

English movie channels is a niche category. 56 million people watch English Movie channels week on week. This number is actually larger than the population of a few countries, thus making this genre an extremely popular and lucrative offering.

English movie channels are dependent on the DTH availability for viewership. 88 per cent of English movie channels viewership emanates from cable households (HHs). India is not ready for High Definition (HD). More than four million HHs have HD/HD ready TV sets.

While Movies Now has been a pioneer in the broadcast industry, setting up a 24-hour HD channel posed a host of problems. Times Television Network has no HD experience, unlike an MNC network which has extensive experience in many other countries! it involved extensive research, analysis, planning and implementation of the technology. Additionally, upgradation of current skill sets was done for all professionals.

Unreasonably high carriage fee is a malaise that has spread like cancer and is impeding the growth potential of the TV industry in India. There is up to 90 per cent of underdeclaration on the number of HHs by the local cable operators (LCOs).

While broadcasters should be earning subscription revenue, they end up paying humungous carriage fee which is highly detrimental to the business. However, the government mandate to digitise cable networks across India will bring a significant transformation in the industry.

Challenging the genre leader: For the past two decades, two players, Star Movies and HBO, have duopolised the category with no other player even being able to get close to their performance.

Movies Now launched with the aim to challenge the status quo and demolished the dominance of Star Movies & HBO.

Movies Now changed the rules for the category, being the only English movie channel to provide homogeneous presence and reach across all eight metros as against 5/7 metros being provided by other channels. This marked the end of an era where Star Movies and HBO ruled the roost for over a decade.

In a reverse of the accepted norm, the success of Movies Now has now prompted competition to drive programming on library led content instead of the new titles. As a result the viewership contribution of the library led movies has increased from 89 per cent to 94 per cent.

The English movie channel category is riding on a robust TV growth in 2011. The TV industry in general has grown in both C&S and Digital HHs. Total Television HHs have now reached 142 million, C&S homes are at 116 million and Digital HHs have grown to 26 million. This is further expected to grow to 42 million by the end of 2012.

Opportunities in 2012: All one million+ towns is the next big opportunity. There is a substantial growth in the reach of DTH and digital TV in rural India and we strongly believe that the way-forward for the television industry is capturing the audience attention in the 1 million+ towns.

Since the time of launch, Movies Now has strengthened its viewer base and has been homogenously present across the eight metros unlike other players who spoke about 5/7 metros. In 2012, the focus is clearly going to be on the 1 million+ towns.

The 2011 census shows that there are 53 towns with 1 million+ population from 35 towns in 2001.

Digitisation: The government mandate to digitise cable networks across India will bring a significant transformation in the industry. Currently, the digital viewership contribution is 27 per cent to the English movie channels which will go up to 50 per cent by the end of 2012.

The increased digital penetration will result in raising the bar of audio-visual reception and experience. Consequently, channels placed on high unwanted frequencies will also be clearly visible creating parity in reception quality and in turn result in enhanced viewership.

With CAS being mandated soon, the carriage fee should go down and subscription revenues should take a leap, resulting in healthier margins for broadcasters.

Digital & Social Media: The digital and social media space is growing by a whopping 140 per cent and there is a whole new host of avenue for the TV channels to engage directly and regularly with viewer beyond TV.

Being a cost effective medium, we will see a major refocus in allocation of the marketing budgets towards digital and social media space.

Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) Marketing: While this is currently non-existent in India, it is an important focus area and has the potential to considerably enhance user experience.

The EPG allows television viewers to navigate scheduling information and can be made available through television (on set top boxes), mobile phones, and on the web. While this is being overlooked currently, a strategic focus and implementation is imminent with the right message in terms of text & design needed for aiding channel navigation.

All in all, this is an exciting time to be in the English movie channel category and one can look forward to an action-packed 2012 with the players revving up for hot competition.

February 14, 2012
Coming Soon- A Tsunami of Creativity: Reliance Industries Ltd President of media and entertainment Jagdish Kumar

Year 2012: “I missed the TV show last night but watched the TV show on my IPad later”, a friend informs me.

On the face of it, that statement looked perfectly normal. But wait…just think a bit more on that statement. Why should a video show be known as a “TV show” and be tagged only to television, which is but a mere technical device for watching video content?

Extending this argument further why should the TV programming industry, which is a thriving and flourishing content industry, be known by only one of the many consumption devices which consumers use for watching video content? Nomenclatures like “Television industry” and “Film industry” is rapidly becoming meaningless; it is time to rename these industries by a label, which truly reflects their character: ” Content Industry”.

Circa (not too far in the distant future): There will come a time when the same friend will tell me “My IPad is not working but I watched the video on Television ” or ” I surfed the Internet on my smart TV”.

Now for some statistics to set the background to the point, I am attempting to make on creative forces: On last count we are a nation with a population of 1200 million people. For a country of our size that prides itself for the progress we have made in the IT industry, it is a shame that broadband penetration is currently abysmally low at 1 per cent with 12 million broadband connections!

The figure for broadband penetration will be embarrassingly smaller when we consider at least 1 Mbps as the cut-off to define a real broadband connection instead of the current definition of 256 Kbps. The network effects of ubiquitous real broadband connectivity on a nation‘s economy are well proven and demonstrated. Various research studies have shown that a 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration can increase GDP by 1.5 per cent. It is estimated that India lost approx. $100 billion in GDP due to the failure in achieving the broadband penetration target of 40 million by 2010 set by the National Broadband Plan, 2004.

Thankfully various initiatives, both private and public, are at work to rectify this anomaly. The stated target of the Indian government is to reach a level of 100 million broadband connections by 2014. Given current indications and trends, we will hopefully surpass this target by a large margin, mainly driven by portable broadband connectivity devices like Tablets and Smartphones.

Now back to the topic under discussion: The current state of the video industry is characterised by nearly homogenous content which panders to the overwhelming demands of a vast majority while completely ignoring the diversity and plurality of our nation. There is no system, which incentivizes and encourages creativity and innovation. All players in this space, be it moviemakers or producers of other forms of video entertainment, have been drugged by a market system which panders to the lowest common denominator. Viewers are narcotized into a cloistered environment by a constant barrage of award ceremonies, high-cost and alien format shows, “scripted” reality shows and highly emotive and blingful performances masquerading as social drama.

The tyranny of weekly programme ratings and vagaries of an advertising based business model coupled with the imperfections in the content distribution system by way of under-declared subscribers and carriage fees has shackled the content industry. Resource allocation is governed by businesses, which are sustained on the principle that puts a disproportionate focus on combating competition to maintain pole positions in the weekly ratings charts rather than creating innovative content for the consumer. Add to this the vanities of the participants and ego clashes between creative personalities, we have a potent mix that has drawn the content industry into a vicious vortex trapping all the players: creators, artists, managers, media agencies,advertisers, distributors and consumers.

What does the future hold for the content industry? I foresee a combination of 4 forces that will define the way forward for the content industry:
a) The proliferation of DTH connections
b) The last mile digitisation drive by the Government of India
c) The growth in broadband connectivity and
d) The unleashing of creative forces that can easily find avenues for exhibition.

Digitisation enabled by the above mentioned forces would equip content providers with the ability to reach their target audience with minimal intervention from intermediaries. Content creation will become more consumer focused and not get distracted by short-term demands of the current system. Content will not fall into strait jacket formats of half hour episodes or three-hour movies; even a one-minute video can deliver a compelling and riveting story provided it has the ability to reach relevant viewers, who will be more than willing to attribute value for good quality.

Consumers will be the winners in a digital environment. They will not be treated like sheep who are shepherded to watch content which is pushed down to them without any consideration to their time, needs or preferences. They will be freed from the clutches of the vanity of channels and their programming schedules.

The technique for making videos is fast becoming easily accessible to the common man. Every person who has a smartphone with a camera has the potential to create a video to strike a primordial chord and become as sensational as the recent song, Kolaveri Di. Such smartphones are rapidly becoming a necessity rather than an item of luxury.

In my view, the fourth force mentioned above, “unleashing of creative forces”, is going to be the surprise element in the future. With the inherent creativity and “jugaardness” in Indians, I am betting that we will witness some ingenious form of content, application or service, which ignites a primal human instinct and becomes a rage in a short time. Facebook is an example that springs to mind; Facebook tapped into a primary human need for social interaction and created an enterprise that has reached a value of nearly $100 billion in a short span of 8 years! Such an enterprise is waiting to happen in India in the content space.

A word of caution to people who think that television as a device for media consumption is losing the battle for eyeballs. Evidence from developed markets has shown that newer media consumption devices like Tablets and Smartphones supplement television viewing. Research has shown that proliferation of newer devices has not cannibalized television viewing; it has actually increased overall media consumption. People watch television while simultaneously interacting with other devices to enhance their viewing experience.

Like all other industries, the content industry is also akin to a living organism facing relentless forces, which may be either headwinds or tailwinds to the players in varying proportions. And like living organisms, the content industry will learn to adapt and change.

The race to get to the Consumer is getting exciting. Thankfully, it is a never-ending race with only one permanent winner who has no rival… the Consumer!!

February 8, 2012
2011: Building leagues and searching for life beyond cricket

2011 was a year where sports took a leaf out of the success of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and announced leagues following a similar franchise format. Leagues ranging from football to hockey are being built to offer content to sports broadcasters.

Sports marketers believe that there is an audience for sport other than cricket as long as it is packaged, marketed and organised well in a professional manner.

As far as cricket is concerned, the big news was the termination of Nimbus‘ rights for India cricket by the BCCI. On a more positive note, the sport did well for advertisers in terms of ROI.

As far as the push towards non cricket is concerned, two leagues were announced this year in motorsports and American football. Nimbus and the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) concretised their plans for World Series Hockey (WSH).

The property for Nimbus will serve as a feeder for Neo Sports. Wizcraft International director Sabbas Joseph expects this franchise to break-even within five years. But given that politics has been responsible for the national sport going down the drain, it is not surprising that the initiative has run into some rough
weather.

In order to take the sport of horse racing to another level, R1 was launched marking Bennett Coleman‘s first big push into sport. The push also extended to sports entertainment with WWE opening an office in India.

Life In The Fast Lane: It is not just mass sports that are going the league way to gain a wider audience and boost their commercial value. In motorsports, Machdar Motorsports announced the launch of a racing league at a cost of $12-15 million a year. It will no doubt be encouraged by the response that the first F1 race got in Delhi. The league, called i1 Super Series, will see the likes of Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan owning a team.

The league, though, has been postponed to January next year, partly due to the fact that franchise owners want time for marketing activities. Also, it has been finding it tough to get corporates to own teams for I series, which is why it had reduced the ownership price from $5 million to $3.5 million.

1 Super Series managing Darshan M expects the franchises, who have ownership for 15 years, to recoup their investments in the fourth year. Each team will race with two cars forming an 18-car grid.

Aiming to grow the amount of sports it covers, Ten Sports has taken the broadcast rights for the event. Ten Sports CEO Atul Pande believes there is place for a domestic racing league. “Our programming mix is the best among the sports broadcasters and this property is a significant addition. With the kind of capital and marketing dollars chasing it, the event will gain traction,” he says.

And for Khan, this offers an opportunity to get involved with other sports ventures apart from his Kolkata Knight Riders IPL franchise.

GroupM ESP managing partner Hiren Pandit notes that the involvement of celebrities like SRK will lend visibility. “But ultimately it is the quality of sport being dished out that will determine its fate. At this point I am not sure if it will turn out to be a good TV sport. This will be a toy for the big boys.”

Taking a Punt: In order to boost the profile of horse racing, RWITC formed a joint venture with Bennett Coleman and Procam to launch R1.

R1 has 13 races lined up across the country in its debut year. Aired on Ten Sports, R1 kicked off with the Indian 1000 Guineas on 11 December 2011. The aim of the stakeholders is to position the sport as being cool and trendy so that younger viewers start tuning in.

Zee is pushing the property on its other channels like Zee Café and Zee Studio. Bennett Coleman will also heavily promote the event across its different properties like Times Now.

For the first time in the history of this sport, behind-the-scenes action will be captured, which include the jockeys‘ room and the stewards room. The live world feed will include new cameras including a Super Slo-Mo Camera.

According to Pandit, horse racing operates in a tight segment. “It is seen in India as a gamblers sport. Some brands will associate with it. Whether they broaden the audience base or not remains to be seen,” he says.

EFLI makes an entry: The Elite Football League of India (EFLI) announced a league aiming to grow American football in India. Based on the franchise model, it starts with eight teams, building up to a total of 52 by 2022 representing all Indian cities with a population in excess of one million.

With Ten Sports as its partner, the league will kick off in November 2012 in Pune. Says EFLI CEO Richard Whelan, “American football is fast, furious and fun to watch. Indian viewers are now watching sports other than cricket. There is no doubt in our minds that the EFLI has picked the right time for its Indian touchdown. Even women are keen on watching sports.”

Nimbus‘ Woes: Speaking of the bat and ball game, Nimbus is on a sticky wicket. It moved the Bombay high Court over its deal with the BCCI (the Board of Control for Cricket in India) that got terminated for non payment of dues.

The BCCI has time to find a new broadcaster as there are several months to go before India plays a series at home.

Ad revenue scene: Sports broadcasters earned an advertising revenue of around Rs 21 billion in 2011, a healthy growth over last year.

Agrees Lodestar UN CEO Shashi Sinha, “2011 was special for sports as there was the cricket World Cup and the IPL. You had the highs of big properties as well as events that helped build the image of sports. FMCG brands also got more involved with cricket. The economic slowdown has not impacted sports ad revenue.”

There is a challenge, though, in 2012 as ad revenue from cricket could degrow in terms of monies due to a lesser number of high profile events.

Sinha finds the entry of new leagues an encouraging sign. “The surface of sports in India has not been scratched beyond cricket. There is scope for leagues to work as long as investments are made. It will be a question of how a property is leveraged and marketed.”

The Cricket Rights Scene: On the cricket rights front, 2012 will see a lot of action as a host of properties come up for grabs.

In 2011, Zee took the crucial step of renewing its rights for Cricket South Africa. Zee also renewed rights for Zimbabwe cricket, while ESPN Star Sports (ESS) retained Australia.

The rights for India, England, West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and New Zealand are all due for grabs.

February 7, 2012
Carving out a space for independent agencies: Scarecrow Communications founder director Raghu Bhat

Mark Zuckerberg started his company when he was 20 years of age and Steve Jobs when he was 22. However, most of the independent agencies in India have been started by guys above the age of 35. Also, a lot of them had already attained professional success in their jobs at network agencies. This means, an independent agency is largely born out of a network agency’s inability to retain its senior creative people. Dissatisfaction in their current working environment has forced them to turn entrepreneurs and start their agencies, rather than the Silicon Valley mindset – the fierce desire to create a multi-million dollar valuation firm in the minimum possible time.

This brings us to the next question? Why are senior creative people unhappy in a network agency? In our viewpoint, there are two big reasons. One is lack of creative freedom or independence. In many cases, the final creative call is taken by a suit. This can stifle creativity and individualism. The other is, lack of compensation proportional to their contribution to the agency. The latter is still negotiable but the former is indispensable for a genuinely talented creative guy to survive.

In an independent agency, the potential of the creative person gets unshackled. His ideas don’t die before they reach the client. For this reason, many independent agencies are doing sparkling work.

We believe that there is loads of creativity in the big network agencies. What they don’t have is a mechanism to ensure that the best ones reach the client. They do good work but the hit rate percentage is lot lesser than the smaller agencies. Independent agencies offer quality creative thinking, flatter structures, quicker response times, personalised attention and lots of passion.

The other big advantage is that in an independent agency, the creative people get to hear the business problem itself, from the horse’s mouth as they get to deal directly with the big decision makers. We believe the brilliance of the creative solution is proportional to the clarity with the business problem is articulated. This puts them in a vantage position to solve it with maximum efficacy.

Creative people get the liberty to present ideas they truly believe in. There are no unnecessary rules, no baggage, no hierarchy. Both agency and the client have only one objective – to solve the problem at hand in the given budget and timeline. This single-mindedness of agenda and purity of purpose is hugely liberating, from a creative standpoint.

The other big differentiator for an independent agency can be the ‘creative culture’. At one level, this is intangible but at another level, it is very real as it is something employees experience on an everyday basis. Culture is the aggregate of the agency’s actions, internally and externally. Most network agencies behave in a similar fashion. They do the same things while dealing with employees and clients. Also a culture is created when most of the people in the organisation believe in the same things. Therefore, it’s easier for an independent agency to carve out its own distinct culture. Doing so will help it become a talent magnet and lead to a happy productive workplace.

Admittedly, there are many challenges too. Some of the them are not very different from those faced by a network agency. For example, the ability of an independent agency to grow depends on their ability to attract top talent, at the senior and junior levels. They have to manage finances well. A weakened economic sentiment, the prospect of Europe being in recession for 5-10 years and a bearish stock market might mean lower marketing spends by Indian companies. This could hit the agency’s capacity to invest in people as they aren’t sitting on huge cash reserves.

The independent agency also has to ensure it doesn’t become a victim of stereotyping. Based on a hi-profile campaign, an independent agency can quickly acquire a reputation for specialisation, without even realising it. In India too, there are independents who are known as ‘lifestyle’ agencies or ‘mass FMCG type’ agencies. While the agency may have the capability to handle different products across diverse audiences, they can still lose out, as the perception might overpower reality. The best way to counter this is to aggressively showcase work across categories and acquire a varied portfolio as fast as possible.

One of the accusations against independent agencies is that they are creative boutiques, dependent solely on a pair of creative people. They may not be seen as ‘organisations’. Their capacity to deliver integrated solutions or handle big businesses is sometimes questioned. Bandwidth can become an issue. Some of them may not have the ability to hire great account planners. This is a reality that the agency heads have to face.

To deal with this, they should craft out a short term and long term strategy. It’s important to have one eye on the present without losing sight of the future. A conscious attempt should be made to expand the bouquet of communication offerings. The independent agency should be on the lookout to develop expertise in related areas like design, digital, strategy, retail, rural marketing and healthcare. This will make the agency less vulnerable to recessionary trends.

Moreover, it will accelerate the learning curve and ensure that the agency heads aren’t caught up in attending to just the short-term contingencies. In case the agency head plans to sell off his agency after a few years, this will also help in the valuation. It’s also important to plough back some money into making a decent office as that’s where people spend 10-12 hours every day.

Ultimately, the independent agencies will co-exist with the large network agencies. There will be ample opportunities for both. The Indian economy is a domestic consumption story and we expect that growth will happen at a steady if not spectacular rate. The creative people who will enjoy embrace the added responsibilities (Cash flow, staffing, client management, accounting) of running the independent agency, along with the creative tasks, are the ones who will stick it out. The creative guys who want to concentrate only on doing creative work will be tempted to sell out.

February 4, 2012
Sports broadcasting at the crossroads of survival and glory: Zeel Sports Business CEO Atul Pande

Well, another year has gone past for the sports broadcasting industry in India, and another year which has raised more questions than answers, as the industry stands at the crossroads of survival and glory.

Year 2011 started with a bang. A very successful World Cup – at least from an India team view point driving record ratings. The Indian teams performance, a dream semi-final and a terrific final ensured that the ODI got back to an even keel against their more illustrious counterpart – the T20. IPL demonstrated first weakness in the ratings of this very successful event, and the English tour started the demise of an illustrious Indian team, and as I write this, our performance in Australia has affected the cash registers even more. The fans mourn the performance of a team, which could do no wrong a year ago, which is reflecting in immediate ratings and the general mood.

In the middle of all this, there was a small matter of a broadcaster falling out with a cricket board, with ramifications which could redefine the sport going forward.

We live in India, and sometimes we forget that sport is more than cricket, so it‘s time for some statistics. The sports genre delivered a growth of 11 per cent in gross GRPs (gross rating points) delivered in 2011. The growth comes down a bit if one includes IPL, but the market share of the genre hovers around 7 per cent of all GRPs delivered. Interestingly, cricket grew driven by the World Cup with 85 per cent share, and non cricket GRPs actually shrunk this year, demonstrating the event driven nature of the Indian sports broadcasting milieu. The reach also increased this year with 5 million more households gaining access to the viewing pleasure of sport.

Football demonstrated selective growth, and in some metro markets is a clear number 2 sport to cricket now. Also, clearly as a genre, there is a divide between metro / non metro where in cities like Mumbai and Delhi sports genre share is now climbing into the teens in terms of viewership.

The launch of the HD service this year has opened another vista for the serious viewers and will open a completely new high value market, which will grow rapidly. Sports viewers on HD will touch a million by the end of this fiscal and are expected to grow to 5 million in two years time – a significant constituency.

The advertising revenues struggled, especially towards the later part of the year. Subscription revenues grew modestly, with DTH (direct-to-home) again driving most of the growth, and financial model of all broadcasters in this business continues to be challenged.

As predicted last year, new sports leagues have started burgeoning , and there is clearly a ground traction towards this initiative. Long term , it appears that all key sports will have their own structured leagues, with revenue models around them. Whether television can support all of them is a matter of discussion and evolution, but the on ground model continues to develop in India. The numbers initially will be modest but will help towards building sustainable platforms for these products in India.

What was also interesting was to watch the other cricket boards launch their own versions of IPL, and it remains to be seen how these products will impact their markets, and more interestingly, the Indian market – which will have to bankroll these products in some way. The role of our cricket board will also play a part in these leagues as they grow and develop. Sri Lanka Premier League was deferred to 2012 after an aborted take off in 2011, but the Bangladesh Premier League appears to be a reality in the earlier part of 2012.

The elephant in the room continues to be Cricket, and that is the issue, which all constituents are grappling with. It should come as no surprise to all if I mention that all broadcasters are struggling with the P&L around the sport. The board / broadcaster issue which I mentioned earlier is driven by the commercial equations of the product. It appears that unless the end subscriber starts paying for the cricket which he watches, and the revenue finds its way to the broadcaster, we are heading into a rather convoluted puzzle with few immediate solutions.

The regulatory piece also does not help with mandatory sharing and stipulated pricing, which depresses the pricing across all categories, and also limits placement and revenue generation opportunities at the distribution level.

The other issue which needs redressal is the general structure of the game per se. There is a crisis of sorts on the cricketing structure. Test cricket and its primacy appear under threat; there seems to be too much supply of cricket happening and there seems to be lack of cohesion between the ICC and its members on the way forward with the overall structure and scheduling. For the broadcasters, it is becoming a difficult task to be able to value these events in a predictable way for future revenues. In some markets Internet is now a credible force, and Internet piracy is a significant dampener in the current scheme of things.

It is incumbent upon all stakeholders now to come together and find solutions for the long term sustenance of the product. 2012 will be an interesting year, which may drive much structural action on our cricket broadcasting model.

With so much uncertainty around the main sport, segmentation will be the buzz word in the industry around non cricket sports. While viewing shares in some of the sports continue to be relatively low, our sheer numbers will help us in building profitable models around various products. I expect that the non cricket action will continue to accelerate at the ground level. And while we may not see or feel much happening here because of the sheer mind space cricket holds in our ethos, the real story and action is here. What is happening now will change the Indian sports viewing landscape, the results of which we will see in 5 to 10 years from now.

Impending cable digitalisation also needs a mention in the scheme of things. It is possibly the single biggest immediate opportunity facing the business today. The DTH experience has demonstrated that addressable systems can drive a lot of revenue traction for compelling content and sports is clearly at the top of the ladder in terms of specific customer affiliation. Also, with superior delivery vehicles, transparent reporting and better customer interface, this platform brings to all the broadcasters the opportunity to segment, differentiate and build revenue streams around the distribution strategy of specific operators. I foresee this platform to be the next driver of sports distribution revenues in India. The road promises to be rocky but the view in the end should be stunning for all concerned.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the action. 2012 will be a defining year for this business in our part of the world, and events as they unfold should be gripping !!

February 2, 2012
10 Key trends in the movie biz by Siddharth Roy Kapur

The Hindi film industry is at an interesting crossroads – one that will define the next phase of growth for the business – both creatively and commercially.

For anyone involved in the movie business in India today, it is an exciting and a challenging time. Exciting because there are so many moving parts that the sheer adrenalin of navigating through them and achieving commercial and creative success can give you a headrush. Challenging because the choices we make today as an industry could determine the trajectory for a whole future generation of studios, filmmakers, actors,
technicians and audiences.

The 10 key trends are:

1. Growth of Exhibition platforms and digitalisation of cinemas: The advent of the multiplex culture and the digitalisation of cinemas has completely changed the dynamics for audiences, exhibitors, distributors and producers.

Films will become much more accessible to the audiences in remote towns via satellite technology, thereby
reducing costs and making it more feasible and cost effective to further increase the penetration of cinema into the hinterland of the country.

2. Marketing and Promotions: Skilfully executed marketing and PR initiatives are increasingly contributing to the good opening weekend of a movie. It plays an aggressive role in driving a film through the “media noise corridor” right from pre-production all the way to release and beyond.

Creating the right noise from the very initial stages of the film to post production stages has become an imperative function coupled with innovation and ongoing market research for every film.

3. New Revenue streams: The advent of new emerging platforms and technologies will pave the way for newer revenue streams for the film industry apart from the box office and other traditional sources of revenue. Innovations like 3G and 4G will change the dynamics of the movie watching experience, creating new access points for consumers across the world.

4. Short and Entertaining: Audiences of today especially the 15-24-year-olds, which form the most significant part of the Indian population and are popularly known as the impatient generation, have a preference for more snacky and short form content.

New age directors who can feel the pulse of these audiences are very capable of delivering content that will soon bring in the trend of watching short format entertaining content on non theatrical platforms.

5. De-risking – Today a studio does not have solely the opening weekend box office collections dictating the commercial fate of the film. Pre-sales deals which include satellite rights, music rights, home video rights and new media rights sometimes help recover 40- 45 per cent of the production cost of the film. Moreover, an established studio with a strong slate of 12- 15 movies a year, today has the advantage of being able to derisk an entire slate of productions well in advance of their theatrical release.

6. Going Regional – The increasing preference amongst audiences for local flavours rather than standardisation in content will see regional cinema growing in the coming years, and demanding a share in
the larger pie of the Indian film industry.

7. Co-productions: The entry of Hollywood studios into the local production sector have increased manifold. Considering that some countries have reached a saturation point, while others have stringent protectionist policies in favour of local cinema, India is an emerging media and entertainment hot spot for international players.

8. Existing paucity of trained talent: The industry today does not see many trained specialists, the reasons being lack of structured film schools and frankly inadequate credit and compensation to talent other than those seen on screen. If this is addressed, it will have a lasting impact on the quality and commerce of our cinema.

9. Changes in legislation – Various amendments to existing laws have been proposed, which will have a direct impact on the functioning of the industry. In this process, it is imperative for the legislators to keep in mind all sides of an issue, rather than be swayed by specific interest groups. The entire commercial dynamics of the industry could be decided simply based on a few of these amendments, and hence the required due diligence must be put in before pronouncing judgement.

10. No distinction beween art and commercial cinema – And finally, a new breed of filmmakers who no longer believe in making a distinction between “art” and “commercial” cinema. They are open to telling new stories and experimenting with new genres in an entertaining manner… the key to making it interesting for audiences to try new fare! It is very encouraging to see so many studios today supporting and encouraging new talent, and I am sure this heralds a very exciting time in our cinema. A time in which all sorts of cinema can co-exist and achieve commercial and creative success.

February 1, 2012
When creative entrepreneurship saw a renaissance: Leo Burnett India national creative director KV Sridhar

As an industry, 2011 has seen a creative resurgence last year. Big brands and big agencies did a lot of creative work on big campaigns. There was good work from Vodafone, Airtel, Docomo, Reliance, Cadbury, McDonald‘s, Cole and Pepsi.

The other thing that has happened in the past year is the emergence of the independent creative agencies. We have not seen creative entrepreneurship thriving since the last 30 years. The last renaissance of creative entrepreneurship was with Enterprise, Contract and Ambience; this can be called the golden era in that aspect. Ravi Gupta set up Trikaya around that time while Gopi Kukde and his Onida campaign also happened simultaneously.

After that though, the creative entrepreneurship in the country died down. All the Indian creative agencies were sold out to international agencies with Chaitra becoming Leo Burnett, Sistas becoming Saatchi and Saatchi, etc. All these agencies merged with international companies working with global brands, therefore creating a vacuum for creative entrepreneurship.

If you see, all new creative agencies are doing very well. Whether it is Aggi and Padhi or it is Raj Kurup or Priti Nair or Prashant Godbole, all of them have started something in their own capacity. It is very heartening to see that they are doing campaigns which have actually changed the perception of the people and may actually challenge the work of the top three agencies. I just hope that this time around the Indian entrepreneurship is not sold out to multinationals in a hurry. I only wish that these guys hold on to the Indian flag for a little more time and then buy out the foreign guys as the future is India.

What has been disappointing and has been consistently so over the past couple of years is the growth of digital media. It is a medium that holds lots of promise and it should become big, but it did not become so big.

Effective Creativity

You need creativity to be more effective. If you have a solution, it maybe very effective on paper, but in the market it may not be as good if you need more money for people to see it. So you need creative work which not only does the job with lesser money but also in a much more emphatic manner. Therefore creativity and effectiveness go hand in hand. In recognition of that, even Cannes introduced the Effective Awards, the pre-requisite for which is that you should have won a creative award first and then put up the case for the Effective category.

The clients are becoming increasingly demanding. Large clients are doing good creative work. Today, the big guys have understood that creative is the only way to be effective and it also helps you spend less money.

You need a creative person when you need to make a rupee work like a hundred bucks. To make a rupee work like a rupee, you need a CA not a creative agency. Therefore creativity is the biggest currency which clients are cashing on and it is the biggest currency that all agencies possess today.

There are two things here. One is that humanity and the insights have become much more valuable. Moreover, the transparency of communication and the way you do business is becoming more important. The values brand posses is far more important than the technological superiority because tech itself is becoming a commodity.

The World A Global Village

In this day and age with social media and borderless communication, you can’t pretend to be what you are not. It will take a nanosecond to get exposed. It takes one tweet to expose someone’s misdeeds. See what happened to Dow chemicals. An agitation in a small town of India in Bhopal actually catapulted and became a global thing and then put pressure on the company. So today, brands are trying to understand how humanity is connected with each other and how this information travels without loosing absolutely any time and how to deal with this borderless, timeless communication.

People with a Premium

Everything is becoming a commodity now. Nothing is patented, everything is commoditized. The only thing which you have and own is the emotional equity with your consumer. The emotional bond that the brand has actually created is far more superior to the patent of the technology that it has. All the patents can be copied, but my affinity for Apple cannot be copied or replicated because of the joy I get using an Apple phone and the emotional equity I share with the brand.

Today, marketing, advertising, and entrepreneurship itself has changed. The way you manufacture things, the way you sell things, everything starts with people and ends with people. Therefore, the people who understand people are at a premium.

You need people who understand how human beings behave. What motivates them to do what they do? And finally what is it that you need to do to make them do what you require them to do? So understanding human behaviour is becoming very important to business. All these new values are coming in and they have given a new lease of life to people like us who know nothing apart from how to communicate with people. No amount of internet or new media is going to take that away from us. At the end of the day every medium or every business deals only with human beings. No McKenzie’s of this world, no digital companies can ever take our jobs away because we understand human beings.

As long as we get new talent which has passion, zest for life and can understand how people behave, we have a bright future. We don’t need to go with a microscope; we only need to relive our past experiences, how our mother used to behave in different situations and understand that and then try and use it to connect with many mothers in the world to sell your products.

Those with a passion for advertising come to advertising, despite getting high paying jobs at other places. Because they believe they can use their creative talent to entertain people and engage them. People who lasted long in advertising, they are the ones who know nothing apart from liking and studying human beings and discovering insights to connect with consumers.

Also, today life itself has become much richer. I believe that the first standard years of life, that is the first 16 years, whatever you see observe and learn stays with you. What I have experienced in the first 16 years of my life is very little when compared to this generation’s 16-year-olds. This generation’s 16-year-olds have got a much wider world view and they have more experiences and knowledge and more understanding and, thus, are more mature. Also, till the age of sixteen, they have no selfish motives.

Therefore, I am very confident that the next generations of people who come into the field are much richer and better than us. They would have had much better and richer experiences to draw from and connect back to people. So I am very optimistic that everything about our profession is going to be better tomorrow.

We were quite scared in the 80’s and 90’s because foreign companies were coming here. There was uncertainty regarding what will happen. People thought that computers will come and take over and there will be no jobs and foreign companies will come here and suck our blood dry and export it to other countries. We did not know about the world economy and, therefore, have no clue how to get integrated into this new bold new world.

But through liberalization we understood the benefits of it. We realised that machines can’t do everything. So, we had actually not seen the threat and what happened subsequently in 2007 and 2008, changed our view of world economy.

In 2007-08 we were growing at around 15 to 20 per cent, our business and economy was good. Our banks were not exposed and our real estate was doing well and still is. But we have understood the impact of being in a global economy and with global customers. Despite doing a 20 per cent and contributing to profit, we have understood that if our cousins in the UK or US don’t do well, you have to finance them. So we have taken salary cuts so that people in the US and in Europe don’t loose their jobs.

The Indian companies eyed the opportunity, paid more money and took the talent away from MNCs. Also, the client started to cut fee. So apart from the 15 per cent commission thing, the second shocker to the industry was the task of retaining talent without paying more, or at lower pay. Also, how do you work with the same client at 20 per cent or 30 per cent less fees? Those two things have really taught us that we need to run faster and faster to stay in the same place.

I feel we are better prepared this time around. Most of the things that we do in the bad times are actually things we should do in the good times so that bad times never occur. If you think that travelling business class is a waste, and in bad times we travel by economy. Now, it has become a norm.

We know how to retain the talent, we know how to command premium in hard times. We know how to sell products in a time of bad sentiment. We know that we need to make our customers prioritise. It all depends on how you argue with your customer and make him prioritise. If people prioritise and find you/your product/service as a necessity, they will buy it.

Lessons learnt

The marketing people have learnt a lot of lessons. So, this one is not going to be as bad as the previous one. The Indian exposure to world economy has increased many folds in the past three to four years, but this time around, we are much more prepared. Even people are planned, so they know what it means to be in a multinational company. They know what kind of risk is involved and what the upside is and what is the downside. They know that if anything happens in France or Germany, this company will be affected.

This time around the companies are prepared, so are the people and clients as well. So we know how to handle it. People have also understood that during the slow down, the companies which invested in branding have benefitted. In hard times, it is not the discounts that you give, but the assurance and trust you give to your customers. If you withdraw the discount, people don’t buy it and you fall into a trap and then each time you give a discount, it is eating into your pocket. On the other hand, investing 50 per cent of that discount into advertising will help build brand affinity. Then the chances of even in bad times people buying you are much higher. So people are putting back into advertising.

I am super optimistic as a person. I think we have learnt some good lessons and we will sail through even if we have to go through hard times. Actually, what is hitting us very badly is our domestic issues like not having a majority government, the government not functioning properly, lack of new and contemporary policies, lack of encouragement to the economy and the continuing indecisiveness is stalling the entire mechanism. The confidence is very low as we have hardly made any progress in the past three years.

January 31, 2012
A whiff of fresh opportunities for Prasar Bharati

Almost 16 years after it was formally set up, pubcaster Prasar Bharati may be able to tide over its most pressing crises in the next three years – provided it manages to avoid the bureaucratic pitfalls that it has been continually encountering.

The passing of the Prasar Bharati Amendment Act 2011 taking a major financial burden of salaries off its shoulders, the government’s digitisation plan for both All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan, the ambitious expansion of Doordarshan’s free-to-air DTH DD Direct Plus, and the expansion of FM Radio which not only give AIR more stations but extra income by giving news slots to the private FM channels – these are all signs of major opportunities that the pubcaster can grab over the next two to three years.

Added to this is the promise of early introduction of a comprehensive re-modeled Prasar Bharati Act which will take away a lot of the shortcomings noticed over the past 15 years since it was notified in 1997.

But if the public broadcaster has to stay afloat in a sea of almost 750 TV channels and the over 800 private FM Channels that will become a reality after FM Phase III, it has to realise its weaknesses and attempt to overcome these. And its greatest weakness lies in its organisation, with Indian Administrative Officers manning key posts which should ideally be given to broadcasters or to officers of the Indian Broadcasting (Programme) Service which was created especially for this purpose in the early eighties.

A comprehensive study made by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has also identified the different forms of challenges the pubcaster faces. In the first place, it has to compete with different kinds of content being tried by broadcasters and which may not be possible on AIR or Doordarshan.

The failure to successfully monitor the must-carry clause has resulted in most cable operators still resisting putting DD or Parliament channels on their prime bands.

Competition from six private direct-to-home (DTH) delivery platforms – Dish TV, Tata Sky, Sun Direct TV, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance Digital TV, and Videocon d2h – is also a major challenge since DD Direct Plus only carries free to air channels and not popular encrypted channels.

There is no record of subscribers to DD Direct Plus since it entails a one-time expenditure of purchase of dish antennae and there is no subscription base.

Prasar Bharati also faces other problems: it is still dependent to a large extent on casual manpower for both AIR and Doordarshan and has been facing constraints of funds and manpower to implement schemes that may come in the way of progress. There have been constant time and cost overruns due to weak planning and implementation.

There is also non-availability of land and tower infrastructure for Prasar Bharati in most of the cities proposed for expansion of FM channels and most states which have been asked to give land have so far not done so.

But Prasar Bharati’s strength lies in a dedicated listenership to its FM Gold and FM Rainbow channels; a large viewership base of Doordarshan which offers immense potential; the inclusion of a large number of private regional and some foreign TV channels in addition to DD’s own on its DTH service; a wide network of DD Programme Production Centres throughout the country and availability of DD network throughout the country.

The switch to High Definition TV with the Commonwealth Games in 2010 has opened up a lot of opportunities to DD, and Prasar Bharati is also set to earn revenue from giving content to viewers of TV on mobile phones. Digital technology would be more acceptable to listeners and viewers as it tremendously enhances the quality of transmission and broadcast.

Both AIR and DD are now gearing up to meet the challenges, albeit riddled with bureaucratic wrangles and financial constraints.

AIR has embarked upon a sweeping modernisation programme during 2011-16 that will see it broadcasting to the entire country with state-of-the-art technology. Having already covered 99 per cent of the population and area under the analogue mode, AIR has made detailed plans of increasing the coverage to 100 per cent under the digital mode. This coverage would strengthen broadcasting to all strategic border areas as well. Within this 100 per cent coverage on the primary grade signal (MW & SW), coverage by FM signal will increase from 37 per cent to 90 per cent of the population. This would entail digital broadcast in FM band from 50 places in the country including all State capitals and major cities.

The digitalisation of the entire network including studios, transmission and connectivity would include replacement of old/obsolete equipment. In addition, strengthening of related civil infrastructure would also be taken up, particularly for imparting training to staff in the field of digital technology and intensifying related R&D programmes. Staff productivity will be further enhanced through implementation of Assured Career Progression scheme for existing staff and induction of fresh talent. Investment in e-governance will be made for ensuring efficient management of the vast AIR network.

Digitalisation will enable AIR to make its broadcast available on alternate platforms such as webcasting / Podcasting / SMS / Mobile services. A 24-hour AIR news channel is planned besides a speech quality programme. The entertainment programme will be broadcast on the main channel to compete with the best in the industry.

Introduction of value-added-services (Vas) like Interactive Text Transmission, Multimedia Object Transfer (MOT), disaster warning, etc have also been planned. News on Phone is already available and has been digitised in Delhi.

A total of 137 studio centres have been partially digitalised by providing hard disc based systems. There are at present 215 studio centres in the AIR network, and digitisation of 98 Studios will be achieved in the XI Plan. The remaining studios are proposed to be digitalized during the next two years. These studios will have provision for stereo recording, production and transmission, all in the digital domain.

There are 380 Transmitters in the AIR Network consisting of 149 Medium Wave, 54 Short Wave & 177 FM Transmitters. One 250 KW Short Wave Transmitter at Delhi has been converted to Digital mode and has been operational since January 2009. Another 78 MW (Medium Wave) Transmitters including six Mobile Transmitters are being digitalised as part of the XI Plan Digitisation schemes. The remaining MW Transmitters in the network are proposed to be digitalised during next few years. Nine SW (Short Wave) Transmitters (4 in Delhi, 4 in Aligarh and one in Bangalore) are being digitised as part of the Digitisation Schemes in the XI Plan. The remaining Shortwave Transmitters are proposed to be digitalized during the next two years.

At present, Digital Uplink facility is available at 32 Centres, all downlink facilities have digitised except at 44 places, and there are Digital Studio Transmitter links at 20 places, apart from four DSNG Systems (Digital News Gathering Systems). A total of 115 Studio Transmitter links are being digitised, five new Digital Captive Earth Stations are being set up (32 are already available), 44 downlink facilities are being digitised, and 98 Studio Centres being digitalised in XI Plan are being networked to a Central Data Server System for exchange of programme.

AIR programmes are presently available through terrestrial mode and DTH. As part of XI Plan, 20 AIR channels are proposed to be made available through Webcasting/Podcasting with a view to use the Internet platform to serve listeners having Internet connectivity. There are presently 21 radio channels available on the Ku band DTH platform of DD Direct Plus.

AIR will spend Rs 668.5 million on new content creation, Rs 100 million on special activities like music concerts, Rs 62 million on coverage of important international and national events and production of programmes, and an estimated Rs 24.5 million on news activities like production of special flagship programmes etc.

As far as Doordarshan is concerned, it is presently operating 35 satellite channels and has a vast network of 66 studios and 1415 transmitters providing TV coverage to about 92 per cent population of the country. Like AIR, DD will also be making a switch from analogue to digital transmitters, which would offer multi-channel transmission from single transmitter, spectrum efficiency and enhanced picture quality. Old studio, satellite broadcast and transmitter equipment will be replaced to maintain high quality of services.

In line with the trend taking place all round the world, digitalisation will continue to be the top priority so that by the end of the XII Plan, a complete analogue switch-off will have been made.

Doordarshan’s Eleventh Plan Scheme of Digitalisation involving an outlay of Rs. 6.2 billion was approved by the Government in April 2010. This essentially entails continuation of the XI plan schemes to fully digitalise the remaining 39 out of 66 studios and establishing 40 digital High Power Transmitters at existing locations. In addition, provision will be made for 590 low power digital transmitters during the XII plan. Additional infrastructure build up will include up gradation of 10 existing satellite Earth stations and setting up of 5 new ones, procurement of 15 DSNG and replacement of uplink PDAs/IRDs.

A critical component of digitalisation would be setting up facilities for providing HDTV telecasts for viewers, which has a resolution five times higher than traditional television systems. This would entail conversion of a studio for HDTV production establishing a HDTV transmitter in each of the 4 metros.

In so far as DTH service is concerned, DD will upgrade its DTH platform to accommodate 200 channels by the end of the 12th plan from the present level of 59 channels so that viewing of channels becomes less expensive than before. The programme entails establishment of 40 digital HPTs by 2013. There will be provision for 590 digital transmitters and digitisation of four analogue Studios in the 12th Plan.

Projects of setting up of HDTV studios at Delhi and Mumbai; HDTV post production, field production and preview facilities, HDTV terrestrial transmitters at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata & Chennai; HD TV Play out facility at Delhi, Multi camera OB Vans at Delhi and Mumbai are under implementation.

DD will develop and improve content delivery to the rest of the world on essentially four channels, which are visible in 86 countries on the IS10 satellite: DD-News, DD-Sports, DD-Bharati and DD-India. DD-India channel is additionally available in North American countries, viz., USA, Canada, Mexico. Prasar Bharati is presently drawing up a plan estimated to cost around Rs one billion for strengthening the international DD India.

DD’s plans include production of 15,067 episodes for various channels in three years starting from 2010-11. Out of this, 12,400 episodes are being made in-house and 2,667 episodes commissioned through outside producers. The total cost of in-House episodes would be Rs 620 million and Rs 800 million for commissioned programmes.

Strengthening network of terrestrial transmitters in border areas will be a high priority to check adverse propaganda from across the border. Until a complete analogue switch off takes place, both High and Power Analogue Transmitters will be set up in the border areas, both afresh as well as replacement for transmitters that have served their useful life. Existing analogue transmitters can be converted to digital transmitters at little additional cost. At present, 273 transmitters of varying power are operating in border areas.

Apart from the schemes of digitization and HDTV, schemes of replacement and modernisation of satellite broadcast equipment and studio & transmitter equipment are included in the 11th Plan. Upgradation of 10 existing satellite earth stations, establishment of five new earth stations, and procurement of nine new DSNGs will be achieved this year.

January 30, 2012