MxMIndia

Author: mxmadmin

  • TV is an extremely expensive business and most news channels would not have gone overboard on Anna’s campaign if there was no promise of gains – present or in the future. Who put up the money for the coverage, asks Sanjay Kapoor.

    Newswatch: Sanjay Kapoor on Team Anna & the fast co

    By Sanjay Kapoor

     

    In January 2011, Anna Hazare was virtually unknown to Delhi’s self obsessed middle class. A year later, after he had unleashed a tumult against the government by sitting on a fast till the central government appointed an all powerful Jan Lokpal or ombudsman against corruption, and controlled all the headlines of the national media, Hazare is slowly slipping away from prime time news. What he and his verbose bunch of supporters have to figure out in the coming days is: what do you do when the gaze of the TV cameras shifts? How do you get them to look at you again?

     

    These questions must be surely gnawing at an ailing Anna Hazare as he strenuously pedals on his stationary exercise bike to regain his health and also find a way out from this dead end. He must be wondering what really went wrong at his “fast fest” at MMRDA grounds of Mumbai, where he did not get the kind of fawning and gushy support of the people as he got in Delhi. Not only were the crowds thin, even the TV news channels, unlike in the past, refused to bloat their numbers. Delhi, surely, seemed a distant memory. What really went wrong for the anti-corruption movement that seemed to threaten the stability of UPA government?

     

    Operating under the rubric of “India against Corruption’, Anna Hazare’s movement was crafted like the Arab Spring. The main pillars of his campaign were the media and the urban middle class. Interestingly, Team Anna seemed to follow the template put together by Belgrade-based Centre for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies (www.canvasopedia.org), which seeks to provide consultancy to protests around the world. CANVAS takes the credit for training and supporting civil society activists in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Myanmar, amongst many other countries, for organising protests. CANVAS recommends non-violent interventions like fasts and suggests the use of media to disseminate a message that the “people see that there is something is wrong, and they are willing to do something about it”. Funded by US-based entities, much of the advice listed on its website finds an echo in what has been witnessed in the country in the last few months.

     

    CANVAS suggestions are usually meant for authoritarian regimes where press is under state control and the only way to reach out to the masses is through social media like Facebook and Twitter; there is no such problem in India. In a noisy and chaotic democracy like ours with hundreds of privately owned news channels following each other’s “breaking news”, this was much easier. Team Anna and its patrons had to get one big media organisation on their side and rest was easy. Call them partners in a conspiracy hatched by patrons of Anna Hazare or a simple display of good reflexes in spotting a big story, the Bennett Coleman group showed great enthusiasm in building the narrative of how “a Gandhian left his village to save the republic from the corrupt”. In the cacophony and melee of TV news reporting there is no clarity of who ” broke the Anna Story” when he descended on Delhi to fast at Jantar Mantar last April, but it was a matter of time when all news channels went overboard in their coverage of his event. Clever camera angles plus filling up the TV screens of small snapshots of people assembling at different places helped in creating crowds when few existed. Truth was manipulated to build a feverish demand for the appointment of an unelected Lokpal to save the country from rampaging pindaris. It is quite unclear how media organisations may have benefited from wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Hazare’s fast at Jantar Mantar and later at the capital’s Ramlila Maidan, but news channel did not seem shy in expending their resources on it. Statistics show that there were 5592 pro-Anna and only 62 anti-Anna segments in the Jantar Mantar coverage. During the Ramlila ground fast it perhaps got worse. TV channels were unhesitatingly and unashamedly uncritical of the movement.

     

    Television coverage is an extremely expensive business and most of the news channels would not have gone overboard in hysterically reporting on Anna’s campaign if there was no promise of gains – present or in the future. Who put up the money for the coverage of the campaign? There were rumours that a colossal corpus was created in Bangalore to fund the anti-corruption campaign. Hence Team Anna showed great reluctance to campaign against the disgraced former BJP chief minister BS Yeddyurappa of Karnataka. Rumours also abound that due to the high financial stakes the Anna story was pushed more by managers and editors than by reporters. Some of the reporters covering the fast were even heard complaining that they were under pressure to make the “Gandhian’s” agitation look pretty.

     

    Pains were taken to make the movement look non-political, but it became clear at Ramlila Maidan and later that the spine to the movement was provided by the front organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Crowds and news coverage is seldom spontaneous. It takes a lot of effort to get people out for protests. Contractors are used to ferry crowds for the rallies and PR companies are deployed to organise press coverage. On both counts RSS front organisations display great competence. They have enormous capacity to bring in their supporters and also organise favourable media support. Earlier anti-corruption agitations, like the one led by Jayaprakash Narayan in the ’70s and later by VP Singh in the ’80s succeeded due to the support extended by the RSS.

     

    At the Ramlila ground there was plenty of evidence of the presence of RSS front organisations, but most of the media outlets were reluctant to talk about it. The camera and the focus remained on a fasting Anna Hazare and his lieutenants like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, rather than those who were baying for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi’s heads. The ground was full of posters and hoardings to show how corrupt and anti-national the Congress party was. Team Anna and its supporters used the democratic space to demand an entity that was not only against the Constitution but also fascist in character. Quite evidently, such a demand met the approval of those who hate politics and want India to become a hard state.

     

    Anna Hazare became the darling for many of those around the country that saw politics and Parliament as a waste of time. And the way the visual media backed him and his call, it seemed only a question of time before the country got their version of Jan Lokpal, which would have been accountable to none.

     

    Lack of firmness and conviction displayed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his ministers in handling the agitation contributed in reinforcing this impression. Besides the TV channels, newspapers too gave the impression that the Ramlila ground was India’s Tahrir moment and the government would have to give way on the Jan Lokpal bill. Times of India carried a banner headline suggesting it to be another “August Kranti”. Hindi newspapers also went hysterical. Their reporting was little different from the kind on display when the Babri Masjid was brought down by hysterical mobs in Ayodhya many years ago. There were only very few publications that did not go overboard and were critical of the undemocratic noises and demands that were being made from Ramlila ground.

     

    Parliament acquitted itself through reasoned debate and conveying the sense of the house on the Lokpal issue allowing Anna Hazare to end his fast.

     

    Subsequent media scrutiny, both by foreign and national media, showed Anna Hazare and his team members in their true colours. Hazare was really a village tyrant who believed in tying the drunk to trees if they consumed alcohol. He also believed in giving capital punishment to those who were found guilty of corruption.

     

    Kiran Bedi was discovered to be fudging travel bills on many of her visits. There were also allegations that were brought out by the media about short-changing the Delhi Police on the issue of providing computer education to the children of constables. Arvind Kejriwal, the brain behind the movement, too, was found to have messed up in a showdown with his previous employer, the income tax department.

     

    As the true picture of these crusaders came out in the open, the government, it seems got into the act and began to reach out to some media houses. It is not clear what quid pro quos were worked out, but when Hazare sat in Mumbai, there was a sea-change in the gaze of the cameras and the way his fast was reported. For a movement that drew strength from crowds and media coverage feeding on each other, Mumbai was a big dampener. Worse, Anna, who looked a champion in Delhi, fasting for almost a fortnight, could not last more than a day. All the rumours about how electrolytes sustained him in Delhi returned when his fast collapsed.

     

    Team Anna claims to be at the crossroad of their movement. Their cluelessness and confusion would deepen if the Congress party does well in the assembly elections. And if it does not, then they will be back on the streets claiming victory in their defeat. This time, though, there would be no ambivalence about whom Anna is hunting with.

     

    Sanjay Kapoor is the Editor of Delhi based Hardnews Magazine.

     

  • Yawny soaps, tepid Hitchcock, but a riveting Javed Akhtar.

    Gouri Dange: A Random Harvest

    By Gouri Dange

     

    I honestly tried, the other day, to watch a random Hindi soap. I first hid the remote, so that I was not tempted to shout in Marathi “shyaa kay rubbish” and switch channels. So I hung in there. While I watched the crumpled drama unfolding, I also noticed the way they put together a sequence even now, in most soap opera shoots. Which is that most of the actors have no idea what the script is or what episode they’re shooting for. The director or eighth assistant director is put in charge of extracting (yes, like toothpaste from a finished tube) reaction shots from one actor. The seventh assistant director is getting another actor to deliver lines, of course without anyone in front of him/her to give appropriate reactions. “Sab editing mey ho jaygega” is the assurance that is given. And there you are, watching the results – just a series of close-ups and chopped up shots that are supposed to make up a scene.

     

    Anyway, all this is old hat, and the one soap that I used to watch that looked like real people and real situations and real interiors (Ladies Special) and good composite shots with several actors actually in the same frame, was summarily pulled off the air a while ago, reconfirming that I live in a bubble.

     

    So then I took hold of the remote again, and pressed the ‘i’ button on it – i for information about this particular soap. Here is the information provided by the channel, and now you tell me, does this not merit jumping to the next channel:  ‘Vijay stops Jay from being reckless and she realizes that Moniya will eventually hurt Uday’s ego. Uday threatens Moniya into coming for a drive. Moniya is getting bored and is expected to spot Akash.’  (I swear I am not making this up – including the first confusing ‘she’ in reference to said Vijay and Jay.) All I could say was huh? and switch channels.

     

    There was Alfred Hitchcock Presents on FX. I watched a full episode, and I may be committing a big crime here by saying this, but it was rather boring and flat. This is the second one that I watched, and I was disappointed for the second time. There were simpleton-set-ups, trite dialogues, and predictable endings. To top it all, Hitch himself appears at the end, and where earlier he would add a grim note and send more shivers down your spine, in these episodes he further dilutes the effect by making some joke about the episode or the victim. No fun… whatever happened to the episodes that would leave you so frozen in fear that you would not dare put your foot off the sofa to get to your bedroom, when it was done?  But of course I loved the lighting, the B&W faces, the Classic American diction that was different from today’s American mumble.

     

    On I wandered randomly, without much hope, to be rewarded at 7.30 pm by Classic Legends on Z Classic. Javed Akhtar talks about some of the greats of Hindi Cinema (this time it was Bimal Roy). And what a raconteur he is. I am told he speaks from memory and not a written script at all, and I believe it. Firstly it is such a pleasure to hear good Hindi (after a day of listening to the chuckleheads on FM Radio in your car speaking the idiot-version of ‘chat-pata’ Hindi). And then there are his insights, the stories, and those little particular things that he points the viewer towards, before showing a small clip that illustrates his point. It is as if he shows you that one pivot of the entire film that he is talking about, that one crucial well-oiled piece of machinery, on which that film rides. You have been up until then unconscious of it, but what he tells you about it and the clip that he chooses to show – they give you that ‘aha’ moment; you recognize why you have been so involved and moved by that particular part.  For instance, he spoke about the forlon foghorn of the boat scene in Bandini, and when the clip is played, you say to yourself, ‘of course, I know how this sound makes me feel whenever I have seen it!’ A programme like this sets off your own memories and associations, as all legends must and do.

     

    I have only one crib (or perhaps three) about this programme. Why such a generic and vague sounding title ‘Classic Legends’? Why the cold set which looks like Javed Akhtar has been plucked out of his own sitting room and placed in some large desolate half-warehouse  half-disco during off hours?  And lastly, you have to listen to the programme at a fairly high volume (prompting others around you to smirk about you going deaf etc) because the last three words of each sentence are simply not audible, or are severely shortened/eaten up. Given that Javed Akhtar’s every word counts, I feel slightly cheated.

     

  • Why should we suffer because a few sods wanna have street fun, and are desperate for their 'athletic' frames to be featured on Page 3?

    Anil Thakraney: How the marathon has become an an outdoor Page 3 bash

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    I am no fan of celeb parties. The last one I went for, I think, was when the twin towers of New York City were still around. And I loathe them because I consider such soirees to be a total waste of time. The whole ‘networking’ bit is bollocks, I immediately trash all the visiting cards that get doled out, and I suspect so do others. But, people have the right to party, so let them do it. It’s a free country and people have enough free time to kill, so that’s cool.

     

    However, the one big party I cannot deal with and strongly condemn is that Great Outdoor Bash called the Marathon. Where a bunch of publicity hungry celebs and a whole lot of wannabes and wastrels collect and make a mess of our Sunday, as all sorts of traffic restrictions come into play. Last Sunday, because of the Mumbai Marathon, I had to cancel my plans of visiting South Mumbai on work. And that’s so damn unfair, why should we suffer because a few sods wanna have street fun, and are desperate for their ‘athletic’ frames to be featured on Page 3?

     

    Here’s why I think the event sucks:

    Hundreds of people claim to run for hundreds of charities. No one really remembers or even knows what charities these are, and more importantly, if the money really makes it into the right places. There are zero checks and balances on this, so the whole charity bit sounds very dubious.

     

    Over 90 percent of the hangers-on arrive for potential star-gazing. They have no interest in either running or in charity. All they do is create street nuisance.

     

    The kind of money that claims to be generated at the Marathon, it’s loose change really for sprinters like Ambani, Mahindra and Mallya. These very loaded gentlemen can so easily donate hugely to charity without creating a public spectacle, if they wanted to. But then, how will they get their hot bods on to Page 3?

     

    Each year the predictable happens. A broke Kenyan or a broke Nigerian wins the bounty prize. Because these are the only dudes who can run, as everyone else wants to simply party. Fine. As long as these boys use the money for the right purposes. And don’t end up in the back alleys of Juhu peddling you know what.

     

    [youtube width=”400″ height=”200″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILxjxfB4zNk[/youtube]

    Net Net: Guys and gals, please do this tamasha inside Brabourne stadium. The sponsors will still get their mileage, the Africans will still win, you will still get media coverage and a chance to show off. And the rest of us can continue with our routine lives. Thank you!

     

    ***

     

    PS: Brilliant public service ad from the British Heart Foundation. Making the act of reviving victims of cardiac arrest look not just a simple, but a fun thing to do. See, you don’t need to run street marathons if you want to do good work. Doing an ad like this goes miles in changing lives.

     

  • A film should have a unique storyline or a powerful narrative or a moderate direction, or a mix bag of all, says Vipin Dhyani.

    The Anchor: Vipin Dhyani on the 5 films he wishes he had directed

    By Vipin Dhyani

     

    I don’t smoke, I don’t booze, and movies are my only poison. I am quite callous in my selection for a film. I don’t watch a film twice even if I like it to the core. I believe a good film must have the ability to leave that mark in my mind; otherwise it’s a waste of time. And while judging, I believe a film should have either a unique storyline or a powerful narrative or a moderate direction, or a mix bag of all.

     

    Though my list of must-watch movies is endless, here are some of the finest ones:

     

    #1 Kolya (Czech)

    This won academy awards in 1996 for best foreign film. The film is about a small kid named Kolya and his innocence transforming an aimless old man. The kid is forced to live with the protagonist, and ironically they don’t speak the same language. One speaks Czech and the other Russian. The storyline, the fabric of the film is very simple but the way it’s been portrayed is awesome. It’s sensitive and very languid, but heart-wrenching in the end. I saw ti in ’97, but it seems really fresh in my mind. Directed by Jan Sverak, loved by all.

     

    #2 13 Tzameti (French)

    You wouldn’t like a phone call or a person disturbing you while watching this dramatic crime thriller written and directed by Gela Babluani. It gripped me well and left with a hangover. The story is about a naïve man who finds an invitation meant for somebody else. His quest and curiosity makes him an unfortunate 13th player in a game of death. The best part is that it is based on true events of a survivor of the actual game. If you are not watching it on a pirated DVD, you can treat yourself with the bonus feature real interview of the survivor of this notorious underground game from Europe.

    It’s a 2006 film but intentionally treated in black and white. It is stark, honest, bold, very real and enigmatic.

     

    #3 Love Me If You Dare (French)

    ‘Unthinkable’ is the word to describe this mad roller coaster rom com, written and directed by Yann Samuell. The storyline is simply unique. Our protagonist couple are childhood friends and all they do is play an odd game to challenge each other for daring and outrageous stunts. And they continue to do this even when they become adults. Very intriguingly, the fact gets unfolded that their game is nothing but a device to hide the truth that they are truly meant for each another. It is the maddest film I have ever seen, I can say.

    It bends all the rules of a romantic film, it boasts more energy and wicked humour than mushy moments. It’s worth watching even if you don’t like romantic movies.

     

    #4 Swindled (Spanish)

    It’s a con drama written and directed by Miguel Bardem, a fantastically woven plot to swindle a hefty sum by a group of conmen. The narrative is engagingly beautiful, and the plot is flawless. Unlike regular Hollywood con dramas, protagonist here has a very calm and down-to-earth approach to his schemes and execution. That makes him a lovable and believable character in the film. The fabrication is of the real, ‘I know these guys’ type. Most of the ideas leave even the audience outguessed, and that’s the real beauty.

     

    #5 Scoop (English)

    It’s a hilarious comedy with elements of fantasy and mystery, written and directed by master craftsman Woody Allen. Scarlett Johansson as a journalist student looking out for a scoop about an aristocrat who is a suspected serial killer. She gets the signal about his moves from a dead journalist (played by Woody himself). If you are a Woody Allen fan, you will get everything from him in this movie. The surrealism, the wisecracks, his monologues, the dark comedy and real insights. A film like this can be enjoyed more with friends. Worth giving a shot!

     

    Vipin Dhyani is Founder & Chief Creative Director, Thoughtshop Advertising & Film Productions Pvt Ltd.

     

  • Delhi airport emerges as the best retail location for luxury brands like Swarovski, M&S & Hidesign

    Not Linking Road or Khan Market, Delhi airport is the best retail location for some luxury brands

    By Sagar Malviya & Kailash Babar

     

    Can you name the retail location in India from where Swarovski, Marks & Spencer, Samsonite, Hidesign and Kimaya all reported their best sales numbers last calendar? Not Khan Market or Select City Walk Mall in Delhi, not Linking Road or the Phoenix Mall in Mumbai; it’s the Delhi airport.

     

    Indira Gandhi International Airport in the capital is the most lucrative retail location in the country, having generated sales of 5,000 per square feet per month in 2011, which is almost four times higher than the second-best location. This figure includes sales from duty-free shops, but regular shops too are buzzing here.

     

    “Our ticket size at airport is double in value compared locations elsewhere,” says Ms Ruchita Sharma, marketing operation manager of high-end crystal products maker Swarovski’s consumer goods business. The brand store at the T3 terminal of the Delhi airport ranks among its top stores by sales globally.

     

    Retailers are at a loss to explain why a place meant just for travelling let brands rake in more moolah than most shopping malls and high streets.

     

    Many of them are, in fact, surprised. A case in point is high-end fashion house Kimaya, which did not exactly expected hurried travellers to indulge in couture when it opened its outlet in the swanky international terminal in November last.

     

    Its promoter Mr Pradeep Hirani says he had turned down offer to open a shop at the airport two times before saying yes the third time. “For us, it was more of exhibitional than commercial.”

     

    Not any more. Today, Kimaya’s airport store sales are much higher than its high street outlets at around 3,500 per sq ft every month. And Hirani regrets having opted for a revenue-sharing model-where the retailer pays a percentage of its sales as rental to the airport operator-instead of the high rentals the airport had quoted earlier.

     

    So what makes Delhi airport the most profitable destination for brands? One reason is its sheer size. It is the largest and busiest airport in South Asia. More than 35 million passengers used it last year.

     

    It is the fourth largest retail hub in the country with sales of 1,200 crore in 2011 despite being ten times smaller than malls such as Ambience Mall in Gurgaon and Phoenix High Street in Mumbai. “For any retailer, sales-per-sq ft is the most important parameter while deciding on setting up their store,” says Mr Susil Dungarwal, chief mall mechanic at Beyond Squarefeet Advisory, a boutique mall consultancy firm. It reflects the profitability of an outlet as the per-square feet cost is comparable in most prime locations in metros.

     

    Premium leather accessory brand Hidesign mopped up over 10,000 per sq ft per month on an average against 1,500-6,000 elsewhere, while Samsonite generated sales of 7,200 from the Delhi airport store compared to 1,350 in other stores.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • TAM Data (GRPs, Channel shares of HGECs)- Wk 2 ’12

     

    Source: TAM Peoplemeter System
    TG: CS 4+ yrs
    Market: HSM
    Period: Wk 1: Jan 1 to Jan 7, 2012
    Period: Wk 2: Jan 8 to Jan 14, 2012

     

     

    About TAM Media Research

     

    TAM is a joint venture between Nielsen Company & Kantar Media Research. Besides measuring TV Viewership, TAM also monitors Advertising Expenditure of Television, Print & Radio through its division AdEx India. Since 2004, it extended its presence in the PR Measurement & Analysis space for Corporate/Marketing Clients by setting up a separate division Eikona PR Measurement.

     

    In 2007, the joint venture introduced RAM (Radio Audio Measurement) service to track Radio Listenership for the Indian Radio Broadcast Industry. In year 2009, TAM launched a division, called TAM Sports that specializes in monitoring Sports Sponsorship ROI.

     

    TAM Media Research’s objective is to fuel media insights that will drive the growth of the Indian Media Industry.

  • TAM data Top 10 programmes on HGEC – Wk 2 ’12

    Source: TAM Peoplemeter System
    TG: CS 4+ yrs
    Market: Hindi Speaking Market
    Period: Wk 2 (Jan 8 to Jan 14) 2012

     

     

    About TAM Media Research

     

    TAM is a joint venture between Nielsen Company & Kantar Media Research. Besides measuring TV Viewership, TAM also monitors Advertising Expenditure of Television, Print & Radio through its division AdEx India. Since 2004, it extended its presence in the PR Measurement & Analysis space for Corporate/Marketing Clients by setting up a separate division Eikona PR Measurement.

     

    In 2007, the joint venture introduced RAM (Radio Audio Measurement) service to track Radio Listenership for the Indian Radio Broadcast Industry. In year 2009, TAM launched a division, called TAM Sports that specializes in monitoring Sports Sponsorship ROI.

     

    TAM Media Research’s objective is to fuel media insights that will drive the growth of the Indian Media Industry.

  • In redefining the way gold loan is viewed, Manappuram Finance Limited has turned its own fortunes around too

    Gold opens new doors for Manappuram

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    The traditional arena of the gold loan as a source of quick cash has been transformed into a booming business with the advent of some major players. In redefining the way gold loan is viewed, Manappuram Finance Limited (MAFIL), based in Thrissur District in Kerala has played a key role, and in the process has turned its own fortunes around too, especially in the last two years.

     

    As  I Unnikrishnan, Managing Director, MAFIL says, their balance sheet has shown 100 percent growth in terms of profit in FY 2009-10 and 200 percent in FY 2010-11. There are multiple reasons for this growth, including being the first Kerala-based NBFC (Non-Banking Finance Company) to receive foreign investments which paved way for its geographical expansion. Manappuram had been restricted to Kerala till 2005 but started expanding to west, north and east. They have 2700 branches and in FY11 it has already opened some 700 branches. Also technology has played a major role in the company’s success with core banking solutions available to them, thus revolutionizing the loan against gold business.

     

    Other than this, communication has played a crucial role in Manappuram’s success. The company has splashed out on getting top film stars as brand ambassadors. Mr Unnikrishnan explained, “We have got not one but multiple brand ambassadors to reach out to people in various regions. When you enter a new geography, the need is to create a trust among consumers on your brand especially in our trade where we are asking them to part with their gold which is something precious to them. There is a need to build credibility in the lending business. We decided to go with the popular film actors as these are names people trust.  The idea to have so many film stars helps as each actor is trusted by people especially in their region.”

     

    They have roped in Mohanlal who is leading actor in Kerala, Puneet Rajkumar from Karnataka, Vikram who rules Tamil cinema, Akshay Kumar who has pan India appeal as well as actors Venkatesh and Mithun Chakraborty.

     

    More than anything as Mr Unnikrishnan says, they have managed to create awareness about gold loans and brought about a perceptual revolution. Earlier pawning of gold was seen in a poor light and there was a negative impression that people sell gold when they are in distress. “We have positioned gold loan as something that is handy and that is where our well crafted advertising has helped. It has required a commitment to convince the customer that gold loan is a feasible and quicker way of getting cash and not just in distress. I think this strategy has paid off and not just for Manappuram but also for the gold lending business.”

     

    The communication shows that gold loan can help one scale up their business or fulfill a long awaited dream. So gold which Indians have a tendency to hoard and keep in lockers can actually fetch you money to realize your dreams.

     

    After having a good run in the South, now Manappuram is experiencing growth from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh , Orissa and West Bengal among others. In fact, Mr Unnikrishnan is bullish on the trade and estimates that the organized gold loan market is close to Rs 1 lakh crore and the unorganized as Rs 2 lakh crore. In fact, seeing the opportunity in gold loan besides the NBFCs like Manappuram and Muthoot who have gained success even banks have got into this area. He concludes, “The challenge is not the market as it is growing. The challenge is to train people who can understand and meet the need of customers.”

     

  • Outgoing Editor-in-Chief also asks new incumbents not to let trivia outweigh credible, investigative journalism.

    Don’t be complacent: N Ram’s goodbye letter

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    On his last day as the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Hindu, Business Line, Frontline, and Sportstar, N Ram bid his colleagues farewell and exhorted them to seize the opportunities of the media world and face the challenges of the tough business environment the media faces today.

     

    Mr Ram’s mail states that Siddharth Varadarajan, D Sampathkumar, R Vijayasankar, and Nirmal Shekhar, all Editors, will take over, with effect from January 19, 2012, as Editors of The Hindu, Business Line, Frontline, and Sportstar respectively responsible for the selection of news under the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act of 1867.

     

    K. Balaji, Managing Director of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, takes over as Publisher of all Hindu Group publications and also as Printer as applicable. Ram informs that he will continue to be a wholetime Director of Kasturi & Sons Ltd.

     

    He states in the letter- “These changes on the editorial side are significant, indeed milestones in our progress as a newspaper-publishing company. On the one hand, they represent a conscious and well-prepared induction of fresh and younger blood at the top levels of our editorial operations, not of course as one-person shows but as captains of teams of talented professionals who work on the basis of collegiality, mutual respect, trust, professional discipline, and cooperation. On the other hand, these editorial changes are a vital part of the process of professionalization and contemporization under way in all the Company’s operations. I am clear that this is the only way to face the future – the opportunities as well as the challenges.”

     

    In the letter he also mentions, “About us it will certainly be no cliché to say: individuals come and go, the institution goes on.”

     

    He talks about the current situation of print press and broadcast television being in crisis across the developed world. He mentions Indian media being fortunate, “The chief differentiating characteristic of this media world is that printed newspapers (and also broadcast television) are in growth mode, some of us in buoyant growth mode. How long this duality will endure is a matter of conjecture. But there are exciting opportunities out there in our media world and they must be seized strategically and with deft footwork. Digital journalism – good journalism on the existing and emerging digital platforms – is an exciting domain where a combination of quality, reliability, interactivity, creative ways to engage the reader, and growth with commercial viability will be key. There are, equally, tough challenges – especially a hardening business environment and rising commercial pressure on editorial values and on the independence and integrity of editorial content, seen, for example, in the recently exposed notorious practices of paid news and private treaties. The negative tendencies that have surfaced in the Indian news media have been sharply criticized by the Press Council of India Chairman, Justice Markandey Katju; and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has reflected on the problem in a rather different way. The last thing we need is complacency.”

     

    “In my understanding, the two central functions of a trustworthy and relevant press (and news media) are (a) the credible-informational and (b) the critical-investigative-adversarial. A third is the pastime function, which is important, especially for engaging the reader in a wholesome way; but it must be constantly kept in perspective and proportion and must not, in my view, be allowed to outweigh, not to mention squash, the two central functions.”

     

    He concludes by thanking people he has interacted during his tenure and assures that after completion of the process of editorial succession, The Hindu publications will be in able and trustworthy hands and their values as strong as ever.

     

  • Among other things, the India Digital Summit finds that currently the platforms are too digital to be efficient and new addition to digital innovations does not necessarily help the existing businesses to grow.

    Digital Summit: The new wave of mobile and social – are we strong enough for it?

    By Akash Raha

     

    The Sixth India Digital Summit hosted by IAMAI and Ministry of Information & Technology got underway in Delhi on January 18, 2012. The two-day summit will host a wide array of discussions and debates along with award ceremony, commemorating those who have done well in this field.

     

    Power Panel 2: Mobile VAS: What’s New?

    The post lunch session discussed and deliberated on the topic, ‘Mobile VAS: What’s new?’ The panelists for this session were Mr Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, Chairman & MD, one97; Jay Seth, President & CEO, Air2Web India – a Velti company and Kunal Bajaj, Partner & Director, Analysys Mason India. Vishwanath aluuri, founder, Chairman & CEO, IMI Mobile was moderating the session.

     

    He panel debated how new technologies are coming in the market each day and how it brings newer mediums, newer devices and newer services. Each and every day technological innovations are pushed to new extremities and it gives the consumer a whole lot of options. But are these newer innovations helping the existing businesses to grow or are they hurting it?

     

    According to Mr Bajaj, technological innovations are constantly helping the business to grow. However, Mr Sharma was not of the same opinion. He said that currently the platforms are too digital to be efficient and new addition to digital innovations does not necessarily help the existing business to grow.  He gave the example of piracy which is constantly on the rise with the rise of technological innovations.

     

    Talking about mobile applications Mr Bajaj said that the future will be that of paid applications and more investment has to be made in the knowledge of how can people be made to pay. Mr Sharma too said that currently there are over 100 million people spending approximately Rs 30/- on mobile apps, which makes future even more heartening.  Mr Seth pointed out that the essence of it all remains in the fact that the end consumer is happy. An application is going to do what it is meant for and it should make a consumer happy,yet from a business perspective a profitable business model has to be made out of it.

     

    Power Panel 3: Social Entertainment: the merger of Content, social media and video platform.

    In the current times movie, television experience and social media all work hand in hand. Movie producers and TV shows are posting tweets and encouraging an immediate social relationship among viewers. Kicking off the discussion the moderator, Mr Neeraj Roy, Managing director & CEO, Hungama Digital pointed out how in the last 2-3 years all the newer devices that are coming in the market have internet connectivity. According to sources, he explained, by the year 2015 10 billion people will be connected to the internet, and not only through their phones and tablets but through cars, television nd other home appliances. In all of these, one thing remains constant which is a screen. At such a situation, the content provider is threatened as the system is so dynamic and yet is excited and sees the development as an opportunity. In a year and a half India will jump from 3G to 4G and sky will be the limit for content provider, seller and receiver.

     

    Vivek  Bhargava, Founder Communicate2 gave the example of Kolaveri di which became viral. It essentially shows the reach of the digital. Internet has become a mass medium and video consumption trends have become as such. The only option is that brands have to evolve now with changing times.

     

    Rahul Saighal, CMO, Aircel said “There are three important elements – content, social and video (behind which it there is broadband) and all of these are hugely disruptive force. Sale of internet TV in 2012 was 10 percent of the market share in US… the numbers in 2012 is set to rise at 50 percent. And with growth, the era of mass customization will be reached. He went on to say that the concepts of time has changed too…Time is now internet specific time (IST) rather than Indian Standard Time.

     

    George John, Director Marketing, Warner Bros India explained how WB has actually thought about the future and taken steps to provide content anytime and anyplace. 9 O clock is no longer prime time, rather, you can choose for yourself when your prime time is going to be in future. To be specific about social media, it is an interactive activity… The question is, is it possible to make it more interactive and entertaining is what will drive the industry forward.  Mr Saighal said that “The future of content is that you create content for a psychographic and allow the audience to engage and  share the content and make it successful.”

     

    Power Panel 4: eCommerce in India: Today and Tomorrow

    Online buying habits have recently picked up in India and is growing at a very fast pace. It has taken us from the high street markets to the iStreet markets and has changed the way retail industry and buying in India. A power panel deliberated on this issue and on what is the way forward for the ecommerce business in India.

     

    While Harish Bahl, Founder & Group CEO, The Smile Group moderated the session other panel members who participated in the discussions were Muralikrishnan B, Country Manager – India & Philippines, eBay; Sundeep Malhotra, CEO, Homeshop18; Binny Bansal, Co-founder  & COO, Flipkart and Vinay Gupta,Founder & CEO, Via.com.

     

    Mr Bansal maded the initial comment and said that one should forget about profitability to start of with as it is all about market share and the consumer. Mr Bahl further added that the ecommerce business has just started in India and we have to start our business thinking about the end customer. Their needs are very simple; we deliver to them what they ask for. Mr Malhotra said that currently we are not strong enough to reach a consolidation and right now we need to engage and build on customers.

     

    When asked how to build a lifetime of customers, Mr Malhotra said that “For a lifetime of customers one has to spend a lifetime in a business.” What is important in the current scheme of things is the frequency and not the basket size of the buy. We are too new in the business to even think about profitability and yet, one have to maintain a fine balance in our business to sustain it. Mr Muralikrishnan said that the fundamentals are imp to be built on. One has to build on consumers and engage with them but not through push marketing, but not spam marketing. There is a need for more research and understanding on the customers buying habits which would eventually help the ecommerce business to sustain, be profitable and serve the customers better.

     

    The panel members were of the unanimous opinion that ecommerce is a potential big industry in the times to come, and yet, comparison with western markets is unfair as it is still relatively new. The ecommerce industry is going to be the next big thing, considering the rising real estate prices too. The idea, as one of the panelist said, is to make “Malls within shops.”

     

  • 'Preparing for 300 Million Internet Users', the India Digital Summit tackled some relevant questions about the new wave of media and the way it is used, which is not just approaching but upon us.

    Digital Summit: Is Digital a monster for brands?

    By Shruti Pushkarna

     

    The 6th India Digital Summit 2012, organized by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) opened to a packed hall in the capital on Wednesday. This year the theme being, ‘Preparing for 300 Million Internet Users’, the conference was launched with the objective of looking at two critical aspects, first, the need to develop the infrastructure for increasing the user base; the second, to plan businesses in a way to be able to deal with the 300 million user market.

     

    A series of exciting sessions kept the Delhi audience busy on Day 1 of the IAMAI Digital Summit, which was later followed by the 2nd India Digital Awards ceremony at the India Habitat Centre.

     

    Digital Media: The Big Picture

    The session moderator, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Google India, divided the discussion into the following areas, a discussion on where digital media stands today, the need to explore digital medium as a branding medium, mobile, videos & social media and vernacular on the web. What followed was an enriching exchange of views between all panelists on each of the areas stemming from the overall topic, digital media.

     

    The panelists included, Ms Mariam Mathew, COO, Manorama Online, Mr Upen Rai, Director, Times Internet, Mr Natesh Mani, President- Commercial & Consumer Business, Sify, and Dippak Khurama, Founder & CEO, Vserv Digital.

     

    Mr Anandan started with an interesting observation that although “online advertising has crossed 1500 cr but it’s still only 5 percent of the entire advertising pie.” Sharing a similar view, Mr Upen Rai, Director, Times Internet also agreed that the story so far in terms of how digital has surfaced in all these years upto 2011 is although a good story but not as exciting as it should have been. He attributed over -excitement in the industry over building this medium, the hype around the words ‘interactive’ and ‘RoI’, as the main reasons for digital not taking off in a manner it should have. He said, “In the excitement of building this medium, we’ve actually built a monster- a monster for brands.”

     

    While all panelists agreed with Google’s Managing Director, Mr Rajan Anandan when he noted that digital has well been established as a performance medium, they all agreed with how important it is at this stage to explore how can the medium be established as a brand building medium. Ms Mariam Mathew of Manorama Online said, “…the answer to whether you can use internet for brand building is a definite yes, but the consumer group will have to be treated as a totally different TG who needs to be engaged in a peculiar way. ”

     

    Talking about mobile, Dippak Khurana of Vserv Digital said that the pace at which the mobile space has grown in India is five times more than the pace at which the internet space grew in India. The numbers are promising but again the flipside remains the fact that how many people, how many agencies within the industry have a mobile head? There are not enough people talking about it, not enough people who are convincing the rest of them of the benefits of mobile advertising. Adding on to Mr Khurana’s view, Mr Upen Rai of Times Internet said, “…still the brands don’t know what to expect and what to do with mobile. A step forward needs to be taken where one needs to demonstrate the benefits of mobile.”

     

    Adding on, Mr. Natesh Mani of Sify offered solutions like transaction based ads, local search based ads etc for popularizing mobile advertising.

     

    Talking about video and social Mr Mani asserted that going forward there will hardly be any brands without social media strategies integrated within. Social media, he said, “…allows you to engage with the consumers much more as compared to an offline medium.”

     

    Ms Mathew termed social media as a “marketer’s dream” but she also noted, “unfortunately advertisers have not fully realised the worth of this medium.” Mr Rai also agreed with other panelists on how well social media works for ‘engagement’ but as for an ‘advertising destination’, no certain answers emerged from the discussion.

     

    Video again is an emerging medium, but the problem of streaming and bandwidth will have to be addressed before taking it to the next level.

     

    Next series of views were exchanged on ‘vernacular in web’ and how most internet really is ‘english internet’. Ms Mariam Mathew of Manormala Online asserted that regional audience is a far more dedicated audience and works much more in terms of engagement levels than compared to a more generic English audience. Mr Upen Rai supported her view but had to admit that the exact opposite was true in terms of commercials. He said, “…these sites (vernacular) have the highest engagement but pathetic monetization.”

     

    The session concluded with each panelist sharing their respective forecasts for the domain, and Mr Rajan Anandan of Google India concluding with a hope that ” …we’ve have an open and free internet.”

     

    Broadband for Masses

    This session was chaired by Mr Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Founder & Executive Chairman, Info Edge who invited Mr Ajit Balakrishnan, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Rediff.com to share his views on the topic. The discussion focused on how to take broadband to the masses, considering the fact that only 8 to 10 million people have unconstrained access to internet in India.

     

    Mr. Balakrishnan said, “A small westernized group of around 10 million people is creating all the dialogue and everyone else is listening. This is what worries me.” The few reasons he cited were posing as hindrances in the reach of broadband to the masses included, high pricing and the problem of perception. He also added that the broadband model needs to be treated differently from the mobile model in terms of RoI. He said, “Broadband investment is exactly the opposite of how cellular investment works- it is not as speedy and quick in terms of results.”

     

    Mr. Sanjeev Bhikchandani echoed Mr. Balakrishnan’s views on the need to build an infractructure to take broadband to the masses. But he also expressed a worry in terms of generating ample locally relevant content for these users. But Mr. Balakrishnan seemed rather unmoved by the concern, as he believed, ” the problem of content will be side-stepped in India, as the focus will shift to video.”

     

    Plenary Session: Mobile Internet

    The session had a keynote address by Mr Dilip Modi, Managing Director, Spice Global, and was chaired by Mr Dhruv Shringi, Vice Chairman- IAMAI & Cofounder, Yatra.com.

     

    Mr Dilip Modi spoke about the success story of mobile telephony and how and why has it grown the way it has over the years. The main point to note in his presentation was, as and when the tariff per minute (in mobile usage) was reduced, it led to dramatic growth in terms of usage. So what the industry needs to look at for increasing the consumer base, is to regulate the cost of access and the cost of device. He urged the businesses to, “look for innovation models to bring down the cost of device without compromising on the quality of the user experience.”

     

    Mr Dhruv Shringi made an interesting point, that there is enough critical mass in the market to start looking at, but there is a need to look at it as a separate model from the existing ones. He concluded the session by agreeing with the point made by Mr Modi, ” …for the number of users to go up, the three components have to be looked at collectively- cost of device, cost of accessibilty and the cost of services.”

     

  • The vision of the charter, uploaded on the ministry's website, is to create an enabling environment for the media and entertainment sector, with appropriate policy framework.

    I&B ministry puts up charter for media growth

    By A Correspondent

     

    The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has uploaded the Citizen/Client’s Charter on its website. The vision of the Citizen/Client’s Charter is to create an enabling environment for the media and entertainment sector, with appropriate policy framework, to help it grow at a sustainable annual growth rate of above 12 per cent and, in the process, take the benefits of the emerging technologies to disseminate information on the Government’s policies, programmes and its achievement, and facilitate value based wholesome entertainment for the people of India.

     

    The Mission of the Charter is to effectively disseminate information on the policies, programmes and achievements of Government while ensuring free flow of information to the public and safeguarding freedom of the press and media in general.

     

    The charter also aims to promote, facilitate and develop the Broadcasting Industry in India and strengthen the Public Service Broadcaster. It also hopes to promote and develop good and value based content for healthy entertainment of people of all ages and create a policy framework for achieving this.

     

    Some other key points in the charter’s agenda are

    • Universal digitalization for broadcasting by 2017.
    • Expansion of FM Radio network to all cities with a population of one lakh and above by 2014.
    • To restore, digitalize, preserve and enhance public access to the archival wealth of films, video and audio resources.
    • Digital conversion of Indian Films by 2017.
    • Human Resource Development and setting up of the Centres if Excellence for Media and Entertainment sectors.

     

    The charter outlines all the major services rendered by the Ministry to the citizens along with the procedure and the stipulated timelines. Some of the subject covered are: Issue of licence for providing DTH services to prospective licensee; issue of License to Multi System Operators; setting up of teleports by TV Channels for uplinking/ downlinking; issue of permission for uplinking/ downlinking of TV channels uplinked from India.

     

    The Charter also highlights the evaluation criteria, performance and service standards for each of the services identified.