MxMIndia

Category: COLUMNS

  • Anyone who has questions about the boat is a traitor and a Congress agent and anyone who swallows every MoD press release is an uber-patriot, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Battle of the Boat

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Indian media is now involved in the battle of the boat. Some media outlets firmly believe the press release from the Ministry of Defence stating that the Coast Guard had intercepted and/or chased a boat full of terrorists from Pakistan heading to Porbander. Said boat then blew itself up.

     

    Other media outlets have been asking questions, not least because various Indian intelligence agencies have questioned this MoD press release, which came a few days after the event. The Indian Express carried an excellent well-argued front page story by Praveen Swami, certainly the foremost journalist when it comes to Intelligence Bureau stories, poking holes in the MoD release. Some media journalists wanted to know why the Ministry of External Affairs had not sent an official complaint to Pakistan yet and it was only the Defence Ministry which had issued a press release.

     

    Some journalists found indications that the boat could have been a smuggling vessel or a fishing vessel and may not have blown itself up as a suicide mission to heaven so much as it caught fire. Anyone who has been a journalist should know that all government agencies leak and that is where information comes from. Instead, we have fallen into the stupidest us versus them rut possible.

     

    So now the division is clear. Anyone who has questions about the boat is a traitor and an agent of the Congress party and anyone who swallows every MoD press release hook line and sinker like the Gospel truth is an uber-patriot. India Uber Alles and bring on the storm troopers, brown shirts, nights of the long knives, young pioneers, Kristallnacht, what you will.

     

    Is this what we’ve come to? A democracy where journalists cannot ask questions?

     

    **

     

    Have started reading Vinod Mehta’s Editor Unplugged, his sequel to Lucknow Boy. As can be expected, the writing style is breezy, self-deprecating and enjoyable. As with Lucknow Boy, there’s a lot of pride in the journalistic achievements of Outlook magazine and even more about the many journalists he has mentored.

     

    I cannot comment further without reading further, and this is not a book review. But this is a comment on the sort of mild hysteria that the book earned from fellow and former journalists soon after it was released. Most of these comments came from people either not born or still being fed pap by their mammas, pappas and ayahs when Mehta started working in journalism, in 1974.

     

    The objections were to throwaway paragraphs in parenthesis about Tarun Tejpal, the now discredited former editor of Tehelka. Tejpal is out on bail having been charged with rape in a very public incident. I feel I have to make it clear that unlike many of those who had hissy fits on social media about what Mehta has written, I have made my own distaste and disgust for Tejpal’s actions very clear in commissioned articles for print and for websites. I have not hidden behind a veil of privacy on either Facebook or Twitter in my condemnation.

     

    In spite of that, I found little offensive in Mehta’s observations. He writes about his firsthand knowledge of Tejpal and that is his prerogative.  Mehta admires Tejpal the journalist and that is also his prerogative. He sounds a little naive in this regard I must admit especially when it comes to Tejpal’s reputation with young women but that is hardly a hanging offence. The only problem seems to be a quote which he has attributed to writer William Dalrymple which Dalrymple denies.

     

    But I remain amazed at the extent of the judgmental stupidity of some of my fellow journalists, including some I have worked with and some who have left the profession. They demonstrate on social media at least a complete ignorance about the way the system operates. It reflects, as I have said in these columns before, either bitter frustration for having left the profession and the perks it offers you or similar anger about not having a voice within their own newsrooms or the media outlet they work for. However, demonstrating their immense disingenuous sense of logic and patently bogus air of outraged innocence on social media cannot possibly help their respective causes, if what they want is fame and acknowledgment within the fraternity.

     

    Did I just say that? After all, in this climate, extreme stupidity in journalists seems to be in high demand. Carry on guys in that case. Maybe someone will listen and give you that column or that TV appearance you so seem to crave. What posterity will say is another matter…

     

  • TV programming in the last hours of 2014 was fighting to redefine mediocrity, rues Sanjeev Kotnala

    Sanjeev Kotnala: Will New Year Eve programming on TV ever be exciting?

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    If you hear audiences crib and promise they will not be watching TV next year on Dec 31, you know they are lying. They have said it many times before and will say again, but on December 31, 2015, the magic screen at homes will be alive with dead programing.

     

    It’s a new problem that audiences face, just like a woman staring at her collection of dresses. No problem if there is no choice like in the DD era. No problem with excess good quality content as in the late 1990s. Now, there are enough programmes, but none that stands out, is really good and is something people wait to watch.

     

    We know that there is an increasing trend of citizens staying home to celebrate New Year with friends and family. It is true across the country.  The so-called festivity associated with the event and the parties is more of a rarity than the practice. And in this situation, more they stay inside higher the probability of watching TV. Normally it should be an opportunity for TV Channels. Sadly, the truth is a lot different. TV programming in the last hours of 2014 was fighting to redefine mediocrity.

     

    New Year Eve programming is a complex proposition. It is not easy one to design, execute and monetise. Footage of celebration fills news channels and that is invariably fireworks and few parties in open public arenas. Old programmes are re-edited and served by entertainment channels. Sadly, not having any options the audience just bears the pain, cribs and watches. Even DTH has failed to serve a dedicated programme that could be financially viable. Really rich and mega. Something that the viewer will pay and watch seems like a far-fetched idea.

     

    This surely is the recipe for disaster. A self-fulfilling cycle of unstated unfulfilled expectations. Channels fight to get the Khans. Khans fight to get the eyeballs. No one succeeds in engaging and exciting the audience. Good old DD continues to shell out dead programming, which satisfies few audiences with bland taste. There you know what will be served.

     

    In the case of private channels, the expectation build-up is as huge as the ultimate disappointment it serves. Colors bring something called World Talent Night, Star brings an awards show, Sony, an old function for the nth time, Zee does nothing different. Mug shots of celebrity audience, the freeze frames of Khans and Priyanka Chopra in her dancing avatar hop from one screen to another. Channel differentiation becomes irrelevant for the dejected audience and a tough nut to crack for the channel owners.

     

    It seems the industry has given up on this opportunity.  We may never see a time when TV will really fight its Idiot box branding. Before we crib more, let us acknowledge that there are reasons for channels for not attempting much.

     

    Most of the country and definitely in the HSM area, New Year Eve is an opportunity of collective viewing and celebration with family members. But a huge part of audience trapped within social norms is denied the right of celebration. Women must pack up early and get confined to the internal part of houses. Where what they are waiting for is another shout for water or snacks. Their entertainment is usually seeing their men getting slowly tricked into drunken state.

     

    For an average citizen, life is full of expectation and disappointments. December 31 is no different. With temperatures dipping in the north and central India, potential audience tend to sleep early. That leaves the metro in-home-celebration junkies. By 11pm they are in high spirits. Other than the momentarily orgasmic shouts of countdown it does not really matter when the year turns over a new number. And TV programmes have anyway lost its focus by 1030pm.

     

    The marketers know this reality more than media planners, programmers and the media critic. It is impossible currently to find a true sponsor of such programmes. The planners in their teams knowing and understanding the customer psyche advise against it. The aperture of audience to receive a new message is limited. The repeated exposure to build a desired frequency is not a good idea, for the audience this is more of an irritant. So, it makes no sense for the channels or the sponsor to invest in something that only consumers want without interruptions. And a programme that is presented as a value-add to the existing set of channel sponsors is never going to get desired funding.

     

    May be we need to create a differential property. Maybe a Rs 100 ticket lotto draw on TV with midnight ‘life changing win’ by a factor of million times. May be some really slick first=time programming or even the direct TV premiere of PK-II.  An Indo-Pak 20-20 match.  Or a dream UNI-PROGRAMME across channels. The same programme across channels. If during sports this can happen cross channels, it can be possible for New Year Eve too. There does exist possibility to do to midnight on  the 31st , what Mahabharata or Ramayana did for  Sunday 10am slot. Maybe it is too much to ask and dream for. Maybe there are ideas within channels but no passion and enthusiasm to run with it.

     

    So, if on December 31, 2014, you were at home glazy eyed looking at the insipid fare being belted out on your TV sets, think again before cribbing. Maybe you need to decide, next year you will have your own plan which will not depend upon channels entertaining you.
    Sanjeev Kotnala is Head Catalyst at INTRADIA and believes that the best way forward for an Organization is to enhance the potential of  internal teams instead of depending on external resources. He is a management- marketing-media consultant and also conducts specialised workshops in the area of ‘Harvesting and LiberatingIdeas’ and Innovation.  To contact email netkot@yahoo.com or tweet at s_kotnala visit www.intradia.in  www.sanjeevkotnala.com. The views expressed here are his own.

     

  • Compared to all the previous World Cups, the upcoming 2015 World Cup offers the best marketing opportunities to everyone with a stake in the game, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: World Cup 2015: The Lull Before The Marketing Storm

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    February 14 is only 35 days. No, I’m not counting it down to Valentine’s Day. That’s also the date when the ICC Cricket World Cup kicks off in Australia and New Zealand. The following day, February 15, is when India kicks off its campaign to defend the World Cup, with a clash that has a history of being a mini World Cup in itself, versus Pakistan.

     

    If you have followed World Cup Cricket and the hype and the hoopla surrounding it over the last two decades, you would tend to agree that we are in an inexplicably inert period, like the proverbial lull before the storm. No major media campaigns have kicked off. The current Test series has been focus of most cricket conversations. Dhoni’s Test retirement and Kohli’s giant steps towards batting greatness have kept the cricketing community, experts and fans alike, in India preoccupied.

     

    From 1992 to 2011, we saw six World Cup campaigns where the pitch, be it from brands or the broadcaster, hinged around patriotism and India’s campaign to bring the Cup back home for the first time after 1983. In 2007, it all went wrong when India made an unceremonious exit in the first week itself. I distinctly remembered a Visa ad (featuring Shankar Mahadevan et al), where the colours in the tricolour were changed to neutral colors, along with a copy edit, to ensure the ad could run in the second half of the tournament to burn the committed ad inventory.

     

    2011 was a World Cup at home and it had a momentum of its own. But compared to all the previous World Cups, the upcoming 2015 World Cup offers the best marketing opportunities to everyone with a stake in the game. Finally, it’s about defending the Cup, and keeping it home, than about “bringing it back”. The creative opportunities a “Defending the Cup” campaign allows are enormous. You can pack in pride, patriotism, optimism and heroism, all at one time, and yet not come across as trying to say too much.

     

    But where are these ads? Are they still in production or post production? Hopefully so, because we’ll then get to see them sooner or later. The Tendulkar ad released by Star Sports about two weeks ago may as well be a pre-cursor. But it builds the man more than the campaign idea, which is why I hope it’s just a stop-gap and there are better things planned.

     

    Traditionally, brands like Pepsi (remember ‘Nothing Official About It’ and ‘Change The Game’?) have spearheaded advertising innovation around the World Cup. I’m almost certain they are about to unleash something remarkable soon.

     

    India’s is a top ODI team. Yet, winning the World Cup is always a tough ask. The next time we play to defend the title may be as early as 2019, but could be as late as a couple of decades after that. That’s what you call a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right?

     

    So, let the drums roll, please!

     

  • Charlie Hebdo pushed the boundaries fearlessly. Most publications will not go so far for a number of reasons writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: The uncomfortable truths the Charlie Hebdo attack makes us face

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the deaths of 10 cartoonists, editors and employees and two policemen by Islamists yelling that they were doing this for the “Prophet” is so horrendous that no words are enough.

     

    That this bloody rampage was an attack on free speech is self-evident. Charlie Hebdo was a magazine which pushed the boundaries and did it fearlessly. It took pride in being offensive and tried to be as offensive as possible to as many people as possible. Most publications will not and do not go so far for a number of reasons.

     

    The mildest is that extreme satire is not to everyone’s taste. And sometimes being offensive for the sake of being offensive seems childish or even worse, adolescent. Anyone who has watched comedians battling in the “Yo Mamma” vein will know just how difficult being completely open to satire can be.

     

    But just because satire can be difficult or painful does not mean that one must not embrace it. Everything in life is measured by degrees and so can your personal attitude to satire.  In absolute terms however, we need more satire, not less. Wherever there is pomposity, blind belief, bigotry, sanctimonious-ness, self-righteousness, grandiosity, power, hogwash, jargon… you need humour and sometimes only satire will do the trick.

     

    Yes, in India, the media has not pushed too many buttons here. “Humour” is something we push to a corner and there are too many Indian citizens with thin skins and no sense of fun. Also, our idea of our society is based on paying lip service to the idea of “respect”. The result is that we end up “appeasing” all kinds of bigotry in the name of “respect”. If we exposed all humbuggery for what it is, we might in fact understand real respect better.

     

    Having said all this, we have also accepted some limits. Racist attacks masquerading as humour are illegal and/or frowned upon. Across western Europe and the US, anti-Semitism is not permitted. In most democracies, making fun of those groups who have been historically subjugated is not acceptable. These are only some examples of where we usually do not go and where we consider we should not go.

     

    But sometimes our self-censorship can be seen as pusillanimity.  And sometimes, in the media and The Government what some would call sensitivity, good sense or self-preservation, has led to the fringe elements of all communities setting the agenda. Many groups from the police to barbers to members of various religious communities have had massive tantrums when they have felt “offended” by sometimes innocuous mentions. Perhaps now, we should laugh at them a little more. We can always exercise good sense because not all attempts at humour are successful but we might now pussyfoot around controversial humour a bit less.

     

    David Brooks in The New York Times provides a more nuanced view of the idea of the Charlie Hebdo sort of satire: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/david-brooks-i-am-not-charlie-hebdo.html?_r=0

     

    This is an argument which should not end after the attack on Charlie Hebdo is forgotten.

     

    **

     

    How far can a news channel go? Or, to put it another way, how did Times Now’sArnab Goswami accuse Congress MP Shashi Tharoor of murdering his wife Sunanda Pushkar and get away with it?

     

    I must make it clear that I do not know who killed Sunanda Pushkar and I know no more about the case than what has appeared in the media. When Goswami blusters through his introductory monologue about injury number 12 and injury number 17 I have no idea what he’s talking about if indeed he is talking about anything.

     

    When Goswami issues an open invitation Shashi Tharoor to his channel to discuss these numbered injuries and to come clean on what he knows, I realise that this is not journalism any longer. It is not trial by media. It is a news anchor trying to be Jerry Springer or any other such TV host who gets people to expose their innermost private lives for a few moments of fame and the delectation of those who live vicariously.

     

    Earlier I felt, before Barkha Dutt was exposed by the Radia tapes, that Dutt had a good chance to be India’s Oprah Winfrey. Now I feel Goswami has trumped her and can become India’s Jerry Springer. No?

     

     

  • Commentaries on journalism – often by people who have little or no experience of journalism – sometimes comment in horrified terms about "self-censorship", writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Why it’s not cowardly to differ with Charlie Hebdo

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    While most journalists have stood firm with Charlie Hebdo and condemned the slaughter at the magazine, not all have agreed with the magazine’s position or even carried the cartoons that apparently set off this terrorist act. Across the world we have seen nuanced positions where journalists have explained why their own publications will not or cannot or would not ever imitate Charlie Hebdo.

     

    It would be childish to call these positions cowardly. Rather, it reminds all of us of the restrictions we place on ourselves when we are responsible to a readership. It is easy to get sanctimonious about this but you only need to think about how pornography is not part of your daily newspaper to understand the restrictions already placed on us.

     

    Some columnists like David Brooks in the New York Times defended Charlie Hebdo and then commented that a lot of its content was suitable for college magazines – if that. Some like Teju Cole in the New Yorker have discussed the various hypocrisies in the freedom of expression for all argument. Cartoonist Joe Sacco has used cartoons to explain his difference opinion with Charlie Hebdo in the Guardian – a newspaper which has given money to Charlie Hebdo to continue.

     

    Cartoonists like Hemant Morparia have written about how he felt that Charlie Hebdo was too provocative. Morparia does not seem to mince his words or restrict his ideas but evidently even he places limitations on himself.

     

    Commentaries on journalism – often by people who have little or no experience of journalism – sometimes comment in horrified terms about “self-censorship”. And yet, it is practised all the time because sometimes it is sensible and sometimes it is a question of good taste. What sort of a publication in India today would carry articles which said that it is time we returned to treating some castes as untouchables? The Constitution of India has promised us equality and no discrimination on the basis of caste. If you are a believer in the superiority of your own caste and the inferiority of others, do you have the right to freedom of expression and is a publication forced to give space to your point of view?

     

    This may be an extreme example I know but I have made it only to point out that this is not a black and white issue. Politician Subramanian Swamy wrote an opinion piece which was deeply offensive to many since it argued that Muslims who do not acknowledge their Hindu ancestry should be denied their voting rights. DNA carried the piece after some argument within the newsroom one hears, but most mainstream journals would not have and with good reason.

     

    The right answer here is that every journalist and publication has the right to decide how far it wants to go. We are circumscribed by laws and society whether we like it or not. France has its own laws and its own ideas and even it has had to answer for its long and unsavoury history of anti-Semitism with proscriptions on freedom of speech.

     

    Europe has to deal with the difficulty of neo-Nazi movements and how far they are allowed to go. The US sees conservative religious groups makes the most outrageous and offensive comments about the LGBT communities and people whose sexual and lifestyle choices they do not agree with.

     

    We cannot pretend that everywhere in the world freedom of expression is absolute and only Muslim extremists do not understand this.

     

    But yes, as journalists, we must defend freedom of expression in absolute terms no matter how we practise it.

     

  • In our social framework, hair for a woman has a lot more meaning than just an accessory, writes Sanjeev Kotnala

    Sanjeev Kotnala: Is there a deeper consumer understanding in the new Dabur TVC?

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    It was sheer coincidence that I found this four-minute AV on the internet.  Soon I caught it in its mini version on Television Street. Not surprised that it did not make the viral cut of featuring in Facebook.  In ‘Brave and Beautiful’, Vatika took a step forward in making a statement. I am not privy to information if like Tata Tea it will be beyond marketing communication and if this is a step to join a social cause? Having worked on the brand in early 2000, I know how big a shift this is. I remembered the problem-solution scripts. I remembered most of the time spent referring to the secret VHS with reference shots of hair swirl.

     

    I was very poetically taken through a voyeuristic journey into the emotions and fears of a cancer survivor. I was told ‘some people don’t need hair to be beautiful’.  In that moment of pure emotion I more than believed them. I had a window seat into the quick process of her regaining confidence without her weapon, her hair. I admired her.

     

    The marketer in me admired the brand for its stance. The common man in me felt it could have stopped at the family recognition. Taking it to the office environment was too much of a giant leap. The reactions it took it to unreal platform. I am not alone in fearing that soon she will have all kali bindi and there, right there the flow got twisted robbing it of its beauty.

     

    Now, let us be honest. In our social framework, hair for a woman has a lot more meaning than just an accessory. We all know of such unspoken fear. In some way when women see bald women how ever confident and courageous, however supporting the surrounding be, the first reaction is of alarm. So, when a known hair brand like Dabur takes such a step, it get noticed and talked about.

     

    When the ad comes in, I have observed ladies unconsciously playing with their hair, reassuring themselves.  And that made my belief in Martin Lindstorm studies that more stronger. Leave smoking and be at peace with yourself, see a sign of smoking kills, Do not smoke and the urge violently jump’s up. So, a question raised its head, is this social cause a real fake. Have the decision-makers taken this call and this script after considering how it REALLY MAKES A WOMAN FEEL. And it worked brilliantly in this role.  Is there an understanding that rest of us are not privy to?

     

    The ‘BRAVE AD BEAUTIFUL’ in one stroke has uplifted the brand. The concept is not new. We all have seen such stop start gestures from brands. Very few brands could walk the line for long. It becomes tougher when the brand creates a polarity between the message ad the product inherent benefit. Hopefully Vatika is completely aware of this one-way street.  Consumers do not tolerates fakes. Out there in this new world, a set of prying disbelieving hawks constantly scrutinise brand deviation from this chosen stance.

     

    Or is this the case of top down directive where the mother brand is trying to find one key for its entire brand folio? A social cause walk. To portray brands and in that range the company brand a catalyst. It’s a tough role to create and tougher to maintain. Easier said then done.

     

    Like benefit of doubt to the batsman (NO DRS), I wait for the next move from VATIKA.

     

  • Even the entertainment factor is now commoditised across award shows with performances looking interchangeable like their sets, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: And the Awards are Here… Are you Bored already?

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    It’s the first quarter of a new calendar year, and the awards season has started in its full glory. Every media house worth its salt has a business stake in at least one, sometimes two or eve three, award shows. Every weekend has at least one being aired. By the end of it all, everyone would have won something. Because it’s just fine to create a category to fit in a desired winner. Or just force-fit the desired winner into an existing category anyway, like Mary Kom being a social drama at a recently aired awards show.

     

    The television audiences, of course, watch the awards shows for their entertainment value. The winners’ list is generally out in the media well before the actual telecast. In any case, with less than 5% of the TV audiences being theatre-goers, they couldn’t care less for who won the award for the Best Singer or the Best Supporting Actor, for example.

     

    Unfortunately, even the entertainment factor is now commoditised across shows. All performances, across award shows, look interchangeable, like their sets. In general, we have song-and-dance routines set to contemporary Bollywood hits, intercut with star reactions (mostly cheat footage) and anchors trying to make the audiences laugh with their film industry jokes.

     

    With such homogeneity of content, the shows with the better anchors tend to rate better. The Salman Khan-anchored Big Star Entertainment Awards may not have the equity of Filmfare or Screen Awards, but often ends up being higher-rated than them. Kapil Sharma hosting Filmfare this year should boost its viewership prospects.

     

    About a decade ago, a television channel had two reasons to air an awards show. It would get them the bucks, and it would propel their image of being a complete entertainment channel with big-ticket offerings. Today, the second reason is no longer relevant. Audiences have poor recall of even the biggest award shows, beyond their limited window of promotions and telecast. And channel association has weakened considerably over time, as media clutter increases and properties change hands between channels.

     

    Expecting India to have its own Oscars or Golden Globes is, of course, wishful thinking. IIFA was set up with the ‘Academy’ approach, but the film industry does not share a common view on awards. In fact, many stakeholders do not have a view to begin with. They are happy to be present if there is prior intimation that they are winning an award, or if they are being paid to perform on stage.

     

    But even with all these limitations, can the conceptualisers of such shows not stretch their imagination and at least conceive “entertainment” that’s not a rehash of what we have seen for almost 20 years now, about 8-10 times every year? Wishful thinking, did you say?

     

    No one wins an award for guessing that nothing’s going to change in a hurry.

     

  • There is no life without the "Should" for Indian TV journalists though sometimes they do revise the "should" to "shouldn't", writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Should TV channelwallahs use the ‘should’ so very often?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Sports journalists in English-speaking countries favour this sort of a story: “Can Roger Federer win another Grand Slam title?” or “Can Rafael Nadal walk on water?” or “Can Novak Djokovic reunite the former Yugoslavia?” I must qualify that these are the stories that print journalists specialise in, many of them commentators and experts. It must be emphasised that there is no way anyone can actually answer any of these questions, let alone the people who ask them and they know that very well. Also, they can keep asking the same question in perpetuity for their own entertainment and no one’s edification.

     

    Indian TV journalists however are obsessed with the word “should”. So everything is “Should Roger Federer win another Grand Slam title?”, “Should Rafael Nadal walk on water?” and “Should Noval Djokovic reunite the former Yugoslavia?” Or, more realistically: “Should the Indian cricket team have only batsmen and no bowlers?”, “Should MS Dhoni solve Indo-Pak relations?” and “Should Lalit Modi be made chief minister of Rajasthan?”

     

    There is no life without the “Should” for Indian TV journalists though sometimes they do revise the “should” to “shouldn’t”, thus demonstrating a subtle understanding of apostrophes and negatives, and also “Why shouldn’t”, thus being philosophical enough to think in various dimensions.

     

    However, it occurs to none of them that “should” is not about news or about debate, it is about speculation. But ah well. As you can see, “can” is used to idiotic effect by other journalists elsewhere.

     

    And here’s one of the silliest headlines you can find, based on the fine newsroom principle where a sub-editor is banned from reading an entire story and must base his headline on throwaway lines within. In context, Roger Federer had a fairly easy first round match at the Australian Open currently on in Melbourne. But not if you read this headline:

    http://www.thelocal.ch/20150119/federer-struggles-to-advance-in-aussie-open

     

    **

     

    Yes, obviously the tennis season is well underway and my mind has turned to other things. Sony Six has wrested the Australian Open, the first of the Grand Slams, away from Star Sports India. Star Sports India is not that interested in tennis, or so an insider told me, which is their prerogative. In the light of which, unfortunately for us tennis fans, they still have the rights to Wimbledon and a few other big tournaments. The other two majors – the French and US Opens – are with Ten Sports.

     

    Sony Six’s first day at Melbourne was all right – no gimmickry, no one sitting in the studio pretending they were on the grounds and no concentrating on unknown Indians while ignoring the biggies. However, they did stop the broadcast while play was still on which is always annoying…

     

    **

     

    Indian TV news now cannot look beyond the Delhi state elections. Or whatever Delhi actually is, since it is not really a state. Everyday on TV is an endless series of breathless speculation about who is going to do what to whom. Since everyone is quitting their earlier parties and joining the BJP, there is some drama on air but not that much.

     

    In other news, Barack Obama is coming to India for the Republic Day parade and while you and I might remember him in India before, for the BJP and its fans in the media, this the first time. Plus the cricket World Cup starts in February so we will have more of the “Should MS Dhoni travel to Mars” and “Should Virat Kohli smile so much at Anushka Sharma” sort of stories.

     

    Also I have it on very good authority that Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Philip Marlowe and several other detectives are soon going to return from retirement and death to assist Arnab Goswami and his band of TV crime solvers from other news channels to discover who really killed Sunanda Tharoor.

     

  • Phase III auction and real listenership data may help the industry in non-metro centres, writes Sanjeev Kotnala

    Sanjeev Kotnala: It’s now for Industry to leverage Phase-III auctions

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    The third round of auction in radio is being seen as gamechanger. I personally fail to understand this euphoria. My faith in radio as a medium is a bit shaken, I am not sure about the situation in metro markets but suspect that it may only be  slightly better.

     

    For, here is a media in the non-metros where advertising rates are hugely undervalued. The constant battle on music loyalty fee is yet to find its endnote. Cut-throat promotional deals and exclusivity with movies is not really an example of win-win situation. Listeners do not see a major differentiation among stations. Innovatively proposals from radio are asked as free value adds. The clients have no clue on which is the station he should advertise and associates with and they don’t care. They are willing to work with one that promises lower rates and has decent perception in the market. In this situation, radio brands fail the brand power test in their capability to attract premium.

     

    Many big radios brands are strategically eyeing the next round of auction. There is a definite excitement around it. Most radio stations have invested in internally training the talent that they showcase. This talent pool has been unsure about their long-term future. Auction is a breather for them; they are the experts now and may be looking for better returns…

     

    The energetic environment loaded with fun, passion and excitement has constantly been under financial pressure. Things are not the same and the experience is worsening with time. This auction may just be what the doctors prescribed for the industry…

     

    This financial pressure is primarily due to the low yield realisation for a perishable non-expandable rigid commodity: time. The stations have by now experimented and honed their cost-cutting measures and it will be foolish to expect major saving to help the bottom line.

     

    Lack of syndicated and/ or third party studies prevents the sales team in pegging their time and getting better returns. Like creative in other media, RJs and programming teams are also fronting helpless sales teams. Future for listenership data does seem bright; as that is something the industry needs in a hurry. Clients cannot be blamed for not trusting figures from internal researches. In many ways there is a kind of cat-and-mouse game in radio.

     

    There is huge ambiguity and disconnect about who is really listening. The few interactions I have had with consumers in Tier-II/ III markets have shaken my faith in radio as a medium. In Ahmedabad, Agra, Dehradun, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Indore Raipur, I have interacted with 15-20 consumers each mostly from SEC B/C. These been highly informal conversations.

     

    My probes got me stares which had ‘Which era are you living in’ written all over it. I want radio teams to tell me how wrong am I in believing what I heard.

    :: When I have TV to watch, why would I listen to radio?

    :: Yes, I do listen some times but only when I am in the kitchen

    :: Play music on my MP3 or mobile.

    :: When I want to listen, I use my phone and my music collection

    :: I do listen while driving but not regularly

    :: It does not matter which station – they all play the same song

    :: While travelling I link my smartphone to car system, use pen derives or auxiliary cords

     

    It is a small subset but collectively they start making sense. Music download (old and new) is the easiest thing to do and almost everyone has his or her own set of song compilations. They may not been on Internet but have songs on their mobile external storage. The cheapest headphones give you decent noise-free sound. The listener listens to song he likes when he wants.

     

    So, where, why and who is listening to radio in the Tier-II and III markets? The radio industry needs to help clear  these doubts.

     

    I tried countering these arguments with the RJ conversations, SMS and  Whatsapp messages that the stations receives; don’t they demonstrate the level of interaction, involvement and engagement with the medium? I was told to smell the salt. There exist a limited tribe of dedicated listeners, they will call and engage with RJ, answer questions, and use radio as a real stress buster. But is that really consumer your campaigns are searching for …

     

    I wish I know what is the profile and size of this real listener tribe.  Yes, the devices that can logically grab the signal and play the music for you has multiplied. My question remains if that really translated into a larger listener base? Till someone answers this question with research, my faith in the medium remains shaken.,,

     

    Sanjeev Kotnala is Head Catalyst at Intradia and believes the best way forward for an organisation is to enhance the potential of  internal teams instead of depending on external resources. He is a management- marketing-media consultant and also conducts specialised workshops in the area of ‘Harvesting and Liberating Ideas’ and Innovation.  To contact email netkot@yahoo.com or tweet at s_kotnala visit www.intradia.in  www.sanjeevkotnala.com. The views expressed here are his own.

     

  • The tussle for supremacy between Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party and his former ally Kiran Bedi, now with the Bharatiya Janata Party has dominated airtime and cybertime in India., writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: News Entertainment UnLtd

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The tussle for supremacy between Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party and his former ally Kiran Bedi, now with the Bharatiya Janata Party has dominated airtime and cybertime in India. Kejriwal has asked for a debate before the Delhi polls, campaigning for which is now on,  and Bedi has refused. And both have added to the drama by their own actions. Bedi by deleting all her tweets criticising the BJP and Modi and Kejriwal by saving them and retweeting them. Plus there are all those tweets by Bedi about the need to debate during an election campaign. These are those rare occasions where journalists don’t have to do much work – the entertainment is laid out for them.

     

    Bedi provided extra grist to the mill by walking off on national television in the middle of a cross-interrogation by Arnab Goswami of Times Now. Although Bedi did indicate that she was in a hurry and had to leave soon, she chose to get up and take off her mike just as Goswami asked a question about her former mentor Anna Hazare. She did not answer the question. Anyone familiar with Indian TV knows what a gross error that can be. Goswami does not take these slights lightly. Technology being what it is, the gif was all over social media almost immediately.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKD0aE78d8s

     

    The funniest part of the interview however was when Bedi accused Goswami of “cherry-picking” and the conversation turned into one of those tongue-twisting rhymes for children, with cherry-picking being used every third word.

     

    The next day, Goswami had yet another debate on who ran away and why they ran and so on which turned into an expected slugfest between the AAP and the BJP. This was an Indian TV speciality: a debate about whether there should be a debate.

     

    In an aside, Sunil Alagh, once head of Britannia and now a BJP PR person of some sort, should have walked away from the show after being chastised by Goswami. However, as many evil journalists know, some people are so desperate for publicity that they are willing to put up with just about anything including being spoken down to on television.

     

    The battle for Delhi however does have big competition in the media. The mess in Indian cricket, the witch hunt for former BCCI chief N Srinivasan’s head and the Supreme Court’s pronouncements are putting up a strong competition here for media time. At least when it comes to cricket, there are number of serious issues at stake from match-fixing to the control of cricket to conflict of interest and the future of the Indian Premier League.

     

    But there’s a third party here as well: The renewed investigation into the death of Sunanda Tharoor also threatens to oust Kejriwal and Bedi. And if BJP spokesperson Subramaniam Swamy has his way, this investigation would never go off the air. So we have to listen to friends of Sashi Tharoor, friends of Sunanda Tharoor, various lawyers who say little other than the law and Swamy who says just what he wants. People discuss medicine and drugs and diseases without being doctors and pharmacologists and everyone who has read the FIR and post-mortem reports is now both a coroner and a forensic expert.

     

    **

     

    And then there’s the biggest problem of all for diehard publicity hounds: the visit of US president Barack Obama on Republic Day.

     

    Hmm. Tough call.

     

     

     

  • Also: for many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Any journo going to ask who paid for PM’s name-engraved pinstripes?

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The death of RK Laxman was not unexpected but is no less a loss for all that. India’s best known cartoonist without a doubt, his subtle, sharp wit and his use of an “ordinary person” as a hapless observer to world events made him stand apart from the others, no matter how talented.

     

    For many of us now well into in middle age, RK Laxman was the last word because he was us: bemused, amazed, amused and horrified at what was happening around. For me, my favourite cartoon remains one he did after Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi was released. A well-fed minister-type walks out of the cinema, turns to the man next to him and says, “Very moving. A true story I believe.”

     

    And there, in a few words was everything wrong with what politicians have done with our legacy.

     

    **

     

    If there was one thing that was not on display during TV coverage of US president Barack Obama’s visit to India and the Republic Day parade, it was subtlety. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has two main cheerleaders in the upper echelons of TV, I use the word “journalism” here for want of a better alternative: Barkha Dutt of NDTV and Rahul Kanwal of Headlines Today. It is hard to tell who’s the bigger fan of the two because the competition is fierce. Dutt felt that people watched the parade because of Modi, thus demeaning the rest of us who have watched the parade for ourselves for decades regardless of who the PM is or was. Kanwal was overwhelmed by Modi’s fashion choices.

     

    However, am unsure whether either commented on what had emerged about Modi’s fashion choices: his suit for the parade had his name woven into the supposed pinstripes and is said to have been from Holland and Taylor, England and cost 10,000 pounds. Is anyone going to ask who paid?

     

    If anyone does, it will be “evil liberal Congi sickular paid newstrader presstitutes” since too many Indian journalists have ditched objectivity for hero worship. Or will those selfie-taking Delhi political journalists actually do their jobs?

     

    As it happens, the world’s media was on to the name in gold weave story and we are something of a cause for giggles around the world. Not a good day for a “patriotic” Indian.

     

    Meanwhile, as for the parade, you heard it here first: There has never ever been a Republic Day parade in India until Narendra Modi became Prime Minister last year. Whatever you thought you witnessed before was in your imagination or your delusions.

     

    **

     

    One tragedy: the fact that India is so young that almost no one remembers the joy of listening to Melville de Mellow’s mellifluous tones taking us through the parade.

     

    **

     

    A cause for amusement: the hysteria in Indian media over Barack Obama’s visit. It’s true we do it every time. But it’s no less amusing, our patent inferiority complex. What they did, what they ate, where they went, body language, gestures, clothes and all the rest of it. No chance of the media of other nations behaving like that when our dignitaries visit so maybe we should petition the World Association of Newspapers and other such organisations asking for similar coverage? Actually, we provide that ourselves too, as we saw with Modi’s overseas visits.

     

    The US media I believe is preoccupied with a storm.

     

    Enough said.

     

  • This is a real "break" and exclusive, not the "today the sun is shining" sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: The Hindu breaks a great story with Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The Hindu of January 30 has broken a fine story about former minister and long-time Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi, talking about the way she was humiliated by the party and forced to resign in 2013. This is a real “break” and exclusive, not the “today the sun is shining” sort of breaking news story that TV has made infamous. The text of the letter is here: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/full-text-of-jayanthi-natarajans-letter-to-sonia-gandhi/article6835522.ece

     

    The Hindu also has a cover story about Natarajan’s situation and her reliance on Congress son and heir Rahul Gandhi’s advice. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/i-honoured-rahuls-requests-jayanthi-natarajan/article6835930.ece

     

    Times Now has run away with the story and as usual, worked hard to confuse viewers. It is hard to tell from watching TV news alone whether Rahul Gandhi wanted Natarajan to clear projects for industrialists or to stall projects to save the environment. And from the morning, the channel has run BJP spokespersons rubbing their hands with glee. The Congress was missing in the morning at least which makes one wonder if Times Now has any “sources” (TV wallahs are so proud of flaunting them) in the Congress at all. Any viewer knows the channel has many direct lines to the BJP.

     

    Further, the point which Times Now has chosen to focus on is Rahul Gandhi’s involvement in the running of the government and what Manmohan Singh was doing. This seems an odd angle when there are so many more obvious ones in front of them. But the ways of Times Now are mysterious to all!

     

    The other news channels though continue to be obsessed with the Delhi state elections and the two most likely chief ministerial candidates, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. India being a massive country with over a billion in population it is only natural that a few million who live in the national capital are of any importance.

     

    As a plug, I post my view of the Delhi elections which appeared to the website DailyO: http://www.dailyo.in/opinion/kejriwal-vs-bedi-why-i-dont-care-who-the-next-delhi-cm-is-delhi-elections/story/1/1730.html

     

    **

     

    Narendra Modi’s 10,000 pound suit and Barack Obama’s visit to India continued to dominate media space not least because of general incomprehension about what this visit achieved especially when it came to the nuclear deal. India’s best commentators and experts (no, I am not talking about TV) have laboured to explain this to us.

     

    Social media and websites have had a blast about the Obama visit. Here are a variety:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/pm-of-swag

    http://scroll.in/article/702854/Six-hilarious-ways-Modi-tried-to-match-Obamas-cool-quotient-but-failed-miserably

    And, http://www.dailyo.in/laugh/five-things-indians-would-not-have-noticed-about-modi-before-obamas-visit/story/1/1707.html

     

    **

     

    The Government of India put out an ad on Republic Day which carried the Preamble to the Constitution before the 1976 amendment which included the word “secular” and “socialist”. This has caused several uproars on social media especially between journalists who are proud of being partisan. Commentators have also weighed in, some pointing out that the Indira Gandhi government rushed through the amendment. Others have demanded the government come clean about whether it wants to remove or retain the words and still others have said that the change needs to come from Parliament and not from a government ad. Phew.

     

    Meanwhile Venkaiah Naidu has confirmed that this government is committed to being “secular”. A storm in a teacup or some exploratory steps to check how the nation reacts? We can have another fight about this on social media soon.

     

    **

     

    January 30 is also Martyr’s Day, the day Nathuram Godse killed a frail old man in cold blood. Indian Express traces some of Godse’s steps on his way to murdering Mahatma Gandhi:

    http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/retracing-godses-journey-in-gwalior-house-son-lives-with-a-locked-secret/