MxMIndia

Category: SHAILESH KAPOOR

  • Cricket is literally the only marquee media category India has today, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    The Myth called ‘Too Much Cricket’

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorThose of my vintage often lament that ‘These days, there’s too much cricket happening all the time’. Factually, this is indeed true. The Indian national team played about 75 days of international cricket in 2022. Add the IPL to it, and they were on field for almost 100 days in the year. And this was a year whose early part was impacted by the pandemic.

     

    The average number of Test matches played by India was seven per year in the 90s. It went up to 10 per year in the decade 2000-2009, and has since then averaged at 13 per year, excluding the pandemic-impacted months. Not all Test matches last the full distance, or the number of playing days would be even higher. But a typical Indian cricketer is on tour for almost 150 days in a year, not counting the training camps that precede these tours or home series.

     

    From a viewer perspective, there is all of this, plus key non-India matches, like those in a World Cup, to watch. Women’s cricket is on the rise too, and WPL is round the corner. It means potentially about 150 days of relevant cricket being telecast live every year. And this does not include non-India bilateral series, like the Ashes.

     

    I don’t know another sport that has so much going on round the year. Yet, there is no sign of cricket fatigue. Viewership numbers have not dropped in recent years, and a new generation of young Indians seem to have taken to T20 cricket, especially IPL, quite well. With no other sport on the ascendancy, cricket is set to dominate the Indian media landscape for another decade at least.

     

    It’s no secret, though, that cricket is not the most profitable investment for linear television or streaming broadcasters. The licensing rates keep going up every year, and yet, the strategic power the sport wields in India is significant enough to keep the broadcasters and the streamers interested.

     

    We have been a single-sport country for long. But cricket has gone on to take an even more prestigious position: It is literally the only marquee media category India has today. No national GEC show (fiction or reality) or movie airing can match the impact of good cricket series, or a key event like a tournament knockout game. Everything else is getting increasingly fragmented, even as viewership continues to consolidate around cricket. Even election coverage is losing steam in recent years, except a short block of 4-6 hours on result days.

     

    Interestingly, there is very little ancillary programming around cricket that has managed to cut through. Live cricket continues to grow in its appeal, but packaged content is largely limited to free platforms like YouTube. The communal impact of live cricket, which is at the heart of its popularity in India, is difficult to replicate in cricket game shows, chat shows or analysis. Broadcasters have tried this for years, but unsuccessfully. These properties now exist only because some sponsors are willing to pay to be on them, coming as they do at lesser price points than the live game.

     

    With large-scale technology-led changes and changes in audience behaviour, all else in the Indian media landscape will evolve over the coming decade. But the sport of cricket will stand tall, invincible.

     

  • The success of the Amazon Prime Video show marks the end of a lean period that started in mid-2022, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Farzi: The Real Thing

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorIt’s not a major talking point yet, but the OTT Hindi fiction space may just have entered its second innings. Farzi, Amazon Prime Video’s recent launch, has amassed huge viewership numbers, and is almost certain to become the most-watched SVOD show in India across platforms by the end of next week, based on Ormax Media’s viewership estimates for OTT originals in India.

     

    The success of Farzi marks the end of a lean period that started in mid-2022. The first half of that year saw a good mix of launches: Panchayat S2 proved to be a worthy successor to the delightful first season; Rudra received mixed audience response, but went on to get huge viewership, thanks to Disney+Hotstar’s sizeable subscription base and Ajay Devgn’s star value; Rocket Boys received immense appreciation, and was Sony LIV’s tentpole property for the year; Gehraiyaan delivered some solid numbers in the first week despite mixed to negative audience feedback; starting off as a low-profile film, A Thursday went on to become the most-watched direct-to-OTT film of the year; Human, The Great Indian Murder, Gullak S3 and Mai were fairly successful as well, especially for shows of their scale.

     

    But then started a drought of sorts. The second half of 2022 just didn’t have enough firepower. Criminal Justice: Adhura Sach managed to build good viewership, perhaps aided by a staggered episode drop, but scored below the show’s previous (second) season on audience likeability. The same can be said for Delhi Crime S2, which lacked the relevance of the first season that focused on the landmark Nirbhaya case. Films like Monica, O My Darling and Darlings good positive reception, but the viewership levels were only moderate.

     

    The lull continued till the launch of Farzi on Feb 9 this year. The show recorded a peak ‘Buzz’ of 45% on Ormax Stream Track, the highest since The Family Man S2 in June 2021, incidentally another show by Raj-DK, the creators of Farzi.

     

    There were more than 150 SVOD originals that launched in Hindi in 2022. But clutter generally comes with its share of issues. In a year where the conversation moved back to theatrical content, the absence of truly marquee shows on streaming made one wonder if the honeymoon period that the streamers enjoyed, especially during the two pandemic year, is over.

     

    Farzi can be called the start of a new phase in the Indian OTT originals market. The category is more mature and stable now, and one hopes that, like theatrical, it finds its equivalent of an “event film”. Six-eight “event shows” in a year will keep the category running strong. Farzi is 2023’s first, and one hopes the next one is round the corner.

     

  • As Shailesh Kapoor now chases the 500 mark, he recalls some of his favourite columns

    400 Not Out: Feels like Brian Lara

     

     

    From the Editor: When we invited Shailesh Kapoor to write for MxMIndia in 2012, a year after we started, we didn’t know how important a position his column would have in Indian broadcast. Our reason for inviting Shailesh to write was simple: the super-large broadcast sector depends on content as its primary fuel, and there is need to track trends and comment on what’s working. And what’s not. And Shailesh, thanks to the splendid work Ormax Media was doing (then and now) was in the best position to write for us.

     

    Even as we say it ourselves, what makes MxM stand out from amongst the rest is our commentary on content. That we know is fraught with a lot of dangers, especially when it comes to revenues. But our allegiance is not to our advertiser or shareholders, but to you, dear reader. Meanwhile, join me in congratulating Shailesh Kapoor.

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorFrom August 9, 2012, when I first wrote the first column for this website, it’s been more than 11 years. This is my 400th column here, no less. Don’t blame me for feeling like Brian Lara today!

     

    It offers me just the perfect excuse to share some of my favourite columns from the past. I rarely read my columns after mailing them out. But there are some that one remembers for many years, for either the satisfaction of writing, or for the feedback that came one’s way. Be warned: some of the older ones may have wobbly special characters.

     

    I have written more than a few times about TV ratings, but the absurdity of 5am ratings at that time prompted me to write this piece back in 2013.

     

    A column from May 2013, titled Five Tips for Young TV Executives, is a personal favorite, because it got shared widely in many media companies at that time, and continues to somehow stay relevant, with occasional messages from people who read it almost a decade after it was published!

     

    News has been my go-to topic in weeks when I have struggled to decide what to write on. The column titled Are we a Noise-loving Nation? looks at news (as also television) in a larger socio-cultural context. Just the headline itself seems ever-so-relevant in 2023.

     

    There have been a few columns on Kapil Sharma, as the 11 years of this column was also the period of him going through the beats of fame and success. Sharma keeps going at it now, like an old warhorse. His film Zwigato releases next week. Of all the Kapil Sharma columns, I enjoyed writing these two the most: Kapil Sharma and the Loss of Innocence in 2016, and Kapil Sharma: Definitely Not Done Yet in 2022.

     

    The 2017 column titled Panic Times for Hindi GECs? has a special place in my list. It’s one of the several (50+, I’d say) columns on the state of general entertainment television in India. But this one, in particular, got great traction, and led to extended conversations with several channels. I have rarely looked at writing here as a way of furthering Ormax Media’s business interests, but if I had to pick one column that managed that, it is this one.

     

    Sports, particularly cricket, has been a regular feature on this column. I have been a keen supporter of women’s cricket, and have written a few times on it, including this column titled Stars in the Making. To watch Women’s IPL become a real thing in 2023 is immensely satisfying.

     

    TRAI’s meddling with private television’s affairs, via the New Tariff Order (among other things), and the damage it has done, will be a dark chapter in Indian television’s history. The saga continues even as I write this 400th edition. This column from last year, titled Genre by Genre… Tumbling of the Telly, paints a grim picture of what the future of television may look like, in the current circumstances.

     

    The column started covering theatrical and streaming content a lot more frequently in the last 3-4 years. These recent columns on Pathaan and Farzi were fun to write.

     

    400 done, it’s time to chase the 500-mark now!

     

  • There is little doubt in my mind that IPL's streaming viewership will outnumber that on linear television this year, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Not at all Quiet on the OTT Front

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorOver the last three years, it became abundantly clear that streaming (or OTT, as it’s called in India) is the medium of the future in this country, even as other media will continue to co-exist. Linear television always had the numbers. But thanks to a mix of factors, ranging from the pandemic, to ever-reducing data costs, to a nosey TRAI, linear television has barely managed to stay afloat. Pressure on revenues has been felt across the board, and that’s never a good sign.

     

    Streaming itself is trying to find its sweet spot. Is it a premium paid (SVOD) medium, as all the promotions of well-mounted web-series suggest? Or is it a medium for the ‘masses’, where free (AVOD) content is going to dictate the future? The jury has been out. And the last few weeks have seen their share of action on this front.

     

    Perhaps the biggest shift in the dynamic has been around the IPL. The 16th edition of the league, which starts March 31, will stream free on JioCinema. That’s a polar opposite to how it was thus far: IPL was a subscription (and hence, revenue) driver for Disney+ Hotstar, not just in India but at a global level too.

     

    Then, there’s the talk of the largest AVOD player in India outside of YouTube, i.e., MX Player, being up for sale. The content side is going through its continuous evolution. For example, price points for acquiring streaming licences to theatrical releases have not stabilised yet.

     

    All these are healthy signs, one would think. A growing category is bound to see new ideas, new strategies, and new alignments. And some of these may shape the future of the category. For example, there is little doubt in my mind that IPL’s streaming viewership will outnumber that on linear television this year.

     

    How did linear television find itself in this situation is a matter of another debate. But it should not have, because it’s still the staple, go-to medium for millions of Indian families every night. But the only way you can fight technology is by building a precise and relevant narrative. The linear TV industry has failed to do that for itself.

     

    Amidst all the positive action, the talk of censorship of streaming content has started again. This week, the I&B minister advocated censoring “vulgarity”. The genesis of this not-so-veiled threat lies in a Delhi High Court judgment will handling a complaint on TVF’s show College Romance. The state and the judiciary playing moral police can be a major irritant in a category that’s otherwise amid a period of high activity and growth.

     

    All eyes, hence, are on India’s streaming story, in its second phase, where the category seeks stabilization and re-alignments. And the upcoming IPL will set the ball rolling on that front.

     

  • IPL is literally the only ‘pan India’ property in the home entertainment space, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Bang for the Buck

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorIt’s that time of the year again… the IPL time. The 16th edition starts tonight, and like every year, is set to become the marquee media event for its seven-week length. The big change this year is that the digital stream is available free. Unlike Disney+ Hotstar in recent years, JioCinema has decided to take the ad-supported route for IPL broadcast on OTT. This decision can have a significant impact on the future of sports broadcast in India, in both linear and non-linear forms.

     

    This year’s IPL was preceded by the inaugural season of Women’s Premier League (WPL), which was won by Mumbai Indians last Sunday. WPL is a significantly leap for women’s cricket in India, especially because of the kind of money that is on offer via contracts and prizes. While the Mumbai Indians team owner Nita Ambani spoke about how this will help sportswomen in India across sports (Mumbai Indians carried front page ads the next morning with the same message), the impact outside cricket seems tenuous as of now.

     

    There was a time when the success of an IPL edition depended on the cricketing action itself. Low-scoring games struggled to match up to the bigger games on ratings, for example. In the recent editions though, each franchise, and hence each clash, brings with it a certain minimum guaranteed viewership, because of the inherent fan base. This is especially true for games involving Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders, who have amassed a solid fan base over time. Gujarat Titans, winners in their first outing last year, are a strong candidate to join this list.

     

    But it is very likely that linear TV viewership may see a drop this year, because of the SVOD to AVOD shift on OTT. What makes this ‘competition’ between TV and OTT interesting is that it is real competition this time, because there are major media companies involved (unlike Disney controlling both aspects till last year). In the absence of any public numbers on OTT, this can trigger off a major war of claims and counterclaims.

     

    The advertiser interest in IPL has peaked over the years, simply because other marquee properties, like big reality shows, have not been able to consolidate ratings over time. There’s nothing else big-ticket enough on Indian television to offer IPL any competition to it. And IPL is literally the only ‘pan India’ property in the home entertainment space.

     

    Let the drums roll, then!

     

  • With the exception of South India, movies are mass, but movie-going is not, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Cinema: Mass Entertainment or Luxury Item?

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorJust 22 million (or 2.2 crore). That’s the number of urban adults who watched three of more Hindi films in a theatre in 2022. Add kids and rural audience to it, and the number will still struggle to cross the 3 crore mark.

     

    This single data point, from our new report Ormax Cine Sense: 2023, brings a lot in perspective to how mass (or not) ‘Bollywood’ is. The equivalent of the 2.2 crore number was about 3.5 crore in the pre-pandemic years. It hovered around that mark pretty much through the period from 2013 to 2019, for which this data is available with us.

     

    In effect, we are talking about only about 2% of India’s population going to movie theatres to watch a Hindi film at least once in 3-4 months. The equivalent numbers for the four South languages will be known soon, and the all-India number may look closer to 6-7 cr, which is still less than 5% of India’s population. Movie-going is clearly not as mass as many believe it is.

     

    Over the last decade or so, the growth in box-office business has been fueled more by rising ticket prices than by footfalls. In effect, cinema-going habit has become more and more elusive. With a wide range of alternatives to watch movie content being available, including OTT and linear TV channels, there is very little incentive for an average Indian to visit a movie theatre. And once the habit is broken, it is a tough ask to reinstate it.

     

    It’s not as if films themselves are niche as a content type. Theatrical films routinely outperform high-profile OTT originals on streaming platforms. Despite being a huge theatrical success, Pathaan has managed viewership numbers like Amazon Prime Video’s biggest hit series in recent times, Farzi. And this is despite theatrical and paid streaming categories showing a sizeable audience overlap, to the extent of about 75%.

     

    Till a few years ago, there was a lot of talk about India being an “under-screened” market. But when most of India’s existing 9,000 odd screens are operating at less than 15% occupancy for at least 40 weeks in a year, opening new screens is not a prudent move.

     

    Outdoor entertainment, by its very nature, if a luxury item in the budget planning of most Indian families. A single trip to a theatre for a family of four can cost them most than annual subscription of three OTT apps. That’s why, the youth (15-30 years), driven by social needs, have been the dominant target group for Hindi film consumption since the multiplex era started about two decades ago. But even with India’s young population, the numbers are not sizeable.

     

    In what may almost seem like a contrarian view, I don’t see much of an issue here. If the Hindi film industry can come to terms with its premium positioning, they can go all out and target only the 2-3 crore people who really matter, and let others consume the content at their homes. This will lead to sharpening of focus at various levels. For example, you do not actually need traditional media to target these audience, almost all of whom are active on digital platforms. Or the entire debate about ticket prices will become irrelevant, once you identify a target audience who is willing to pay a premium for their outdoor entertainment.

     

    But that’s not to say that the content needs to be ‘elitist’ too. SS Rajamouli, Rohit Shetty, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Rajkumar Hirani are the top four favourite directors for these 2 cr people. Escapism is still a dominant need that drives their decision to buy a movie ticket in the first place.

     

    With the exception of South India (which is the topic of another article for another day), movies are mass, but movie-going is not. It’s about time the industry gets comfortable with this idea.

     

  • It seems we are in for even more action and excitement in the OTT space than what one originally anticipated, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Paywall Pangs: The OTT Conundrum

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorHalfway through this year’s IPL, it is evident that the season has been a resounding success. The pandemic led to restrictions related to venues and in-stadia audience capacities, all of which are now a thing of the past. Games in the home-away format is at the heart of any sporting league, and that’s on show this year, for the first time since 2019. Though it’s another matter that Chennai Super Kings fans make even the away stadia look like home venues.

     

    But the biggest change in this year’s IPL is that it can be streamed for free. By choosing to not put IPL behind the paywall, Jio, via its platform JioCinema, has set the cat among the pigeons, so to speak. If one of the most-sought-after content properties in India doesn’t need a paid subscription, then who do platforms with mediocre web-series demand that their audience pay? That’s something many OTT audiences are beginning to think about.

     

    The numbers on JioCinema, as also on Star Sports, look very encouraging. It will be no surprise if peak concurrent viewership on JioCinema crosses the 3.5 Crore mark on the day of the final.

     

    Since the arrival of OTT platforms in India, about six years ago, a large share of media attention has been on the ‘premium’ SVOD business. But the advertiser sentiment has progressively moved from linear television to digital, and a big-ticket property like the IPL being accessible to the wider OTT audience base is a fascinating proposition for marketing managers and media planners.

     

    Of course, JioCinema has plans to launch a paid offering too, for premium entertainment content, including that from HBO. And doing so is their recognition of the potential of a hybrid model, wherein advertiser-funded and subscription-funded content will co-exist.

     

    But the success of IPL on AVOD should be food for thought for Indian OTT platforms who run products that are technologically inferior to the global leaders in this space, but expect audiences to shell out subscription fee for routine content. With YouTube being omnipresent, it’s not going to get any easier for audiences to pay for content, unless both the content and the app experience is truly compelling. And consistently so over a period of time.

     

    Just last month, I wrote in this column that there is unlikely to be a dull moment in the Indian OTT space for a while. But it seems we are in for even more action and excitement that what one originally anticipated.

     

  • The predictable politics of our news channels have made election results coverage predictable too, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Polls Apart: Election Results & a Partisan News Media

    Picture taken from https://telugu.oneindia.com/

     

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Shailesh KapoorIt’s the day of election results tomorrow. The prestigious and hyped-up Karnataka elections were held earlier this week, and Saturday is the appointed day for counting the votes. Election result days have always been fascinating, even when the results are a foregone conclusion, simply because there’s a format to the coverage that’s inherently real-time and suspenseful.

     

    Of late, there’s an additional reason why I find news coverage of election results, especially in the electronic media, fascinating. And that is because, unlike all other news coverage, election results do not give the channels and the anchors much room to peddle their political agendas. Numbers don’t lie after all, and if the political party they bat for through the year is losing, anchors on news channels cannot spin a yarn of rhetoric like any other primetime show.

     

    It’s like a ‘Gotcha’ moment for those who can see through the evident politics of our news channels. It’s that rare day when they must keep a straight face, and be careful of those Freudian slips, like “Why did we lose?”

     

    Exit polls suggest that Congress holds the edge in Karnataka. If that turns out to be the case tomorrow, you can be assured that most of our news channels will delink these results with the 2024 General Elections. Using the Prime Minister’s mugshot as the party face being BJP is winning, but going with the local leader as the fall guy when BJP is losing, is now a well-known tactic.

     

    The parallel narrative will be ready too, if the results come in closer than what the exit polls suggest, whereby the Congress doesn’t get a clear majority. In this narrative, the Prime Minister will take centerstage, and 2024 will be discussed more than Karnataka itself.

     

    Election results are one area where social media feeds or internet articles cannot match the excitement that television can offer. But the predictable politics of our news channels have made election results coverage predictable too. How the TV industry has managed to make the few interesting TV formats they should have held on to less compelling with time is a mystery. Election results are high on that list, as are some reality shows, whose formats have been mutilated beyond recognition over the last few years.

     

    Meanwhile, an exciting and ever-so-close season of IPL is entering its business end. With just one week of league games to go, at least eight teams are in contention for a playoffs spot.

     

    It’s a weekend of two big contests, and for once, the sporting one looks like the one that will make for better TV.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is Founder and CEO, Ormax Media. He writes on MxMIndia every Friday. His views here are personal. To access the archive of his columns, please visit: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/tv-trail-media/

  • Lame & Lazy: News Media’s Poonam Pandey Coverage

    Lame & Lazy: News Media’s Poonam Pandey Coverage

    Shailesh KapoorLast Friday saw the bizarre publicity stunt, whereby Poonam Pandey, along with a media portal (Hauterrfly) and a digital agency (Schbang) staged the news of her death, with cervical cancer being the stated cause. The stunt ended the next day, when Pandey posted a video message on social media.

    Rather than creating any significant awareness for cervical cancer, the incident has served as a comment on the state of our news media today. Every single news platform carried the news of her ‘death’, made tribute videos (often like showreels of her  pictures from her social media handle), spoke to ‘fans’, and generally behaved very concerned about the whole thing. These videos and articles, still available on social media, are a testimony to the sorry state of affairs in our news business.

    Even if one grants the benefit of the doubt to news platforms, that the incident was so bizarre that one wouldn’t expect any ‘foul play’ in it, that benefit of doubt would last an hour or two at best. Principles of sound journalism would suggest follow-up coverage that’s more investigative in nature. Here, a celebrity death was being reported for an entire day, but with no trace of the body or the place of death.

    Social media users came up with conspiracy theories that should have been no rocket science for a seasoned investigative journalist, such as Pandey posting very normal pictures on her Instagram just a couple of days earlier. Digital news platforms could have (somewhat) valid budget constraints. But for our leading news channels to report on the story from the desk, taking a text-based Instagram post, from a celebrity known for courting controversy, on face value, is a sign of how low the standards have fallen.

    If one were to think of staging a stunt like this, they will simply be deterred by the audacity of the idea. After all, you would expect it to be called out within a few hours, if not minutes. That a celebrity and two companies had the confidence of being able to pull this off is itself a telling statement. It’s like a live social experiment, in which our journalists were the social groups being tested.

    Disappointing it may be, but not surprising. If editors who get paid handsome salaries sit in the studios night after night and do armchair politics, staging debates with foregone conclusion, laziness is bound to seep into the culture of popular journalism, especially on the television side. Chasing a story seems to be now the job of the minions, and a desk job can be seen as a promotion!

    In any case, the art of interviewing has been long forgotten, and only a few veteran journalists from the 90s (or earlier) are keeping it alive. Political reporting has lacked nuance, and reporting on the economy has lacked domain literacy. And now, celebrity reporting, which one would imagine to be the easiest of them all, also seems sub-standard.

    The Poonam Pandey story would be forgotten soon. But the lazy media that reported it is here to stay. And we have little choice but to suffer.

  • Television in 2024: A Story of Two Half-Years

    Television in 2024: A Story of Two Half-Years

    Shailesh KapoorIt’s that time of the year, when the General Elections are round the corner. While the dates are not out yet, we may be less than 75 days away from the first round of polling. Even if the outcome seems somewhat like a foregone conclusion, the next three-four months will be full of political and media frenzy.

    One of the direct impacts will be felt on the IPL. The dates have not been announced yet, pending the announcement of election dates. In the past, IPL has moved to outside India during the election years. But it is unlikely to be the case this year, and that could complicate the international cricketing calendar more than just a wee bit.

    It’s a golden period for news channels, who are having a windfall year, which started with the mega Ram Mandir event, before the elections programming takes over. June will feature theT20 World Cup in US and West Indies, a summer bonanza for news media, despite the odd match timings.

    Going by how things have been, there isn’t much new one can expect from our news channels in the coverage of these elections. Innovation in Indian elections coverage came to a standstill about a decade-and-a-half ago, and since then, news channels have focused on speed rather than engagement as the primary target, creating a sense of sameness across platforms, as they battle each other to be first to report new information. Legacy brands like Aaj Tak will continue to hold the advantage, when the content across platforms is differentiated per se.

    Neutrality is, of course, a thing of the past, and not even on the table right now. And a potentially one-sided contest allows news channels to legitimise their bias, as the “voice of the nation”, even if the idea is in direct conflict with core tenets of good journalism.

    It will be more exciting to see how digital news brands manage to cover elections. They do not have the luxury of big budgets that the TV channels have, but seem to have more intent to drive innovation and engagement, which can lead to a few compelling shows.

    Television seems to have become a medium where events, whose existence is outside the television ecosystem (politics, sports, etc.) are driving the buzz, even as content native to the medium (GECs, movies, etc.) remain inert and unexciting.

    The first half of 2024 will do well for television. But it’s from July that the real challenge will begin, of being able to sustain interest in the medium, and the revenue it earns, when the big-ticket events are all over. I’m afraid that we may soon be entering the trickiest phase of Indian television in July this year. More on it when we get there.

  • WPL: The Big Opportunity for Women’s Sports

    WPL: The Big Opportunity for Women’s Sports

    Shailesh KapoorThe second edition of WPL, or Women’s Premier League, starts tonight. It took BCCI a bit longer than expected (perhaps the pandemic delayed their plans) to launch the ‘IPL of women’s cricket’, but they finally did so last year. BCCI is by far the richest cricketing body globally, and is in pole position to drive growth of women’s cricket, in India and worldwide.

    Of course, WPL is a welcome step, and one hopes the second edition continues to expand interest in the sport, especially among young women audiences. After all, the idea of gender inclusivity has been an elusive one in Indian sport, over many years now. It’s ironical, because some of India’s best individual achievement in sports over the last four decades have come from sportswomen, starting with PT Usha in the 1980s, followed by the likes of Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, the Phogat sisters, Sakshi Malik, etc. In the Tokyo Olympics (2021), three of India’s seven medals came from sportswomen: Mirabai Chanu (Weightlifting), Lovlina Borgohain (Boxing) and PV Sindhu (Badminton).

    Yet, in a cricket-dominated sport, female sportspersons have operated on the fringes. It doesn’t help that football and kabaddi, the next two most popular sports in India, are male-dominated too. In our monthly popularity track Ormax Sports Stars, we ask audiences to name their favourite sportsperson, irrespective of their sport or nationality. On an average, only 4% audiences name a sportswoman as their favourite. Even among female audiences, this percentage is in single digits every month, without exception. While it’s understood that sport is male-dominated worldwide, 96:4 is an embarrassing ratio.

    Even as more and more Indian sportswomen are managing to break new barriers globally, they are fighting decades of gender bias, stereotyping, and conditioning embedded in our socio-cultural fabric.

    Sports is an expensive category, and sustainable sport at the top level has to be advertiser-funded. Sportswomen continue to struggle to get endorsement deals, even from brands that otherwise champion projects focusing on gender equality and women empowerment. Till the audiences (including women) begin to watch more women’s sport, it’s going to be an uphill task. The medals may come, but the deals won’t.

    Hence, WPL has a lot riding on it. It can become that one property that creates demand for women’s sports in India. It may take some time, perhaps 3-5 years. But the opportunity does exist.

    With great power comes great responsibility, Spider-Man famously said. That saying perfectly captures BCCI’s role regarding the growth of women’s sports in India.

  • A Tale of Two Mergers, and the Future that Beckons

    A Tale of Two Mergers, and the Future that Beckons

    Shailesh KapoorIt was in December 2021 that we first heard an official announcement of the Sony-Zee merger. It took a little more than two years for that merger to be finally called off, unless we have another surprise in the offing. Since last year, there has been buzz about the Reliance-Disney deal. Earlier this week, there has been a formal announcement, leading to the creation of an Indian media behemoth, if there ever was one.

    Whenever someone has asked me this week what I think of the merger, my first response is that I’m glad it’s finally done. For more than two years, the news on these mergers have dominated attention, and now, we can move on. To more interesting things like content, marketing, technology, monetisation, the works.

    It’s largely speculative to predict how a merger of the nature of the Reliance-Disney one will impact the future of the industry. From the consumer side, there is unlikely to be any impact in the short term. Audiences eventually respond to content, marketing, and pricing, and it’s not currently clear how any of that is likely to be impacted. The first impact is felt at the level of the teams, as restructuring exercises are a natural outcome. Implementation of product and brand strategies can take their time, sometimes years.

    The Indian television industry is in the middle of a tough period. From single-digit percentage growth scenarios, it is now looking at potential degrowth in the coming year or two, however notional, in both revenues and subscribers. Of course, all the talk of young people not watching TV at all is highly exaggerated, and comes from a place of privilege. But there is no escaping the fact that linear television is no longer the first-choice destination of a section of audiences in India.

    But it’s not as if streaming is thriving. We are well past the pandemic-induced honeymoon period, and the reality that the Indian consumer is not willing to shell out the bucks for paid subscriptions is now upon us.

    The leadership team at Reliance-Disney has its task cut out, as do other major players in the category, including Sony and Zee. The next two-three years are going to see potential trend creation, across domains, ranging from streaming to linear TV to theatrical to news to sports. New rules will be written, and technology could play a decisive role. How exactly though? No one knows for sure. Technology giants Google and Meta are going to be very much at the centre of it all, enabling and influencing content and monetization decisions more than ever before.

    Successfully or not, the mergers are done with. The real excitement starts now.