ITV

Tag: Sunil Alagh

  • Govt’s digital channel to tell ‘India story’, Rs 75 cr investment planned

    MUMBAI: The Modi government is reportedly planning to launch a digital platform which will report on international news to a global digital audience with an India perspective. It will “challenge the anti-India narrative” and present “India’s perspective on global events.”

    The concept, approved by the Prasar Bharati Board, was discussed by a committee that included Prasar Bharati board members Sunil Alagh and Shashi Shekar Vempati, and Prasar Bharati interim CEO Rajeev Singh.

    The 24×7 operational digital platform, with an investment of Rs 75 crore, will have correspondents across the globe. Targeted at English-speaking audience, the Indian diaspora and the global opinion makers, the channel will change the narrative that presents India as a “constant point of conflict between Hindu nationalists and so-called secularism.”

    If the information and broadcasting ministry agrees to a proposal by Prasar Bharti, the country will soon have a digital channel to tell the “India story”.

    Prasar Bharati chairman A Surya Prakash said that the idea was discussed by the United Progressive Alliance government.

    The objective of this digital channel over the next three years will be to reach 10 million to 100 million page views a month, a million mobile app downloads and YouTube subscribers each.

  • Brands need to stay relevant, contemporary: Experts

    Brands need to stay relevant, contemporary: Experts

    NEW DELHI: “Nonsense”. That was the terse reaction of Jaya Bachchan – actor and now a member of the Parliament – to a question by the ebullient ad wizard Suhel Seth on whether she agreed that brand ambassadors should be held responsible for the brands they represent.

    Later, asked to elucidate, she told indiantelevision that she had already said that it was “nonsense.”

    Speaking at a session on the business of brand-building at FICCI’s 89th Annual General Meeting, Bachchan said that individuals were brands too, and they added value to the products and services which they endorsed to bring authentication.

    (The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs had, in its review of the Consumer Protection Bill pending in the Parliament, stated earlier this year that stringent provisions may be made to fix liability on endorsers/celebrities as misrepresentation of a product, especially a food product, should be taken very seriously considering the influence of celebrities and high net-worth individuals or companies. It said the existing laws are not deterrent enough to discourage manufacturers or publishers from using such personalities for misleading advertisements.)

    Meanwhile, it was generally agreed that brands need to stay relevant and contemporary to the consumers to succeed. Experts agreed that brands need to create an experience by creating an emotional connect with the end-user (consumer); lest they cease to exist.

    “Brand is an idea that is in the head today,” said SKA Advisors chairman and former Britannia Industries CEO Sunil Alagh said. “The idea needs to be consistent, and remain contemporary.”

    According to Alagh, brands were not companies or products, a view that Bachchan disagreed with. But, Alagh, giving an example, said the ‘Angry young man’ as an idea was more relevant as an idea, and not Amitabh Bachchan or any other actor.

    Alagh said that brands had various stakeholders of late, and, most importantly, consumers were lately getting more information and react about the brand on social media.  He added that the stakeholders looked for an experience with the brand in the contemporary scenario.

    Coca-Cola India and south-west Asia president Venkatesh Kini said that a brand was not just an idea but it had to be embodied in a product. “A brand is a product, package and logo,” Kini who leads the 130-year old brand in the region said, and added that a brand might or might not require a celebrity to authenticate its product.

    “Consumers are taking ownership of brands, and companies are now looking at co-creating and co-owning the brand,” Kini added.

    Seth said that the idea was known if it keeps changing and remained contemporary. Reacting to the issue of brand ambassadors, he said that brand suffered if something happens to the celebrity endorsing it.

    Also read

    Brand ambassadors equally responsible for misleading ads,can be penalised: Parliamentary Committee

  • Brands need to stay relevant, contemporary: Experts

    Brands need to stay relevant, contemporary: Experts

    NEW DELHI: “Nonsense”. That was the terse reaction of Jaya Bachchan – actor and now a member of the Parliament – to a question by the ebullient ad wizard Suhel Seth on whether she agreed that brand ambassadors should be held responsible for the brands they represent.

    Later, asked to elucidate, she told indiantelevision that she had already said that it was “nonsense.”

    Speaking at a session on the business of brand-building at FICCI’s 89th Annual General Meeting, Bachchan said that individuals were brands too, and they added value to the products and services which they endorsed to bring authentication.

    (The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs had, in its review of the Consumer Protection Bill pending in the Parliament, stated earlier this year that stringent provisions may be made to fix liability on endorsers/celebrities as misrepresentation of a product, especially a food product, should be taken very seriously considering the influence of celebrities and high net-worth individuals or companies. It said the existing laws are not deterrent enough to discourage manufacturers or publishers from using such personalities for misleading advertisements.)

    Meanwhile, it was generally agreed that brands need to stay relevant and contemporary to the consumers to succeed. Experts agreed that brands need to create an experience by creating an emotional connect with the end-user (consumer); lest they cease to exist.

    “Brand is an idea that is in the head today,” said SKA Advisors chairman and former Britannia Industries CEO Sunil Alagh said. “The idea needs to be consistent, and remain contemporary.”

    According to Alagh, brands were not companies or products, a view that Bachchan disagreed with. But, Alagh, giving an example, said the ‘Angry young man’ as an idea was more relevant as an idea, and not Amitabh Bachchan or any other actor.

    Alagh said that brands had various stakeholders of late, and, most importantly, consumers were lately getting more information and react about the brand on social media.  He added that the stakeholders looked for an experience with the brand in the contemporary scenario.

    Coca-Cola India and south-west Asia president Venkatesh Kini said that a brand was not just an idea but it had to be embodied in a product. “A brand is a product, package and logo,” Kini who leads the 130-year old brand in the region said, and added that a brand might or might not require a celebrity to authenticate its product.

    “Consumers are taking ownership of brands, and companies are now looking at co-creating and co-owning the brand,” Kini added.

    Seth said that the idea was known if it keeps changing and remained contemporary. Reacting to the issue of brand ambassadors, he said that brand suffered if something happens to the celebrity endorsing it.

    Also read

    Brand ambassadors equally responsible for misleading ads,can be penalised: Parliamentary Committee

  • Times Now special election coverage on result day

    Times Now special election coverage on result day

    MUMBAI: The channel which has taken innovation in news television to a level once again brings multiple tech tools which will make #May19withArnab, a show to remember. Indian television viewer for the first time will be introduced to new age data visualisation with tools like Spectrum, Firewall and Cluster by TIMES NOW.  

    And this time as Arnab Goswami, President News & Editor in Chief of TIMES NOW & ET NOW says, “Election coverage will be an all new, refreshing experience on TIMES NOW. This time by teaming with the world leaders in data visualisation Gramener we give the Indian viewers never before seen cutting edge graphical representation of data”.

    Naveen Gattu, Co-founder of Gramener, Data analytics and Visualization Company says, “ It’s a great opportunity and challenge for us, teaming up with India’s number one English news network, we introduce on May 19th a new genre of visual data journalism which will make understanding data so much more simple “ 

    TIMES NOW and Gramener introduces five new data visualisation tools which will be a first not just in India but in broadcast journalism the world over.
    WHAT IF? – It depicts how each alliance is performing as the results trickle in and helps us examine various scenarios in term of how future post poll agreements may play out

    SCATTER PLOT- Maps out the constituencies as per the margin of leads that trickle in, mapping the leads on X axis and vote share on the Y axis

    ELECTION CHORD – A depiction of which party or alliance gained votes and seats at whose expense from the previous election

    SPECTRUM – A measurement of how every seat traditionally votes is mapped out

    STRIKE RATE – It depicts the performance of each individual party in terms of its seats won, compared to the number of seats it contested.

    Apart from top politicians in our studio, we will be having some of the largest and most experienced in house panellist consisting of Neerja Chowdhury, senior journalist; R Rajagopalan, senior journalist; Saba Naqvi, senior journalist; Sachidananda Murthy, Resident Editor; Malayala Manorama; Shahid Siddiqui, Chief Editor; Nai Dunia, Alok Mehta, Editor; Outlook Hindi; Sunil Alagh, Political Analyst & Chairman; SKA Advisors;  Aloke Banerjee, senior journalist; Sanjay Pinto, lawyer and political analyst;  Kumar Ketkar , Wasbir Hussain, Consultant Editor.

    This time TIMES NOW has a strategic tie up two top regional networks to bring you numbers not just first and fast, but for real time- in-depth analysis. For Assam we have a tie up with Newslive, giving updates from Assam’s number one news  network will be Zareer Hussain, Editor in Chief of Newslive with Wasbir Hussain, TIMES NOW consulting editor.

    And from Kerala, the number one Malayalam news network Asianet News joins hands with TIMES NOW. Joining from the Asianet News studio is M G Radhakrishnan, the editor in chief. 
    All this and more from 7 am onwards on 19th May2016 only on TIMES NOW.

  • Times Now special election coverage on result day

    Times Now special election coverage on result day

    MUMBAI: The channel which has taken innovation in news television to a level once again brings multiple tech tools which will make #May19withArnab, a show to remember. Indian television viewer for the first time will be introduced to new age data visualisation with tools like Spectrum, Firewall and Cluster by TIMES NOW.  

    And this time as Arnab Goswami, President News & Editor in Chief of TIMES NOW & ET NOW says, “Election coverage will be an all new, refreshing experience on TIMES NOW. This time by teaming with the world leaders in data visualisation Gramener we give the Indian viewers never before seen cutting edge graphical representation of data”.

    Naveen Gattu, Co-founder of Gramener, Data analytics and Visualization Company says, “ It’s a great opportunity and challenge for us, teaming up with India’s number one English news network, we introduce on May 19th a new genre of visual data journalism which will make understanding data so much more simple “ 

    TIMES NOW and Gramener introduces five new data visualisation tools which will be a first not just in India but in broadcast journalism the world over.
    WHAT IF? – It depicts how each alliance is performing as the results trickle in and helps us examine various scenarios in term of how future post poll agreements may play out

    SCATTER PLOT- Maps out the constituencies as per the margin of leads that trickle in, mapping the leads on X axis and vote share on the Y axis

    ELECTION CHORD – A depiction of which party or alliance gained votes and seats at whose expense from the previous election

    SPECTRUM – A measurement of how every seat traditionally votes is mapped out

    STRIKE RATE – It depicts the performance of each individual party in terms of its seats won, compared to the number of seats it contested.

    Apart from top politicians in our studio, we will be having some of the largest and most experienced in house panellist consisting of Neerja Chowdhury, senior journalist; R Rajagopalan, senior journalist; Saba Naqvi, senior journalist; Sachidananda Murthy, Resident Editor; Malayala Manorama; Shahid Siddiqui, Chief Editor; Nai Dunia, Alok Mehta, Editor; Outlook Hindi; Sunil Alagh, Political Analyst & Chairman; SKA Advisors;  Aloke Banerjee, senior journalist; Sanjay Pinto, lawyer and political analyst;  Kumar Ketkar , Wasbir Hussain, Consultant Editor.

    This time TIMES NOW has a strategic tie up two top regional networks to bring you numbers not just first and fast, but for real time- in-depth analysis. For Assam we have a tie up with Newslive, giving updates from Assam’s number one news  network will be Zareer Hussain, Editor in Chief of Newslive with Wasbir Hussain, TIMES NOW consulting editor.

    And from Kerala, the number one Malayalam news network Asianet News joins hands with TIMES NOW. Joining from the Asianet News studio is M G Radhakrishnan, the editor in chief. 
    All this and more from 7 am onwards on 19th May2016 only on TIMES NOW.

  • Actors Kajol & Vikram Gokhale short-listed for filling vacancies in Prasar Bharati Board

    Actors Kajol & Vikram Gokhale short-listed for filling vacancies in Prasar Bharati Board

    NEW DELHI: Bollywood star Kajol and former editor of RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ Seshadri Chari are among a fresh panel of names drawn up by Information and Broadcasting Ministry for the two vacant positions of part-time members of the Prasar Bharati Board.

    Some of the others names on the list include actors Minhaz Merchant and actor Vikram Gokhale.

    Around eight names have been prepared and forwarded to the selection committee headed by vice president M Hamid Ansari. The committee also comprises Press Council of India chairman Justice (retd) C K Prasad and I&B secretary Sunil Arora.

    Ministry sources said several of the names, including that of Kajol and Chari were also among those forwarded last time when four part-time members were chosen.

    In its earlier meeting in October last year, the three-member committee had chosen former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s media advisor Ashok Tandon and noted Bhajan singer Anup Jalota, businessmen Sunil Alagh and Shashi Shekhar, who headed an online media company, Niti Digital, as members of the board of the public broadcaster.

    As some members have completed their term, two vacancies have arisen and so the Ministry has now prepared a list for the Committee expected to meet towards the end of this month.

    Under the Prasar Bharati Act, the pubcaster should have six-part time members on its Board, which is headed by its chairman.

  • Actors Kajol & Vikram Gokhale short-listed for filling vacancies in Prasar Bharati Board

    Actors Kajol & Vikram Gokhale short-listed for filling vacancies in Prasar Bharati Board

    NEW DELHI: Bollywood star Kajol and former editor of RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ Seshadri Chari are among a fresh panel of names drawn up by Information and Broadcasting Ministry for the two vacant positions of part-time members of the Prasar Bharati Board.

    Some of the others names on the list include actors Minhaz Merchant and actor Vikram Gokhale.

    Around eight names have been prepared and forwarded to the selection committee headed by vice president M Hamid Ansari. The committee also comprises Press Council of India chairman Justice (retd) C K Prasad and I&B secretary Sunil Arora.

    Ministry sources said several of the names, including that of Kajol and Chari were also among those forwarded last time when four part-time members were chosen.

    In its earlier meeting in October last year, the three-member committee had chosen former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s media advisor Ashok Tandon and noted Bhajan singer Anup Jalota, businessmen Sunil Alagh and Shashi Shekhar, who headed an online media company, Niti Digital, as members of the board of the public broadcaster.

    As some members have completed their term, two vacancies have arisen and so the Ministry has now prepared a list for the Committee expected to meet towards the end of this month.

    Under the Prasar Bharati Act, the pubcaster should have six-part time members on its Board, which is headed by its chairman.

  • Times Now preps for Bihar election battle with 3 new data analytics salvos

    Times Now preps for Bihar election battle with 3 new data analytics salvos

    MUMBAI: At a time when all national news channels are going in full throttle to win the ratings race as the high octane drama unfolds for the upcoming Bihar Assembly election day, Times Now has armed itself with technical innovations and three proprietary live analytic data tools namely Cluster, Firewall and Spectrum.

     

    Starting at 7 pm on 7 November, the news channel will launch 36 hours of discontinuous live reporting led by editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. Along with a team of experts, Goswami will analyse the news, exit poll indications and results through exclusives and hard hitting interviews.

     

    Joining Goswami on the panel will be experts such as Sunil Alagh, Saba Naqvi, Sankarshan Thakur, R Rajagopalan, Kumar Ketkar, Hartosh Singh Bal, Ajoy Bose, Arati Jerath, Shahid Siddiqui and Neerja Chowdhury.

     

    Goswami decodes the three proprietary live analytic data tools one at a time. Speaking about them he says, “Cluster is a graphical tool, which analyses results on the basis of social, demographic or political similarities and the profile of a constituency. The second tool Firewall, gives live data analysis that tells you whether any individual constituencies are bucking the overall trend,” informs Goswami.

     

    “For example,” Goswami explains, “if there is a constituency that, say, the Janata Dal has won three times in a row, it is a ‘firewall’ constituency — because for anyone to breach that constituency from the other side will be doubly difficult. So if the exit polls indicate that trend is being bucked, Firewall throws it up, with details of the candidate or party challenging the favourite, and the others in the constituency. While people do this kind of an analysis 10 to 12 hours after the results, on Times Now, it will be done live.”

     

    The third tool in Times Now’s inventory is Spectrum, which has been designed to emulate the concept of a spectrum, putting the result out literally on a band and colour-coding it.

     

    “For example, saffron for the NDA and green for JDU. So the band is colour coded, and as the results come in, the band gets filled with colour. So you can compare the band of this election to the band of last elections and visually a viewer can understand if colour-wise this election is looking like the last election or otherwise,” explains Goswami, adding that the info-graphic will simplify the exit poll analysis for the viewers.

     

    Also keeping the channel on top of its game is its recently announced exclusive partnership with social media giant Twitter to launch a global video service. Understanding the need of the hour, Goswami has no qualms in even dumping full shows on the Twitter owned video curation service Periscope.

     

    “In India, the PMO site and Times Now alone were chosen partners for global video launch of Twitter. In fact, I will be doing the first ever exclusive news show on Periscope, that will go live before the TV coverage commences this Saturday (7 November, 2015) evening,” Goswami reveals in parting.

  • Industry gears up for 3rd IAA Leadership awards

    Industry gears up for 3rd IAA Leadership awards

    MUMBAI: The International Advertising Association’s (IAA) India chapter will be holding the third edition of the IAA Leadership awards. The awards celebrate and recognize various individuals from across the fields of marketing, advertising and media, bringing them to one common platform.

     

    The awards will be held on 18 April, 2015 at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

     

    For the third year running, the IAA India chapter will honour women and men in the marketing, advertising and media community for their outstanding performance, innovation and creativity in delivering path breaking marketing initiatives. Twelve categories have been hand-picked based on exhaustive quantitative and qualitative parameters.

     

    This year, shortlisted individuals will undergo even sharper scrutiny by a jury comprising industry stalwarts namely Sunil Alagh (SKA Advisors), Sangeeta Pendurkar (Kelloggs), Kaushik Roy (Reliance), Neeraj Roy (Hungama), CVL Srinivas (GroupM), Gayatri Yadav (Star India), Ramesh Narayan, Raj Nayak (Colors), and Srinivasan K Swamy (IAA India Chapter president). The overall process is validated by Ernst & Young.

     

    Swamy said, “The high admiration that the IAA Leadership Awards has earned from the community in the past two years fuels our enthusiasm to return with our third edition with a bang. We are gearing up to applaud the efforts of those marketers and professionals whose hard work has borne fruition in the past year.”

     

    To add authenticity to the awards and maintain transparency in judging the campaigns, IAA has further streamlined the process, to determine the winners. For shortlisting the nominees, IAA along with its knowledge partner analysed the media spends and market presence of brands between 1 January and 31 December, 2014.

     

    The shortlisted nominees across categories were examined closely by the expert panel of jury members who looked at market share data, growth and other qualitative aspects to pick the winners in each category.

  • Times Now eyes ‘super’ viewership this budget

    Times Now eyes ‘super’ viewership this budget

    MUMBAI: Times Now, it seems, has made ‘super’ its trademark for shows. After a successful ‘Super Primetime’ that was created during the elections and is on-air even now, the English news channel is creating a special band of shows targeting the budget.

     

    ‘Super Budget 2014’ will be a congregation of debate shows, interviews, analysis and discussions with Times Now editor in chief Arnab Goswami and economists like Omkar Goswami, Lord Meghnad Desai, Dr Rajeev Kumar and Sunil Alagh who will discuss issues regarding the common man’s expectations from the budget 2014.

     

    Some of the ‘Super Budget 2014’ shows include Budget Roundtable that is a series of two shows of one hour each with Goswami, Times Now political and economy editor Navika Kumar and will air on 28 June and 5 July. Budget Expectation: World’s Eye on India will show the world’s expectation from the budget with international panelists such as Jagdish Bhagwati and Andrew Ferris. The show will go on air on the same two days for half an hour each. My Budget Wish-list is a series of vignettes that give the common man a chance to voice his opinion of what he wants from this year’s budget.

     

    Speaking on the new programming lineup Times Now, ET Now and zoom chief marketing officer Jatin Bhatt said, “After the highly successful general elections campaign where we garnered the highest numbers by far, we are looking at strengthening our lead by the line up towards the budget. Times Now will have a 360 degree consumer centric marketing program with innovations will help us get more viewers, achieve higher growth and viewership numbers.”

     

    Digital medium is being used to find out audiences’ wish-list for the same. Both the union budget and the railway budget will be covered live on the channel.