MxMIndia

Category: MEDIA

  • … no, not the PM, but the comment in a Washington Post article by its India correspondent amidst rumours that he apologized which he denied. But there's no reason for him to do that, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Much ado about the ‘tragic figure’….

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    What ridiculously thin skins we have, whether it’s the TV media constantly looking for slights against India or the government which reacts when it should just keep mum and keeps mum when it needs to react.

     

    An article in the Washington Post by Simon Denyer calls Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a “tragic figure”: “But the image of the scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat has slowly given way to a completely different one: a dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government.” (see: link)

     

    Denyer quotes Ramachandra Guha, Sanjaya Baru and Jagdish Bhagwati among other people, who have their own interpretations on why Singh has not been king in UPA 2.
    There’s nothing in the article that the Indian media has not been saying – in fact, Singh has received some very acerbic criticism especially in the last few months. But instead of taking it in our stride, we have to tear ourselves and our self-respect to shreds over this, like we did with Time magazine’s ‘Underachiever’ cover.

     

    One wonders whether news channels have staff on the job, scouring the international press for anything with possible anti-India content which can be turned into a sensational story. Because they never do it with the Indian media: call various opinion writers and columnists to their studios for daring to criticise the prime minister. Why, they might be able to dedicate a daily show to this. (Vinod Sharma versus Kanchan Gupta every night on TV, wow, what drama!)

     

    All day on Twitter there were rumours that the Prime Minister’s Office had asked Denyer to apologise, then that Denyer had apologised, then Denyer tweeted that he had not apologised and on and on it went. Why should Denyer apologise?

     

    On CNN-IBN, with Rajdeep Sardesai, Manish Tiwari of the Congress party tied himself up in knots over trying to balance a token nod to freedom of speech with why the Congress and government were upset. Denyer stuck to his stand.

     

    Does anyone remember the kind of press George W Bush received during his presidency? How many jokes were made about him being dumb, corrupt, controlled by his father, having used his brother to falsely win the first time, the folly of the war in Iraq…?

     

    The job of a journalist includes being critical. Even if the general public doesn’t like it, one expects that other journalists would know that. That should include TV.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator living in Mumbai. She is Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

     

  • After sympathising with the media at his rally, the MNS leader's love for the media didn't last long. Now, it's directed against the Hindi news channels who he finds irresponsible

    Ranjona Banerji: On how Raj Thackeray finds Hindi news channels ‘irresponsible’

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    And once more, into the limelight, Shri Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena: having basked in a bit of public attention after his rally last month, why not milk it?

     

    After all, a police commissioner was shunted out soon after he made just that demand and some members of the media actually said that his speech at the rally was not that bad. Plus, he even pretended to sympathise with the media, since they suffered at the hands of protesters at the Raza Academy rally, which Thackeray’s rally was protesting against.

     

    Of course, this love for the media was not going to last long. And now, here it comes: the famous Thackeray rage directed at the media. In this instance, it’s just the Hindi media. (The English media is exempt from rage this time but not from contempt: it apparently operates from a different planet.)

     

    Thackeray has objected to the fact that many criminals in Mumbai are from Bihar (huh? Vijay Palande, anyone?). And then these criminals infiltrate (either to or from, I didn’t quite understand this) Nepal and Bangladesh. And the Bihar police must control its own criminals and stop them coming to Mumbai (which has criminals of its own).

     

    Then he got angry with Hindi news channels for reporting what he said. He said their reporting was irresponsible (irresponsibility is something that Raj Thackeray understands very well). Having himself started a Mumbai-versus-Bihar debate, Thackeray is angry with the Hindi media for taking it further.

     

    He is also angry with the Bihar police for objecting to the Mumbai police, which did not follow some procedures when it arrested people from Bihar. This is the same Mumbai police that Thackeray had slammed at his own rally but how dare Bihar criticise anything or anyone from Mumbai?

     

    Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is hopping mad and has called Thackeray insane.

     

    Thackeray meanwhile is not just protecting Mumbai from the evil Hindi media and Biharis, but also from singer Asha Bhosale and Pakistani singers. The borders of Maharashtra are to be kept safe from all such elements. Bhosale has refused to listen to Raj Thackeray even though she loves him very much. The Hindi media never listens to any criticism or they would have stopped news broadcasts about ghosts and alien landings long ago (although perhaps when they talk about alien landings, they mean the English media). Nitish Kumar is furious. And Thackeray is overjoyed that he’s back in the news again.

     

    Incidentally, in Tamil Nadu, chief minister J Jayalalitha is saving India from young Sri Lankan football players.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

     

  • The confusion over the CAG report remains and neither TV nor print has managed to adequately explain the various issues, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Confusion over CAG continues

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    The continuing political crisis in India dominated TV headlines on Monday. The prime minister was forced to break his silence on the CAG report on coal allocations and the BJP continued to obstruct Parliament. TV news showed us both sides but the BJP’s recalcitrance appears to have affected its supporters. New channels seemed to feel that the prime minister’s statement has emboldened the Congress which has upped the ante.

     

    However, the confusion over the CAG report remains and neither TV nor print has managed to adequately explain the various issues. The best that I have read (or rather the most that I have understood) has been Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar’s column in TOI Sunday before last where he said the best way forward would be to scrap discretionary quotas. Other than that, between corruption, CAG, coal as a natural resource, bidding, auctions, allocations, the Centre, the states, industry, cheap power – there is almost too much going on for the average person to make sense of.

     

    Instead, what the BJP has now given us is a political war and that most commentators find much easier to understand.

     

    **

     

    Arnab Goswami, Sidharth Bhatia and Arati Jerath (the last two are friends of mine) had a tough time keeping a straight face on Monday night on the Newshour on Times Now as three members of India Against Corruption tried to explain the varying positions of Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. Mayank Gandhi sounded the most reasonable, Shazia Ilmi was her usual verbose self and Abhinandan Sekri was like a petulant child. For all their sophistry, it was clear to all that they had no answers for Bedi’s position of refusing to support Kejriwal if he attacked both the Congress and the BJP. Nor could they explain why, until Sunday, the movement had consistently only attacked the Congress and not the BJP. Ilmi tried to claim that they had only to be stopped in her tracks by Goswami – and no TV anchor has been kinder or given more air time to the IAC movement than him. Bhatia was also quick to point out to Ilmi that IAC could not take credit for Santosh Hegde’s actions as Lokayukta of Karnataka and claim that as an example of how IAC took on the BJP.

     

    **

     

    Twitter, normally the bastion of the ‘Internet Hindu” and legions of BJP supporters, saw a stealth attack by Congress supporters who went all out with their ‘#RIPBJP” slogan. There came a time when this was even trending on twitter! I am surprised that Lindsay Pereira, editor of Mid-Day Online, did not pick this up in his Tuesday column on the internet since he is normally on the ball.

     

    **

     

    The media’s latest darling is Unmukt Chand, the captain of India’s winning Under-19 team. He seems to be a sensible young man so one can only hope that he has the strength to withstand this media onslaught with equanimity.

     

    **

     

    Just to comfort ourselves that the media elsewhere gets it very wrong sometimes as well, this is how NBC news reported astronaut Neil Armstrong’s death: http://gawker.com/5937870/nbc-news-reports-on-death-of-astronaut-neil-young

     

     

  • Governance and Opposition now happen from TV studios. The roundish building housing Parliament seems to have outlived its usefulness, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: When governance and opposition happen out of TV studios

    By  Ranjona Banerji

     

    Many years ago, the founding fathers of India worked very hard and gave us a Constitution. Because of that, we got a Parliament. You might recognise it from the outside — it’s a roundish building in New Delhi. But you might recognise it better from the inside: Large rooms with circular seating, an imposing looking desk along one wall and lots of people screaming and shouting and rushing to the centre of the room.

     

    You may be forgiven for thinking that these rooms (there are two significant ones) are contemporary versions of the Roman arena, where gladiators killed each other or got eaten by lions and so on. You may even think that given the Indian philosophical idea of non-violence of ahimsa, our founding fathers had created a non-violent arena where people could scream and shout without hitting or of course killing each other.

     

    In fact, no one really knows why this building and these two very specific looking rooms were made. As far as we can see, people shout and the person at the imposing looking desk says “Sit down, sit down”, albeit in Hindi. Sometimes the shouters listen and sometimes they don’t.

     

    Almost no one can understand what is going on. But it’s quite good entertainment. There are smaller versions of this thing in all the Indian states. Here the principle of non-violence does not apply. Not only do people throw things – microphones, chairs, tables – in these state versions of the roundish building but they also beat each other up. If they took off their clothes and exercised a lot, it would be like pro-wrestling (okay, ew!).

     

    Besides, almost everyone knows that every night some of these same people gather in television studios and speak and of course, sometimes shout. All the things that they don’t say in the roundish building, they say in television studios.

     

    The funny thing is that politicians – that is who these shouting people are – work very hard to get into that roundish building. They prepare themselves (no, not exercise, money and support collection) and then they fight elections. The elections give them the privilege of getting to Parliament and in some cases, apparently to govern the nation and in other cases to be the Opposition. At least that’s what that Constitution which no one has read in many years, says.

     

    However it is clear to everyone that the world has changed. Governance and Opposition now happen from TV studios. The roundish building has outlived its usefulness. Would it make a nice multiplex, do you think? Or in keeping with its past, a pro-wrestling arena?

     

  • The CBI ought to have known that Times Now (and Arnab Goswami) before leaving Suresh Kalmadi’s name out, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Watch out wrong-doers! Times Now is watching

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    All hail Times Now which has single-handedly managed to get Suresh Kalmadi’s name included in the latest CBI chargesheet as part of the investigation into the Commonwealth Games. The CBI had earlier left Kalmadi’s name out, only to find that the wrath of the nation-saver fell upon it. How it had the courage to leave Kalmadi’s name out in the first place beats me. It should have known that Times Now was watching. In fact, let this be a lesson to all wrong-doers across India: Times Now is watching.The rest of the media must now follow suit.

     

    Yet I distinguished some slight self-mocking in Arnab Goswami on Thursday night as in the middle of a debate on free speech versus hate speech he said with a wry smile that he had been accused of chairing kangaroo courts. I can see that he will fight them on the beaches and never surrender.

     

    Suhel Seth – for all that he can be annoying and is on my list of TV guests I don’t want to see again – was quite funny too. As Goswami and guests kept talking about the “Laxman rekha” between hate speech and free speech, at the end of the show, Seth asked Goswami if he had joined the BJP. Goswami was non-plussed. Seth answered words to the effect of “you keep saying Laxman rekha. Why don’t you say Moses’s foot?” Rahul Ishwar of the Sabarimala Trust looked really upset at this but luckily the programme was over before we could break into a huge fight.

     

    As far as free speech is concerned, by the end of the show, everyone agreed free speech is good, hate speech is bad and something needs to be done. I am not sure myself about using the term ‘Laxman rekha’ in this situation because one could see the line drawn by Laxman to protect Sita as circumscribing women and she breached it anyway.

     

    **

     

    We seem to be absolutely unclear about how to tackle hate speech in this country. While we have defamation, slander and libel laws, we are quite lax about them in general and we have not worked out how to transfer them to cyberspace. Clamping down arbitrarily on freedom of speech and expression is our normal way of dealing with content which spreads hatred.

     

    Therefore, the blocking of the twitter handles of journalists Kanchan Gupta, formerly of Pioneer and Shiv Aroor of Headlines Today received widespread condemnation, as did the blocking of the website of Pakistani journalist Faraaz Ahmed. The irony is that it is Ahmed who had researched, investigated and concluded that the images of Muslims being attacked, tortured in the video clips doing the rounds were doctored. Blocking him therefore made no sense.

     

    I do not know Aroor but have had some twitter conversation with Gupta and we are both columnists for Mid-Day. He is undoubtedly right-wing but that is hardly against the law. Nor can being right-wing per se be construed as being given to hate speech. If there are specific instances that Gupta and Aroor put up content that sparked communal violence they can be booked for that. But by just blocking them, the government has been both high-handed and arbitrary and has to be condemned.

     

    **

     

    The apparent squabble between Indian cricket captain MS Dhoni and former India batsmen VVS Laxman over a phone call, a retirement and a party seems to have divided the Indian cricket media between the two. However, it seems unlikely that this will become as big an intra-media battle as the Bhupathi-Paes tiff. Still, it’s quite amusing to watch it play out. My gut is that even though Laxman has been called a  gentlemen” and whatnot, Dhoni will win this one. He has more support and Laxman has retired

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own.

     

  • Yes, panic can spread through a mass communication system but stopping the system will not stop the panic. Humans have been victims of mass panic as long as they've been human and will use whatever means possible

    Ranjona Banerji: Shooting the messenger

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    As usual, it was shoot-the-messenger time during a crisis. And this time, instead of the perennially wicked journalist, it was social media which was deemed the villain. Of course, the social media can be villainous or it can be sweet (if sickeningly sweet then it is a villain in my eyes anyway) or it can be bland, informative, helpful and so on. What I’m trying to suggest is that it can be as good or bad as the people who use it.

     

    Anyway, given all the horrors of people being killed and people running away in terror and inflammatory pictures and messages being spread around, it was decided that the medium of the information was responsible. As a result of all this human bad behaviour, Twitter and Facebook have been looked at askance, websites have been blocked and no one is allowed to send more than five text messages a day.

     

    This is not the first time this short-sighted method will be applied and it won’t be the last. Yes, panic can spread through a mass communication system but stopping the system will not stop the panic. Humans have been victims of mass panic as long as they’ve been human and will use whatever means possible. The same methods can be used to spread peace, love and good will as well (okay, that’s a stretch but technically it is possible).

     

    Anyway, the government of India went on its blame-the-messenger spree, TV anchors thundered for action against the culprits (stretched on the rack Torquemada style or stuck in the stocks so that village people can throw potatoes at them) and the rest of India put up with it. A few people tried to point out that in recent memory, rumours of a murderous monkey man caused panic in Ghaziabad in the pre-Twitter era and before that, the Ganesha-drinking-milk story sent people into a massive frenzy. No mobile phones and no internet in those days.

     

    But facts must never stand in the way of truth, as a Twitterer said to a journalist who dared to point out that figures in Assam do not match stories of recent mass migration of Muslims.

     

    And so it is on Twitter. And on the receiving end of the rage of the social media’s users was Sagarika Ghose of CNN IBN. She suggested in her tweets that the government needs to look at hate-spreaders on Twitter and Facebook as well. This may have been an emotional response but it was ill-thought-out and made her the brunt of enormous outrage. As is usual with the internet, the attacks were vicious, rude, cruel and far beyond the norms of accepted civilised behaviour. It is a fact that the anonymity of the internet prompts people to behave in ways they would not in normal social settings. At the same time, you also see how easily all our veneers of civilisation can be stripped away. Ghose’s tweets may be contestable but the attacks on her were unwarranted.

     

    Nature of the beast. The problem, though, is not the media. It’s the humans who use it. Now what to do?

     

  • The reason for this little history lesson: Because most Indian news channels apparently think that Indian Independence has something to do with military might

    Ranjona Banerji: A lesson on India’s Independence

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Independence Day, one is pained to point out to India’s media, celebrates India’s independence from British colonial rule. As many people in the world are aware, though evidently not the Indian media, India achieved this independence through non-violent means. This method of fighting for human and civil rights, by appealing to the moral conscience within all of us, inspired other oppressed peoples the world over. Most famously, Martin Luther King Junior who fought for civil rights for Black Americans in the 1960s and later Nelson Mandela who fought against apartheid in South Africa were inspired by India’s unique battle for Independence.

     

    The man who steered this course of action to success was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

     

    The reason for this little history lesson: Because most Indian news channels apparently think that Indian Independence has something to do with military might. The focus was on Indian soldiers fighting for India’s boundaries. In fact, there is no connection at all between the military and Indian Independence. And much as we have decided that Gandhi has got too much publicity already and perhaps we cannot tell the difference between MK Gandhi and Indira Gandhi (and have developed an anathema to the surname), the fact is that the struggle for Independence cannot be disentangled from the Mahatma.

     

    Also even if we love Hindi cinema and we are all excited by rightwing propaganda which tries to move the discussion away from Gandhi, the RSS had almost no role to play in the events of 1947 and neither did Bhagat Singh. There is always room for critical discussion on those times – and for disagreement – but no Indian new channel is interested in the intellectual rigour required for a meaningful conversation on how India got its independence.

     

    In 1947, just as a matter of interest, the army was under British rule. It was not involved in our freedom struggle. Running to the National Defence Academy to eat with the cadets – I refer to CNN-IBN – is sadly inappropriate on a day which celebrates non-violence.

     

    If the media wants to glorify the armed forces (and it is impossible of course to expect a dispassionate analysis of India’s military from its news channels which are always stuck in rah-rah nationalism) then it should wait till January 26. That is when we have a military parade, remember?

     

    As an aside, the media might now end this struggle to search for freedom fighters. The mathematics and mortality rates are both against it. India became independent 65 years ago. You may honour the youth who were inspired by the freedom struggle but all the meaningful players are long gone.

     

    That’s it. Class dismissed.

     

    The writer co-authored and co-edited a book on 50 years of Indian Independence with Ayaz Memon in 1997, called India 50: The Making of a Nation.

     

  • Get someone junior to do the leg work because you're so busy being a celebrity, obviously you don't have the time to do it yourself

    Plagiarism… a common affliction with senior journalists

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    “I apologise unreservedly,” said Fareed Zakaria’s most recent tweet on August 10. And here’s the statement attached:

    “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column on gun control, which was also a topic of conversation on this blog, bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 23rd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time and CNN, and to my readers and viewers everywhere.”

     

    This is how Zakaria describes himself on twitter: “Editor at TIME Magazine. Host of CNN’s GPS: Sunday @ 10am and 1pm ET in the U.S. Blogger at CNN.com/GPS.

    New York, NY”.

     

    Now he stands suspended from all his jobs, for at least one month pending investigation.

     

    The odd thing is, Zakaria need not have picked up those bits from Lepore’s article and passed them off as his own. He could have given her due credit, which would have been the right and honourable thing to do. He could have read as much as he could on the subject and drawn his own conclusions. He could have used facts from a variety of sources and made an argument based on that. But why pass off a few paragraphs from someone else’s work as your own?

     

    Sadly, this is a common affliction with senior journalists. Get someone junior to do the leg work because you’re so busy being a celebrity, obviously you don’t have the time to do it yourself. That obviously means that you don’t have the time to check either. Throw your opinion together, safe in the feeling that your name will carry you through.

     

    Or, it could be that you did the Google search yourself…

     

    Either way, there are no excuses which is why Zakaria hasn’t made any.

     

    Throw your mind back to almost two years ago when huge chunks of Aroon Purie’s publisher’s note in India Today was picked up from a column in Slate magazine. Purie apologised, but obviously, since he owned the magazine, nothing more could be done. Also, it turned out that he didn’t realise that the “research” sent to him by his employees (senior journalists though they may have been) was not written by them but by someone else.

     

    The funny thing is that these are rookie lapses, which come from arrogance, laziness and carelessness. This is not the work of a scientist trying to get published in some respected journal or a PhD student trying to finish a thesis – not that cheating is justified – who thinks they have just one chance to make it. What are the stakes involved for a columnist who writes regularly? Your whole reputation is built on those daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly words you come up with. Imagine throwing it away in this sloppy manner?

     

    Unfortunately for Zakaria, this puts all his work under the scanner. Trust is so ephemeral.

     

    The odd thing is, one suspects this kind of plagiarism is possibly far more common than this. Stupidity is after all universal. Common sense is not.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator based in Mumbai. She is Contributing Editor, MxMIndia. The views expressed here are her own. Twitter: @ranjona

     

  • It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, to use Suhel Seth's favourite word here, dolts, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Is it okay to blame TV for Suhel Seth’s insulting comments on Viren Rasquinha?

    By Ranjona Banerji

    The outrage on Twitter the past couple of days was over the comments of adman and TV personality Suhel Seth at the Times Literary Carnival over the weekend. Those without media-sponsored short-term memory problems might recall that an invitation to editor and rape accused Tarun Tejpal just a few weeks ago caused huge anger on the social media circuit. The invitation was withdrawn in a huff by the festival’s curator, veteran editor and columnist Bachi Karkaria.

    Sunday’s sessions at the festival included one on the future of sport, which included as a panellist former Indian hockey captain Viren Rasquinha. Suhel Seth was part of the next session and in his introductory speech he said (about Rasquinha), “Don’t know what that bald guy is doing on a panel on sports. What’s he done?”

    This caused immediate mayhem with Rasquinha furious and tournament director Karkaria had to go up on stage and apologise. I spoke to veteran journalist and India’s best known cricket writer Ayaz Memon who moderated the session with Rasquinha. He said, “Seth’s comments were nasty, unacceptable and symptomatic of the complete ignorance about sport in India.”

    So just what has Rasquinha to do with sports? He is not just a former India hockey captain, he is also an Olympian and an Arjuna Award winner. He is chief operating officer of Olympic Gold Quest, India’s best agency for sporting (and spotting) talent, which has had much success with the sportspersons it has nurtured at successive Olympic Games and other world events.

    Seth on the other hand worked in advertising, owned an advertising agency and is also known for general schmoozing and networking in Delhi’s social and political circles. He has done bit roles in a few films here and there. Not in the same league as Rasquinha (no Olympic status, please to note) but his connections, his fluent and smart-alecky language, have made him a regular on TV news debates. Clearly, he was trying to be too-clever-by-half and it backfired.

    Rasquinha tweeted his anger. Seth finally apologised. But only after he was attacked on twitter, which Seth also referred to.

    The carnival (how else to refer to it?) itself is not to blame here. They could not possibly have known that Seth would insult a guest on another panel. Seth stands along here, wallowing in his cleverness. He is known for a particular kind of behaviour. His ignorance about Rasquinha is excusable. No one can be expected to know everything. But the reason – if indeed it is fair to use the word reason in such a context – for such comment is unfathomable. Rudeness is a more appropriate word than clever. Or perhaps this was an attempt at humour.

    Some people feel that any publicity is good publicity and that the carnival gained from the Tejpal notoriety and will only benefit from this as well. All that may well be true. But it is no less distasteful for all that.

    Once again it is Twitter which has flexed its muscles and made its presence felt. The power of social media can be over-estimated and blown out of proportion especially when you consider the number of people who are not on it. But nor can its power be denied. It is very tempting here to blame television for making heroes out of, dare I use Seth’s favourite word here, dolts.

  • The Do Thumbthing campaign's focus is to make the Flipkart mobile app the medium of choice when it comes to shopping online

    Do Thumbthing, urges flipkart in latest campaign

    By A Correspondent

     

    For those planning to shop online, they can do so by just using their thumb. That’s the key message in Flipkart’s latest campaign.  ‘Do Thumbthing’ campaign gives a creative twist to Flipkart’s mobile app, focusing on the shoppers thumb as the central character.

     

    The humorous campaign conveys the ease of mobile shopping and how a delightful experience is literally at the tip of one’s thumb. It brings alive the fact that shopping is more fun when it can be done from anywhere and at any time a shopper wants – from your home, at the gym, at a party.

     

    Today well over 70 per cent of traffic to Flipkart comes via the mobile app and majority of these shoppers-most of who are first time customers-are from tier II & III cities.  With increase in internet penetration, adoption of smartphones and lower data costs, smaller cities are more active online than ever which shows that m-commerce is poised to grow tremendously in the next 6 -12 months.

     

    Commenting on the launch of this campaign Mausam Bhatt, Senior Director – Mobile Marketing, Flipkart, said “With the Do Thumbthing campaign our focus is to make the Flipkart mobile app the medium of choice when it comes to shopping online. The various elements of this campaign-videos, games, contests, special app offers- will help us generate buzz about the Flipkart Mobile App amongst the younger audience. We are confident that this digital campaign with its fresh approach will establish an instant connect with the new generation of customers, and encourage them to experience online shopping the mobile way.”

     

  • As BARC gets set for release of its data, TAM says it will not stop releasing its ratings. Meanwhile, industry worries about an encore of the IRS mess

    Ghost of IRS mess may force BARC & TAM to co-exist

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    The ghost of the Indian Readership Survey released last year is seeing its impact on the new television audience measurement regime of the Broadcast Audience Research Council. IRS is still in a state of disarray even though stakeholder associations have okayed it.

     

    Although we are told that the next round of numbers is to be out soon, the industry is still waiting.

     

    MxMIndia spoke to a variety of folks in broadcast and in media agencies.  While none of them were ready to go on record on the sensitive issue, they are worried about the outcome of the BARC study. And the reason:  the proposed BARC study is dramatically different from what TAM does. So it’s not that the same sample is being studied, also the BARC’s panel is twice that of TAM. “The goalpost has moved. It’s as if the game was being played on clay and now on astro-turf.”

     

    A senior media planner told MxM that one must remember it’s a statistical exercise and not a census. When asked as to how does one explain the shockingly low readership figures for some publications like BusinessLine or Hitavada in IRS 2013, the planner told us: “It’s a sample survey. The sample was selected scientifically. It’s a matter of chance that those selected didn’t read these two publications. So you can’t fault IRS for this.”

     

    Hmmm. The third-party revalidation process conducted by veteran researcher Praveen Tripathi and adopted by the IRS determined that the process followed by IRS was okay.  “The problem with audience research is never the process. It’s the fieldwork,” said a senior executive of a research firm which has had some experience in audience measurement.  “Media companies are known to influence these in order to get favourable numbers. This is more easily done with print readership and tougher with television. When you are dealing with human beings and human intervention, you can never say. The problem is compounded because the trade associations refuse to act against erring media entities.”

     

    So where is the anxiety on BARC?

     

    The big channels needn’t worry. One hears that the BARC validation process will ensure that if there’s anything astray from the existing, it will be looked into. However, with the number of people sampled having leapfrogged, there is bound to be some change from what TAM dishes out every week presently. The unease amongst broadcasters is whether the change will be as significant as it was in the IRS results? “Yes, be ready for a few surprises. Logically, there should be no validation, because if the process is right and the industry is mature, there is no need for being alarmed. “

     

    So are we saying that the media industry isn’t mature? “Perhaps,” said the senior planner we spoke to earlier. “The stakes are too high, and in the case of the IRS there was an unfortunate charge that one newspaper group had influenced the field work.” But there is also a view that the MRUC and RSCI, the people associated with the IRS, did not handle the IRS mess-up too well. “You can’t be behaving like cowboys when you are dealing with sensitive stuff like audience measurement. The existence of a media brand is in question with an incorrect survey,” a media-owner had told this writer a few months back. “ MxMIndia is awaiting  a response from the MRUC chairman to a few questions.

     

    After this report was filed, our attention was drawn to a report in The Economic Times as well as on IndianTelevision.com on the same issue. The ET story indicated that there could be a blackout period post February until BARC ratings start since subscribers may pull the plug on TAM. The IndianTelevision report quotes Zee MD and CEO Punit Goenka saying that IBF has taken no decision to pull out of TAM. The statement assumes significance as Mr Goenka is also BARC chairman and one of the most powerful members of the IBF.

     

    But what puts the lid on the discussion is an emphatic assertion from TAM (to MxM) that it will not discontinue ratings even after BARC starts transmitting its data.

     

    “Will you’ll stop when BARC starts,” we asked. “No, we won’t,” the TAM spokesperson told us. The question of course is not of TAM continuing to publish its data, but how many agencies and broadcasters will subscribe to it.

     

    There have been industry rumours that GroupM, the largest media agency conglomerate in the country, which is owned by WPP which in turn is 50 percent owner of TAM via Kantar Media may still be in favour of TAM’s continuance. Although the FAQs released by BARC have clearly stated that GroupM has committed itself to BARC by investing in monies, there is a belief that the media services conglomerate will maintain a hawk’s eye on BARC.

     

    The good thing for BARC is that all those leading it are doing it with pragmatism and are wise enough to know where they need to exercise more caution. Also, data has already started flowing in and being assessed by BARC bosses.

     

    Watch this space for more.

     

  • The brand film captures the self-inflicted split created in one’s personal life by their extreme affiliation to the digital world

    SAB TV unveils #DigitalDividesSABUnites campaign

    By A Correspondent

     

    SAB TV has launched a brand new film as part of its #DigitalDividesSABUnites campaign. The brand film shows a very existing phenomenon faced and witnessed by families today, that of the digital world encroaching their personal lives but there is always some common thread that gets the family together.

     

    The satirical film shows a joint family living together but everyone is busy on some gadget or the other. In spite of all the family members being together there’s no conversation, everyone is focused on chatting on their phones, playing games, surfing the net, listening to music, etc. The film features the father of the family singing a song and narrating the grievance through it, at the end even after the commotion, everyone is still glued on to their device. This is when, he mentions latest update and character from SAB shows and everyone joins in to comment over it.

     

    Anooj Kapoor

    Commenting on the launch of the new film, Anooj Kapoor Senior EVP and Business Head, SAB TV said, “Our film takes a light hearted dig at how the virtual world is beginning to overpower the real world which we inhabit. The fact that virtual world has made us individualistic and introverted in nicely contrasted with how SAB continues to makes us extroverted and re-enthuses us to bond with our family through fun and entertainment”.