ITV

Category: Year Enders

  • ‘Burgeoning distribution costs eating into money that should have been spent on content’

    ‘Burgeoning distribution costs eating into money that should have been spent on content’

    Much has happened this year and yet not a lot has happened.

    For India TV it has been a good year. Two years ago we were number six or seven in the news channel category, with a 5 to 6 per cent share; today we are number three with a 17-18 per cent share.

    The broadcasting industry has seen a huge amount of debate and discussion on the proposed Broadcast Bill and the Content Code. It perhaps looks to an observer like there is much heat and no movement, but I do believe such debate and discussion is essential.

    This is not something that can be done in a hurry. It has very wide implications in a country as free as India, where the media are genuinely free.

    And while the arguments for and against regulation are many, the fundamental thing is that any attempt to legislate a free media has to be done with a great deal of care. It is at the heart of Indian democracy. And as the world acknowledges, we may have a myriad problems but we are a robust democracy despite all odds: it is too valuable to risk.

    On the Content Code there has been a discussion for well over a year, and the government has been open to dialogue, which is excellent. The broadcasters have offered to create their own Code for self-regulation.

    The government has welcomed the offer of the industry to develop its own Code, as it has accepted and notified the ASCI Code for advertising. ASCI is a voluntary body, so the government has encouraged self-regulation, which is great.

    The single biggest problem in the industry today is distribution. It is getting more and more competitive, as more and more channels come into business. The cost is enormous and growing wildly, and it is hurting every broadcaster from the biggest to the smallest, FTA or pay.

    In this battle MSOs and LCOs point fingers at each other, but either way it is costing the broadcaster. And money that could and should have been spent on content is getting spent on distribution instead, and it weakens the industry.

    And as that burgeoning cost is eating into money that could and should have been spent on content, in the end it is affecting the viewer, with no medium term solution in sight.

    Digitisation is the only real answer. Digitisation is slowly coming in the non-CAS areas, but the operative word is ‘slowly’. Anything that the government can do to accelerate digitisation will be for the good of all, mostly for the good of the consumer.

    The other important thing with growing competition is the issue of audience measurement. Periodically there is heated debate, and everyone has an expert opinion on the subject. But listen to what each broadcaster says, and you know how good their ratings are: why else are yesterday’s critics silent today and why were today’s critics silent yesterday, when the system has been the same for years?

    And even as broadcasters and agencies criticize the measurement system they continue to use the data to help in buying and selling Rs 5-6,000 crore worth of advertising, on the nonsensical plea that some data is better than no data.

    There have been impassioned complaints about how the broadcasters and production houses are victims of the rating system, how every Friday when those wretched numbers come in they have to slog overnight to fix the content according to what the numbers tell them.

    That’s like a hypochondriac taking his temperature and blaming the thermometer. No one is forcing anyone to use the data, much less what to do about it. If you choose to be tyrannised by it, that’s your choice.

    That is not to say the current system is perfect. That it needs upgrading is beyond doubt. The industry has taken the initiative in that, with the formation of the Broadcast Audience Research Council.

    Whatever the outcome, it can only lead to a better, more robust measurement system.

    The best thing that has happened this year?

    It may sound like a strange thing to say, but to my mind the best thing that has happened is the ongoing debate about the Broadcast Bill and the Content Code. It brings many issues to the fore, many things that we need to be more aware of and many that we need to engage with the government about.

  • Cellphone was ringing in advertising on television in 2007

    Cellphone was ringing in advertising on television in 2007

    The curtains have fallen on 2007, the all important data is also out — that of the Top 10 categories of advertisers on television, print and radio and their growth in ad spends in 2007 as compared to 2006, as estimated by AdEx India.

     
     
    Product
    2007* (Jan-Nov ’07)
    Rank Product Group Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 Cellular Phone Service 12,519
    2 Social Advertisements 12,057
    3 Toilet Soaps 9,610
    4 Internet/SMS Service 8,401
    5 Corporate/Brand Image 8,220
    6 Aerated Soft Drink 7,746
    7 Shampoos 7,338
    8 Cellular Phones 7,009
    9 Two Wheelers 6,553
    10 Tooth Pastes 6,523
     
    2006…
    Rank Product Group Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 Social Advertisements 11,270
    2 Toilet Soaps 9,818
    3 Cellular Phones 6,854
    4 Shampoos 6,716
    5 Cellular Phone Service 6,531
    6 Corporate/Brand Image 6,379
    7 Cars/Jeeps 6,047
    8 Tooth Pastes 6,045
    9 Aerated Soft Drink 5,783
    10 Two Wheelers 5,141
    ————————————****———————————-
    Advertisers
    2007* (Jan-Nov ’07)
    Rank Advertisers Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 Hindustan Unilever Ltd 19,995
    2 Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd 8,470
    3 Coca Cola India Ltd 5,580
    4 Paras Pharmaceuticals Ltd 5,268
    5 Pepsi Co 5,022
    6 L’Oreal India Pvt Ltd 4,759
    7 Bharti Airtel Ltd 4,573
    8 Smithkline Beecham 4,487
    9 Colgate Palmolive India Ltd 4,306
    10 Procter & Gamble 4,273
     
    2006…
    Rank Advertisers Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 Hindustan Unilever Ltd 16,840
    2 Paras Pharmaceuticals Ltd 5,904
    3 Reckitt Benckiser (India) Ltd 5,628
    4 L’Oreal India Pvt Ltd 4,346
    5 Colgate Palmolive India Ltd 3,943
    6 Coca Cola India Ltd 3,924
    7 Procter & Gamble 3,317
    8 Nokia Corporation 3,233
    9 Emami Limited 3,170
    10 Pepsi Co 2,718
     
    ————————————****———————————-
    Brands
    2007* (Jan-Nov ’07)
    Rank Brands Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 National Rural Health Mission 2,007
    2 Airtel Cellular Phone Service 1,980
    3 www.homeshop18.com 1,894
    4 Moser Baer DVD/VCD 1,797
    5 Reliance Mobile 1,754
    6 Colgate Dental Cream 1,491
    7 Tata Sky 1,416
    8 Ponds Age Miracle 1,272
    9 Tata Indicom Cell Phone Service 1,251
    10 National Aids Control Organization 1,135
     
    2006…
    Rank Brands Ad volumes (in ‘000)
    1 National Rural Health Mission 1,878
    2 Colgate Dental Cream 1,305
    3 Coca Cola 1,298
    4 Thums Up 1,107
    5 Colgate Max Fresh Gel 1,046
    6 Hutch Cellular Phone Service 993
    7 Reliance Mobile 850
    8 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 763
    9 Lux Cozi 751
    10 Horlicks 746
     
    ————————————****———————————-
     
     
     
     
    Source: AdEx India – A Division of TAM Media Research Bitmap

    Period: Year 2006 & 2007 (Jan – Nov’07)
    Note: Ranking based on ad volumes (secondages) in thousands
  • ‘Burgeoning distribution costs eating into money that should have been spent on content’

    ‘Burgeoning distribution costs eating into money that should have been spent on content’

    Marvel Entertainment is tapping the comics business in India. Holding the rights to iconic characters like Spiderman, X-Men and Hulk, it has appointed Kids Media India (KMI) as a subsidiary of Spacetoon Media to represent its licensing, merchandising, publishing and promotional rights in the country.

    Marvel superheroes will be immediately available for licensing on a wide range of consumer products including apparel, stationery, publications, toys and games, party goods and accessories.

    In an interview with Indiantelevision.com’s Ashwin Pinto, Marvel Entertainment International president Simon Phillips talks about the company’s plans for India.

    Excerpts:

    And while the arguments for and against regulation are many, the fundamental thing is that any attempt to legislate a free media has to be done with a great deal of care. It is at the heart of Indian democracy. And as the world acknowledges, we may have a myriad problems but we are a robust democracy despite all odds: it is too valuable to risk.

    On the Content Code there has been a discussion for well over a year, and the government has been open to dialogue, which is excellent. The broadcasters have offered to create their own Code for self-regulation.

    The government has welcomed the offer of the industry to develop its own Code, as it has accepted and notified the ASCI Code for advertising. ASCI is a voluntary body, so the government has encouraged self-regulation, which is great.

    The single biggest problem in the industry today is distribution. It is getting more and more competitive, as more and more channels come into business. The cost is enormous and growing wildly, and it is hurting every broadcaster from the biggest to the smallest, FTA or pay.

    In this battle MSOs and LCOs point fingers at each other, but either way it is costing the broadcaster. And money that could and should have been spent on content is getting spent on distribution instead, and it weakens the industry.

    And as that burgeoning cost is eating into money that could and should have been spent on content, in the end it is affecting the viewer, with no medium term solution in sight.

    Digitisation is the only real answer. Digitisation is slowly coming in the non-CAS areas, but the operative word is ‘slowly’. Anything that the government can do to accelerate digitisation will be for the good of all, mostly for the good of the consumer.

    The other important thing with growing competition is the issue of audience measurement. Periodically there is heated debate, and everyone has an expert opinion on the subject. But listen to what each broadcaster says, and you know how good their ratings are: why else are yesterday’s critics silent today and why were today’s critics silent yesterday, when the system has been the same for years?

    And even as broadcasters and agencies criticize the measurement system they continue to use the data to help in buying and selling Rs 5-6,000 crore worth of advertising, on the nonsensical plea that some data is better than no data.

    There have been impassioned complaints about how the broadcasters and production houses are victims of the rating system, how every Friday when those wretched numbers come in they have to slog overnight to fix the content according to what the numbers tell them.

    That’s like a hypochondriac taking his temperature and blaming the thermometer. No one is forcing anyone to use the data, much less what to do about it. If you choose to be tyrannised by it, that’s your choice.

    That is not to say the current system is perfect. That it needs upgrading is beyond doubt. The industry has taken the initiative in that, with the formation of the Broadcast Audience Research Council.

    Whatever the outcome, it can only lead to a better, more robust measurement system.

    The best thing that has happened this year?

    It may sound like a strange thing to say, but to my mind the best thing that has happened is the ongoing debate about the Broadcast Bill and the Content Code. It brings many issues to the fore, many things that we need to be more aware of and many that we need to engage with the government about.

  • In pursuit of what in 2007?

    In pursuit of what in 2007?

    The CAS word gets TAM India CEO LV Krishnan thinking about what this brave new world could mean for the likes of the airtime sales exec and media planner.

    In the shifting sands of time the mind does seek for a grip; In the solitude of space constant change is unnerving; only the whiff of victory
    propel one to destination

    As the sun set on 2006, the glow of the last rays had fired the embers left behind by the changes initiated in the arena of TV channel ground distribution during the last few months. The beginning of 2007 itself is seeing a market place oscillating between the old fashioned Analog Technology to a new era of Digital Technology unleashed on the unsuspecting TV viewers by the Government, Multi System Cable operators, Broadcast Satellite owners as well as Telecom companies. With technology gizmos flying all around as well as the jargons attached to it, one is left wondering, what is going on in the simple minds of a Media Planner and Air time Sales member of our industry? Does large industry issues we debate about, top their concern? Take a guess…

    As one mingled with many of them, the concerns or issues were the same… What are we pursuing at the end of the chase?

    A perspective from the Media Planner’s diary

    March 2006: I read in today’s Media website that the Delhi High court has given a ruling to the effect that Conditional Access System is mandatory in South of Mumbai, Delhi & Calcutta for receiving pay TV. This was going to happen in the next few weeks…

    …Whoosh!

    June 2006: It didn’t happen…does it ever happen as proclaimed?

    …Zip…Zap!

    December2006: Will it happen this month? Will await Dec 31st to know…

    January 2007: It happened!

    As I walked into my office the very next day…the first day of the New Year, I wondered…

    Gosh, what will happen to my life? My Brands – Media Plans & Buys are ready to be executed, but now, will I have to put everything on hold? What will I answer my client? Will plan deliveries fall down in the 3 Metros? By how much? What is TAM data indicating?

    In a confused state of mind, I decided to get out of office to take a walk along the Worli sea-line hoping for some fresh breath from a magic genie.

    Yes, the winter air was filled with a new whiff. No doubt it was energizing my legs as I broke into a steady walk. As I took a sample of the freshness of 2007, the mind cleared to open up new possibilities staring at us… potential of ensuing change began to dawn on me. The revolution was just beginning and I was determined to ride the wave of change.

    With a renewed vigour, I walked back to my desk to put a call to my client. He was pretty surprised to hear me say that I will be coming down to meet him the same evening to explain to him the consequences of changes happening in the TV media.

    Next, I started with some desk work. I wanted to understand the magnitude of the change expected to be brought about by the CAS notification on Zone 1. A simple analysis from NRS 2006 as well as the TAM CAS document circulated earlier indicated to me that 1.6 million C&S homes across the 3 metros of Mumbai, Delhi & Calcutta will come under the purview. This meant one-fifth (20%) of C&S homes in the 3 metros or just one-twentieth (5%) of C&S homes represented by TAM All India Class I town panel.

    Hence if all the homes in the notified areas for CAS in the 3 metros did not go for set top boxes, the maximum impact in reach of my media plan due to of loss of viewing of pay channels on a National level is going to be less than 5%. In other words, the planned reach of 60% on a National scale could come down to 57%. This could only be the worst scenario. But things are already looking better with demand for set top boxes on the rise with each day passing…

    I then looked at my media plan composition – list of Pay TV channels & Free-to-Air TV (FTA) channels used to deliver the reach. On comparing this with the Free-to-Air channels available, I decided to make a few minor adjustments whereby by making minor spot changes between Free-to-Air & Pay TV channels, I was easily able to hike up the planned reach to 58% on a National level!

    As I started receiving the news that the demand for CAS set top boxes are increasing, I decided to stretch the brand campaign by a few days. This could help me leverage any additional homes that moved into using a set top box for accessing/viewing Pay TV content.

    What made me feel even more confident about achieving the media plan goal was the news that almost all the homes acquiring a CAS set top box will receive all the Pay & FTA TV channels he used to get before Dec 31st. This meant that, while in theory CAS set top box was supposed to act like a filter by providing the viewer with the choice to subscribe, at present it is only used as an enabler to watch all Pay & FTA TV channels which was available to the viewer earlier as a simple cable TV home. Thus, viewer behaviour in terms of channels watched post CAS set top box acquisition couldn’t have changed, thereby helping me to deliver my planned reach goals too.

    I am awaiting with bated breath the first TAM CAS penetration study later this month, more to understand the length of time it is going to take for viewers to start experiencing a shift to the world of digital content. I for one will be looking for the profiles of the CAS homes to try and plan execution of the new brand creative my marketing manager has promised. I have lots of ideas up my sleeve, waiting to explode in the digital space!

    A perspective from the Airtime Sales member’s diary

    January 2007: I looked up my watch and exclaimed “Damn it, going to be late again.” It was all because of this silly traffic…

    2007 had started with a sense of purpose. Yes, there were changes happening around. Positive, I could say. I was heading to meet a very important Up-market personal product marketing head. I was pleased that I could get the appointment after struggling for some many months to get it…only because I was going to show him something different!

    From the telephonic chat I had with him yesterday, I could sense his voice perk up when he heard about my channel’s new programming, showing promise among his set of exclusive consumers.

    I got out of the cab and rushed across the street clutching hard to my presentation papers. I approached the front office of the organization gasping for breath. The receptionist looked at her watch, acknowledged my presence on the intercom and then, silently led me to the massive board room. As I sat, wrapped around by the chilly air sent out by the humming air-conditioner, my mind whirred with excitement. At the same time, I had a sense of apprehension as it was for the first time I was going to present the findings about my channel from the Elite panel and I was not sure, how the marketing head could react.

    Suddenly, a booming voice saying “Hello” came in from behind. As I turned around, I came in contact with the marketing head, who was by then extending his arm to welcome me. Pleasantries were exchanged and we got quickly to the brass tracks.

    I opened my small presentation folder displaying the sheets about his products and target consumers. I could see him nodding to my opening statements. I was feeling relieved that I was bang-on in guessing his product’s consumer profile. This led me to draw up the next few sheets that explained the profile of viewers my channel catered on a daily basis. I could see him show inquisitiveness to my reports. Soon we got drawn into the discussion about my channel’s performance and the question I was waiting for all along got popped out. “How do you say that my consumers watch TV and therefore content related to your channel?”

    My best was yet to come. I opened up the data from the Elite panel to reveal to him the new, latest finding…

    His Up-scale consumers did spent time watching TV (unlike his thinking), but they spent less time watching it vis-?-vis the average TV viewer and even an SEC A TV viewer on the TAM National panel.

    The other important observation that impressed him was that the TV viewership of the Elite viewers was far more fragmented as compared to an average viewer and also the SEC A viewer in the National panel.

    While 26 channels accounted for 80% of viewership for the SEC A viewers, it took 35 channels that made up 80% share of viewing for the Elite viewers, a testimony to the wider content preference for the Elite! This invariably means that, in order to reach to the Elite viewers, the marketing head had to consume air-time across more channels of distinct content appealing to his Up-market consumers.

    As I progressed with my charts and comments, the final one hit the bulls-eye. Certain genres like English Movie channels, Business news, English news & English Entertainment channels had a visible skew towards the Elite audience as compared to even the SEC A viewers in the National panel. This made the marketing head look up. I could see a huge smile on his face as he made the comment “I always knew this and keep saying so to all my team members.” I just smiled back at him with the hope that I could have finally bagged the campaign, I thought, that deserved to run on my channel.

    It did happen as I visualized the very next moment. The marketing head picked up the nearby intercom, spoke a few words to the person on the other end, and then turned around to me to say the final words, the most precious words I have been waiting to hear “…the campaign will include your channel too.”

    That evening, I was certainly heady. We celebrated the win back in the office with a champagne pop up. 2007 indeed has begun for me in a new way I couldn’t have imagined a few days back. A real nice kick start and I hope to keep riding that way!

  • ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    The year 2007 has been very, very good so far as business is concerned. We had all approached the year with certain things that we needed to do, and my organisation had decided to move to areas that go beyond news. So we went on a funding road show in March-April this year, collected the money we needed to for funding the verticals we wanted to develop and we have done so, getting into various aspects of media activity.

    In fact, if you look at NDTV Network story, in a sense this was the real media story of the country this year, with the six verticals that I run now, consequent to raising of the funding. One is NDTV Imagine, the GEC from our company, which we expect to launch from end-January 2008. And entertainment has endless possibilities, music, films, and so many other aspects.

    Then we have launched NDTV Lifestyle this year. This is our response to the economic changes and the increase in the size of the middle class and their spending habits, which are fast changing.

    Under the NDTV Networks umbrella we now have news, entertainment, lifestyle, technology solutions, setting up new projects
    _____****_____

    Today, you can walk into a mall in Saket (in the southern parts of New Delhi) and you can find Armani and other foreign and expensive brands. This was not the case even a year earlier. And there are people going to these places and buying these things. So we had targeted this niche audience, which believes in wellness and fitness and good living, health and happiness and so forth.

    The other business is NDTV Convergence, which is a leading Web 2.0 company with interests in developing exclusive content for cross media platforms such as the Internet, mobile phones and IPTV.

    We operate India’s no 1 television news website www.ndtv.com along with other leading verticals, namely, NDTV Profit, NDTV Jobs, NDTV Travels, NDTV Gadgets, NDTV Shopping and NDTV Commodities. Convergence is really a hot property, and we have developed a very good management team, which is by the way true for all our verticals.

    There is also another emerging trend, which is an MPO, a media processes outsourcing company. There are so many media companies that need to go digital, or have meta-tagging, or run specialised closed-captions, catering to audio-challenged and visually challenged persons. These companies need various solutions, so we have developed that vertical in a JV with Genpact and called the company N-gEN.

    We said that the industry will bring its own code, and fortunately, the government accepted that
    _____****_____

    We already had NDTV Labs, which deals with broadcast technology for ourselves, both software and hardware. We have been getting awards for these activities from Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and other agencies. We have people with 18 years of expertise in that field and so we decided that apart from producing these solutions for NDTV, this can become an independent business.

    Then there is NDTV Emerging Markets which will set up new projects, like we have done in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Middle East.

    So under the NDTV Networks umbrella we now have news, entertainment, lifestyle, technology solutions, setting up new projects. For me these are highly satisfactory developments. Broadly speaking, we have done everything that could be done in the realm of media, and I think many of us (other companies as well) have done likewise, which makes 2007 a very good business year.

    But yes, there have been a few contentious issues as well, like regulation, of which there are two broad aspects: the news content code and the Broadcast Regulation Bill.

    So far as the content code is concerned, let me try to be as objective as is possible. The government set up a committee to look at all components of the content code, and the committee including educationists, activists, watchdog kind of people, the media itself, the government officials and so on.

    But the when the code came out, it was simply not acceptable to us. For one thing, the committee had had just a single representative from the media, from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. One must understand that the code was meant to regulate the news industry and it made no sense having just one person representing it. We were completely dominated by the ministerial majority. So we rejected it outright, because any code brought about by the government was not acceptable to us. We said that the industry will bring its own code, and fortunately, the government accepted that.

  • ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    Yes, whenever there is a boom period, there are problems, and in the long run, there will be consolidation and some channels would peter out, but I would like to believe that the serious players who have come and made a name for themselves would stay.

    This was a year when the question was asked where the advertisers were putting their money: trash channels or genuine ones. From the limited perspective of a news channel, particularly Hindi news, I can see that a large number of them have gone the tabloid way: the sex-and-violence route.

    I have actually seen a crime show on an important Hindi news channel that said, “Stay with us, and after the break we shall show you a rape”! Now, you cannot have that kind of thing on news, and those of us who are news professionals and journalists will not accept that kind of a thing.

    What this has done in the immediate and short term is it has taken away some bits of viewership from serious news. But that shift has not been reflected in revenue accruals. The reason as I see it is quite simple: you cannot possibly have a news channel that can say something like “After the break shall bring you “Rape of the Day” by Hindustan Lever”, or whatever other company or big brand. So the advertisers have stayed with the respectable channels.

    So in terms of rating you have Aaj Tak at the top and then Star News and some others high up, but in terms of revenue we are still there right at the number two position. Ultimately, no advertiser would like to spend money beyond a point on such shows. So, if there has been an impact on viewership, there is no significant impact on revenues.

    Finally, it is going to be hard hitting, proper investigative journalism that will have to come back to the news channels
    _____****_____

    There can be no doubt that there is some problem with the rating system (TAM), but the fact is that this is the industry standard. Some of the key components of the system are not clear. It is suspected that some of the people-meter homes have been compromised. For instance, some channels find out which are some of the people-meter homes. They approach those homes and give them a new TV set and say: “You watch whatever channels you want on the new set, but on the old set just run my channel.”

    Sometimes the rating weightage gets skewed just because of one or two homes in the country. For example if you talk of the English news market, it would be the metros, to start with, and then the larger cities like Hyderabad, or Ahmedabad, etc. But if someone says that an English news channel on a given day has dominated, and that domination has come from Dasua in Punjab, or some small place in Andhra Pradesh, then you would say: “Hey there is something wrong here. That is not your market so how come that one little weightage has totally distorted the picture?”

    Besides, TAM has not taken into account the heterogeneity of India, because we are not homogenous, in terms of language, culture etc, like the United States. Indians are so diverse, that people from each state are almost like different races, if I may use that term. Any measurement system has to take these kinds of factors into account. I think it has been a direct copy of a system that works elsewhere in the world, not taking into account the nuances that India has as a nation.

    Plus, you have people-meters in just about 8,000 homes, in a country of a billion people. Even for exit polls for a state election, we have sample size of 40,000 to 50,000 voters, and for the general elections we have something up to 200,000 voters as the sample size before you can even remotely forecast anything. These are the pitfalls of the rating system, which needs to become better.

    But having said that, TAM is the current industry standard and we shall have to go with it. If it says that on a certain night some news channel was number one, then more or less it works that way. It is another matter that that news channel was then showing a sex show. But that is for the viewer to decide. If he wants to see a sex show in news, it is his choice.

    But in the long run I believe that finally, it is going to be hard hitting, proper investigative journalism that will have to come back to the news channels.

  • ‘The best thing that has happened is the wake up call on content’

    ‘The best thing that has happened is the wake up call on content’

    As I see it, I think what has happened is that the media game has become far more commoditised, and in a sense cluttered and competitive now than ever before. As for me, in the context of television content, there has been an increase in the volume of that content available this year, but paradoxically, whether quality has improved is a huge question mark.

     

    That to me is the biggest worrying point in 2007. Just see, so many news channels coming together to work on a content code would not have happened 12 months ago. They are all recognising that we could be going down a very slippery slope. We at CNN IBN are considering having an ombudsman who would ensure that the highest standards of journalistic integrity are maintained.

     

    It is also becoming a major question whether for the odd rating points here and there are we allowing standards to slip, and I think we shall not be forgiven beyond a point if we allow this to happen. That for me has been the defining aspect of 2007.

     

    It has been like a wakeup call. It may have been driven in by the government, and they took the first step and that worried us, because the government is identified with censorship, but there is much that we have to look at very carefully.

     

    We have to realise that our jobs as journalists is to provide credible information and I hope this debate does not end in 2007 and from being a government-led debate it should become an industry-led one.

     

    I am glad that Indian Television Dot Com’s News Television (NT) Awards, which was launched from this year itself, started with a debate on content and the direction in which we are going: can we self regulate? Do we need a broadcasting council? These are all questions that came up this year and these have to be answered in 2008.

     

    The other issue, though I confess that I am not an expert on it, is distribution, and I think it is going to be the next big challenge. As Cas rolled out, and digitilisation began, we realised that it is the future. How Cas can be spread across the country and not just to a few areas will be a big challenge. How regulation will ensure a level playing for all will be a challenge.

     

    To my mind we have reached a stage where the entire distribution area will need a serious study, along with the issue of content.

     

    Media game has become far more commoditised, and in a sense cluttered and competitive
    _____****_____

    The way the hidden camera was being used was a worrying thing. It was becoming an end in itself rather than a means to an end. These are serious issues and I think we need a far more rigorous code of content across our channels.

     

    I hope we are moving in that direction, I really do.

     

    The other big challenge is, how do you become multi-media? Mobile, television, Internet, possibly even print becoming a part of it. Localisation without a print partner does not work. We need to be spread across all the platforms, rather than just be television, the only platform we have. I think it is going to be the battle of the networks in the future, not just television channels alone.

     

    I am positive that Hindi channels must also do the same. Who says Hindi channels should stay away from the web? It may not happen today, but it is going to happen five years from now.

     

    I think the future will also see a greater emphasis on localisation and regionalisation of news. We will need to be much more conscious of a changing viewer, but without sacrificing quality… that is the key. The future battle will be of perceptions, of influence, or being thought leaders. In CNN IBN. That’s been our aim, to be thought leaders.

     

    We are going into Marathi and we are taking these decisions consciously. We want to be India’s window to the world but to spread our influence, we also have to be in the regional space.

  • “The best thing that has happened is the wake up call on content”

    “The best thing that has happened is the wake up call on content”

    And you will find that regionalisation will finally give the media greater depth. There is tremendous energy in the media in regions and they need a platform and I am sure you will see that a lot in 2008. For us it is the quality that matters, and we take enormous pride in the fact that both CNBC and CNN IBN were the winners of the Indian Telly Awards and NT Awards this year. For us, recognition as a quality network matters more than anything else at the moment.

    There could be a perception that since people watch some irresponsible channels that the people in general are crass in their tastes, but looking at what has happened in the Hindi news space, I think TAM also has a need to take a second look at itself, and I don’t want the ministry to be doing it, as it seems to be suggesting. That would be terrible. I have a lot of faith in the people who do our ratinsg and I think they are people of great credibility. And just as we as content makers are looking inwards, they also need to do the same thing.

    I don’t think the Hindi news viewer is so drastically different from any other, or that this crudeness is what he wants, because what everybody is now wanting is quality. If you do chaddi-banyan (panty) journalism, you will get chaddi-banyan advertisements. I am not going to mention any specific channel but that revenue model cannot work. In the long run you have to do credible, thought provoking, inclusive journalism.

    There are too many short-term players in the market at the moment. It is a box-office-rating journalism for them. But Hindi TV news has done a lot of intelligent masala journalism and there is scope for a lot of that, without doing chaddi-banyan journalism. That is not the point. What worries me is the dumbing down of content.

    There is tremendous energy in the media in regions and they need a platform and I am sure you will see that a lot in 2008
    _____****_____

    There is need to take stock of the societal changes taking place. On the day of the Gurgaon school shootout, I think that was the real story, and not Gujarat elections. On the day of actual elections, or results coming out, Gujarat polls will be the real news story, but one important thing is that we have moved away from the journalism centred around politicians. And the Hindi channels are sometimes very good at that.

    And in our case, we have given our Hindi channel, IBN 7 the space to create an identity of its own. It is not a copy channel of the English CNN IBN, it has its own reportage, analysis and plan of action. If for the shootout story they headline it as “Gurgaon shootout” and not some Hindi word, I think they are entirely entitled to their own sensibility and this shows their growing self-confidence. Similarly for the Gujarat polls we in the English channel have used the word Gujarat Yatra, and why not? We are into breaking barriers. We have the Gujarat elections special programme titled “Kaun Banega CM”, and why not? Why do we have to see Kaun Banega Crorepati as a programme title only in a Hindi channel?

    But these are in any case the frills, and I feel that sometimes too much is inspected of the frills, but making the cake is the real challenge. That is my biggest worry: how do you relentlessly make quality news without getting into the ratings war.

    What have been the best and the worst things this year? Well, the best thing that has happened is the wake up call on content, the worst thing is that we have not been able to break the barrier between quantity and quality! We have talked a lot about it, but we have to do much more than just talk.

  • ‘A revolutionary year that was also one of the government’s total failure to control the broadcasters’

    ‘A revolutionary year that was also one of the government’s total failure to control the broadcasters’

    One healthy thing is that the industry is moving… maybe slowly in some areas, but it is definitely moving, which was not there earlier. The manufacturers lobby which had become stagnant are looking forward again. Fibre optical networks are spreading.

    New technology is coming, and words we had never used two years ago, like IPTV & Mobile TV, are now common usage. DTH has been launched already and this will give competition to the cable sector and they will be bound to improve their services. HITS is on the way and if it is operated on C band then it will be good for the cable industry, but if it is put on Ku band, that will kill the cable industry. That will be a disaster.

    If it is on C band, digitalisation will become faster, but if it is on Ku band, all the DTH players would start giving out their signals, because they are already on Ku band. And the consumer will also suffer because one after another DTH players will come and ask for money for their channel bouquets if the subscribers want them, so this will hurt the latter’s interests.

    But I must say that Trai has given importance to the last mile operator, and this has been a major positive this year, they have realised the worth of the LMO and understood that it is the last mile people who have created the industry. They know now that the LMO is the one who gives the connection and actually works in the field.

    Thus, to get 25 per cent to carry pay channels on the network was worthwhile. That was not there at all and that is a great achievement. You can say this is only in the CAS area, but a beginning has been made, that these people ought to get this much, which is a model now. So now we can take this forward and at least demand what we deserve. When voluntary CAS is extended to the 55 cities, we shall at least get some margin for letting them use our networks, based on this model.

    Again, Trai for the first time has worked out the pay channel rates. Rs 5 for CAS areas and even for the non-Cas areas they have set an upper cap and declared the prices. Yes, of course the broadcasters will protest because they do not want to be controlled. The problem for the cable operator is that he never, before this, knew what he was going to charge the customer, who also never knew what he was being charged for and at what rate.

    But the best came from the High Court, the order that CAS had to be rolled out. The courts, whether TDSAT or High Court or Supreme Court has been acting only in public interest, and two of the major decisions related to fixing the price of a sports channel, when Neo wanted to charge an astronomical price but was not allowed, and when the court upheld the government Act on sharing sports events of national importance with Doordarshan.

    But beyond the rosy developments, the two worst things that happened this year were failure to extend CAS, and the failure to control the broadcasters. And in fact non-extension of CAS is mainly due to resistance from broadcasters lobby. They have earned too much of money in a non-addressable system and wants the market to stay that way.

    I feel sad also that the government this year did not heed to our demand, the only demand, that we be given funds for going digital, which would have really helped, but that was turned down. It is small money and the government should have facilitated the LMOs by telling banks to make it easy for them to get small loans to facilitate digitalisation.

    For the government this was a year of failures on several fronts, I am a member on three government committees, and all three here failed to deliver because of lack of will of the government and the most dangerous development is vertical integration, creating absolute monopolies, and the governments failure to implement cross-media restrictions.

    As far as CAS is concerned, extension, even under voluntary effort will be good for the industry. But even if an LMO, say in a place like Kota in Rajasthan ushers in voluntary CAS, the broadcasters will not give him the decoders under one pretext or the other, saying that his SMS or some other system is not accurate and he is still under-declaring his subscriber base. The government has thus squarely failed to reign in the broadcasters on all fronts.

    In passing, I must say one thing: the image of the LMOs so far had been that we are rowdy, uncontrollable. But in a series of meetings the government has seen who is rowdy, the journalist broadcasters or cablewallahs and officials are now saying, at least the LMOs have some dignity! That is why the goodwill for us has increased in the government quarters.

  • ‘A revolutionary year that was also one of the government’s total failure to control the broadcasters’

    ‘A revolutionary year that was also one of the government’s total failure to control the broadcasters’

    After working for decades on the analogue system, 2007 was a huge learning year. Whether from the regulator or from the ministry’s side, or from the Prime Minister’s Office, this was a revolutionary year.

    The major thing, of course, was the implementation of CAS, though implementation was partial, but this implementation was a slap on the face of people who put in all their efforts to derail it. More than anyone else, even more than the broadcasters, the ones who tried their level best to stop CAS were the distributors of the MSOs.

    Broadcasters and distributors both lose out if CAS comes in, and the broadcasters are hit because they are earning both from subscription as well as advertisement, and now SMS revenue stream.

    One of the ugliest efforts for derailing CAS this year was the press conference and the false survey report shown by a section of the NGO called VOICE. They said 70 per cent of the CAS subscribers wanted to go back to the old ways, but now it is clear that the so-called survey had been sponsored by a broadcaster and everyone knows who that is.

    It is the advertisers who would have gained because as of now they do not know where their money is going and where they should actually put that in, and SMS in CAS regime would tell the real story. This is why various advertiser groups have come in support of Cas.

    From the content side, again this was a very important year. The viewers were very unhappy with news content and the government tried to do something but eventually failed.

    All these news broadcasters are launching channels every day not to inform the people but to have more and more power, sometimes using that power to blackmail politicians and officials. There is an attempt to capture the media and have clout. If they were serious news people, then one broadcaster would not launch two or three news channels. They are also now launching regional news channels because they want to capture power area-wise and rule there. Apart from earning money, they want to control the mindset of the people.

    The government’s attempts to control these news channels failed miserably because the channels formed a strong lobby against the Content Code suggested by the government. This shows that the government is able to control only the farmer or the last mile operator, the cablewallah. Because as per the Cable Act, only the LMO will be targeted, whether it is for programming content that is unacceptable or the advertisements shown, over which last mile has no control.

    The LMOs do not have too much money, so they lose out in courts because they cannot hire top lawyers, and they cannot lobby with the government because they are not always qualified people or have a political clout. That is why they are the least heard, but this year, that is one big thing that has happened: the government, whether in the ministry or Telecom Regulatory Authority have at least started hearing us. I will tell you how.

    One of the most dangerous things that happened in this year is the total vertical integration of companies who have a finger in all the pies, being broadcasters, running MSOs, getting into DTH, IPTV and mobile TV. The government has failed to take steps against this monopolisation. Their officers are trying but the politicians are not allowing this.

    But two very important positives things happened this year, and if we have not started running, we have taken a few right steps. We are trying to control the broadcasters through some NGOs, and the government has started listening to us. They may not be doing much, but they are surely listening.

    One is the Content Code, and the second is digitalisation, which will help people watch more and more channels. The PMO has formed a committee on digitalisation. The other good thing is that the I&B ministry is trying its best to bring down the duties on the equipment, though finance ministry is not in a mood to listen.