MxMIndia

Category: TV

  • There's much action in the crime genre as shows that are seemingly dark and not for everyone in the family work better than comedy, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Crime genre makes a killing

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Fifteen years ago, when Sony launched CID, it would have been just another television show. Today, it is one of the centerpieces of the big story of our television – crime programming.

     

    While CID is entirely fictionalized, India’s Most Wanted on Zee brought in the crime reality genre, where a crime story was told through a combination of anchor narration and dramatized reconstruction. News channels followed suit, with their own versions. Sansani on Star News (now ABP News) was a success story that even went onto inspire spoofs, both on television and in films.

     

    There were several attempts in the fiction crime genre, such as Sony brining the cult series Karamchand back a few years ago, the more recent Adaalat on the same channel and the latest entrant on the block, Arjun on Star Plus. None of these properties have managed to achieve CID’s success. It is not easy to match iconic characters built over 15 years. Arguably even more so when they are comic-book in nature!

     

    But the real action has happened in the crime reality genre. Crime Patrol, easily one of the best-produced shows on Indian television today, has found success that even its makers would not have imagined. A seemingly niche concept (and launched as such) has acquired mass proportions over the last few years. It is gritty. It is topical. It is even edgy. And its anchor has the job with probably the most favorable fame to effort ratio in the industry today.

     

    Channel V runs the very popular youth property Gumraah, which also occasionally repeats on Star Plus. Life OK launched Savdhaan India, and now Colors is out with its piece in the genre, called Shaitaan. Between the four programs, crime reality is a category in itself. Of course, there are regional versions too, of which Panchnama on Star Pravah has found good appreciation amongst the audiences.

     

    What sparked this trend? Why would shows in a genre that’s seemingly dark and not for everyone in the family work better than comedy, for example?

     

    A part of the answer lies in news headlines. In a trend that can’t be dated back to more than 10 years ago, the proportion of crime headlines in our newspapers has gone up significantly. Print editors figured out that such stories tend to get their reader’s attention. Over time, they moved from Page 5-6 to the cover page. It is now well understood that the benefit drawn from reading such stories is more vicarious than social. But the social layer helps. It comforts the soul and convinces you that reading such a story is a good thing after all.

     

    The argument is not very different for television. In fact, the content becomes more interesting and vicarious with visual support. The reassuring social factor gets amplified too, with an anchor sharing his pearls of wisdom at appropriate points in the episode.

     

    What makes crime reality immensely engaging is that it offers genres within the genre. There are stories that rely purely on suspense, that is, the whodunits. Then there are those where the viewer is in on the plot right from the first scene. There are some with a gut-wrenching, emotional theme, while others that are more macro-social, covering issues such as political corruption or female foeticide in hospitals. You almost never know what to expect. The intrigue that most of our serials lack, because being predictable is first nature for them today, comes alive in crime shows.

     

    I find the campaign for Shaitaan interesting in this context. There is no social story here. It is entirely focused on the “thrill” of the crime. The premise of a man who killed his wife and then kept her body in a refrigerator for five years managed to shock even a veteran crime show viewer like me. But you can rest assured that there will be a veneer of social sanction that the anchor Sharad Kelkar will bring into the actual show.

     

    Crime never pays, Anoop Soni says repeatedly in Crime Patrol. Ironically, for television channels in India, it’s paying off very well!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

     

     

  • The research function in the television industry has grown significantly in its importance over the last decade, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Researching The Research Department

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The organization chart in our television industry has been through its share of evolution. When satellite television first came to India, it was all about “programming” and “ad sales”. All other departments were more like support functions, enabling creation and selling of content. As time progressed, some other functions came into prominence, viz. marketing, distribution and research.

     

    The research function has grown significantly in its importance over the last decade. As the viewership data got more complex, with more market coverage and more frequent reporting, the need to analyze it with more complexity also surfaced. Hence, from one or two executives handling all the viewership analysis needs of a channel to three or four, was a natural progression.

     

    But the key trigger that boosted the research department was the growth in competition. More competition meant more chances of failure. In most companies, across sectors and countries, research is often a reactive response to failure, either post-failure or (the smarter version) pre-failure. When there were only about 20 channels on television, chances of failure were minimal. You could “succeed” to some extent at least, purely because you were being beamed. As the number of channels increased, this ceased to be the case. Programme and channel failure rates increased. And the research department came into prominence for prognosis and diagnosis.

     

    Having interacted with the research departments across at least 40 different channels over the last four years, one knows that there is no defined “research executive type”. Every research executive thinks differently from each other, with no real pattern at large. Put the same material in the hands of research heads in five competition channels and you will see five different stories unfold altogether. This is a reverse problem to the sales department, where most executives across the industry think alike. At most times, too alike for their own good.

     

    Here are two facets about the research department that I find interesting to share. In a follow-up post in December, I’ll share some more.

     

    Researcher v/s Research Executive

    There is a difference between a researcher (someone like Ormax Media) and a research executive. It’s the same difference as that between a line producer and an executive producer on a film. The skill sets are different, as is the job description. Good research executives realize this. They would never burden a researcher with questions like: “How will you find these respondents”, “I have often seen that people say one thing but mean another, so how do we handle that”, “I think this question can be phrased differently”, etc.

     

    The point is this: If you didn’t trust the researcher, you shouldn’t be working together in the first place. But if you do, leave their job to them. Channels have not done themselves a great favor by hiring people from the research industry. A researcher becomes a research executive, but is never trained to handle the change in his role. He continues to behave like the backroom researcher in the research agency he came from, while in fact, he should be focusing on getting his key take-outs to the boardroom.

     

    Some of our best and most stimulating work at Ormax has happened when we have been given the mandate to do it the way we feel is right. Often, such carte blanche comes only from senior management, who are more interest in results than the process. At junior levels, there is an apparent need to justify a job, and hence, an intervention into the process is a natural outcome. Having said that, there are a handful of executives at middle and junior level who are result-focused than process-focused, and I have great respect for these people. I hope and believe that they will grow to become powerful people in the media business in the years to come.

     

    Quantitative v/s Qualitative Research

     

    The understanding of quantitative and qualitative research is different across research executives. Invariably, most have higher comfort levels with one over the other. This is not surprising, given that this disposition has been researched in the first place to be personality-linked. But when an executive is put in an unfamiliar situation, it’s like a fish out of water.

     

    At times, the only right way to get an answer to a business question is a statistically robust quantitative research design. But some research executives are “born and brought up” on focus group discussions. They would rather take qualitative feedback of eight groups of respondents as a decisive go or no-go decision on a new programme being tested, than test it with 400 respondents in a way that throws up a statistically valid result for the go or no-go question, as well as a viewership forecast.

     

    The reverse happens less often, where executives insist on quantitative research when the right technique should be more qualitative (e.g. content development). That’s because qualitative research is generally better “understood” than quantitative research. But to anyone who asks “how many people in the group discussion said this” or “this was said by only one person, so it should not be in the presentation”, I have only one advice – read the marketing research textbook again.

     

    In our work, there is great satisfaction in being told: “We have a business question. But you are the experts. You decide what’s the best way to answer our question.” I hope to hear more of this in the times to come.

     

    PS: I’ve clearly not finished yet. So watch out for Part 2 in December!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor on how the television industry handles kids – as audience and as talent

    Shailesh Kapoor | Kids & Television: No Child’s Play

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    It’s Children’s Day, and if I were looking for an excuse to postpone this piece on ‘kids and television’ yet again, this is certainly not the day for it. So here goes!

     

    In its 20-odd years, our television has come a long way. An aspect of this progression that has always fascinated me is how our industry has handled kids. This topic has two distinct layers to it – kids as audience and kids as talent.

     

    The first one (kids as audience) is where a lot of action has taken place over the last 10 years. The kids’ channels genre has found its feet over time, and while it remains undersold historically, things have been looking up. Indian (homegrown) animation has taken off well, and it is sure to give additional impetus to the genre.

     

    However, it’s fairly well-known that a large proportion of kids viewing (and here, I speak of only voluntary viewing, not the passive viewing captured by the meters) comes from programmes and channels that don’t target kids as their primary audience. CID and Taarak Mehta are two such examples. Kids also spend a lot of time watching movies on television, and there are specific titles that are quite popular amongst them.

     

    Barring a handful of exceptions over years, it will be safe to say that unlike animation, the live action content space for kids in India remains under-explored. The big culprit is cinema, of course. We just haven’t made enough mainstream films for kids over the last two decades. There have been a few very good films featuring kids, especially Taare Zameen Par. But clearly, ‘featuring kids’ and ‘targeting kids’ are two different things altogether.

     

    Besides Krrish, Ra.One and the very recent Delhi Safari, all other film content targeted at kids has been grossly sub-standard, almost to the point of being apologetic. No wonder then that kids have taken to more “adult” cinema, such as Welcome, 3 Idiots and even Rowdy Rathore.

     

    The live action deficit is evident in primary content on television as well. In Doordarshan days, there were several shows targeted at this audience, such as Vikram Aur Betaal (fantasy), Kachchi Dhoop (drama) and Indradhanush (science fiction). Of course, thrillers (e g Karamchand and Byomkesh Bakshi) had a loyal kids following even then.

     

    But over years, live action entertainment for kids has given way to more mainstream teenage television. At the age of 10-11, Roadies and D3 become real options for them. By virtue of addressing a wider and more consumption-led audience segment, these shows can get higher production budgets.

     

    In the 80s, the Children’s Film Society of India or the state (via Doordarshan) would fund kids content. Today, market dynamics decide what gets made. But in the bargain, the kid is losing out on live action content targeted at him/ her. There’s a correction required somewhere. And initially, the onus may liemore with the GECs than with kids’ channels. SAB has made early strides, with Baal Veer and Jeanie Aur Juju. More shall follow soon, one hopes!

     

    It’s on the talent side that the industry’s learning curve has been a lot uneven. No logical argument can convince me on how children working 5-7 days a week round the year, even for the most handsome pay cheque and with their parents’ approval, does not amount to child labour. It’s not a once-in-a-blue-moon shoot. It’s not a weekend hobby that pays. If it’s a daily job, it should not be justified just because you become famous on TV. In fact, the ill-effects of fame further strengthen the argument against kids being a part of daily shows.

     

    Two years ago, Amole Gupte proudly shared with us his approach towards shooting with kids for his film Stanley Ka Dabba. They would shoot only on the weekends, and it would be like a workshop, where kids would be made to feel at ease with the entire process. Surely, we can emulate Gupte’s vision, at least in spirit, if not literally, for television.

     

    An area where we have made good progress is in handling kids on reality shows. Full marks to Dance India Dance for driving this change over the last three years. Till then, making kids cry on screen, and reprimanding them for a bad performance, was a norm in many reality shows. It makes for good drama, was the word going round. Today, that’s history. There is growing sensitization that kids talent on reality shows needs to be respected, because having made it to the stage itself makes them special. Thank you DID (and more recently, Junior Masterchef) for showing the way.

     

    I always worry that our television will become a 15+ phenomenon in these commercial times. With kids spending less time with books than even before, television can make a telling difference in their formative years. We need to give them the programming they deserve. And if there’s enough collective will to do that, surely there’s enough money in this country to figure the commerce out?

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • Why almost 20 news channels are unable to put up even one decent programme between them on the passing of a film icon, wonders Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: State of our News Channels: Trite tributes to film legends

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    2011 and 2012 have been years of bereavement for Bollywood. In a short span of time, we have lost four legends, who will remain immortalized by their glorious work. Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna and Yash Chopra collectively defined more than an era in the film industry. Pick any memorable film from the 1960s and early 1970s and there’s more than a fair chance that one of these stalwarts was associated with it. Yash Chopra’s career, of course, extends way beyond the 70s, with his swansong releasing this coming Tuesday.

     

    As an ardent fan of cinema in general and these legends in particular, I have been deeply saddened and disillusioned by how the media, especially of the electronic variety, has handled the news of their death. I vividly remember the media coverage of Raj Kapoor’s death in 1988, when we operated in a single channel scenario. Doordarshan literally made you live the tragedy. There was grief and somberness in the coverage, laced with oodles of grace and maturity. Importantly, the coverage went on over almost a week, with news slowly giving way to analysis and then to retrospective tributes.

     

    Things have really changed in the last 20 years. I understand the news channel obsession with ‘breaking news’ and ‘exclusives’ to an extent (and that’s another topic altogether). But to see the demise of a film legend being reduced to breaking news and exclusives is beyond comprehension.

     

    The truth is: News coverage of famous entertainment celebrities passing away has become a ‘byte fest’.The formula is to get other famous people, most of whom have not even achieved half as much as the one who passed away, to speak about the legend. Filters like articulation and relevant credentials don’t seem to matter. It’s clearly a carpet-bombing approach, where you try and contact as many talking heads as possible, and settle for the ones who agree to come on camera and give you a byte.

     

    I can understand listening to Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan or Sridevi speak about Yash Chopra on such an occasion. But why an audience would like to see a byte from Tanuja or Sanjay Dutt is beyond my comprehension. On occasions such as these, film authors and historians should take the forefront. But for a news channel, they don’t make for good face value.

     

    You can choose to get the wrong people on camera, but you can at least ask them the right questions. Basic research on the background of the person who passed away, and his association with the talking head, is conspicuous by its absence. It’s almost as if the imdb/ wiki filmography has been printed and some notes have been scribbled on it. And what’s with asking: “How do you feel about his death?” Is that even a question!

     

    Even the choice of footage leaves me flummoxed. Certain channels kept playing Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge songs in their Yash Chopra coverage. For a man who has directed 22 films, most of which have been classics or blockbusters or both, why would you choose a film he didn’t even direct! Because you don’t even know who directed it, or you use it knowingly because it is popular footage? And what can I say about calling Rajesh Khanna ‘Babu Moshai’, except: Have you ever watched Anand, dude?

     

    The ‘programme’ names often border on being ludicrous. A channel covered Rajesh Khanna’s death live, under a program called ‘Oopar Aaka, Neeche Kaka’. Looking for alliterations and puns in tragedy is not exactly the most sensitive thing to do, but if you choose to do it, choose words that at least make some sense. The commentary is frantic, almost as if it’s a race against time. After-death is anything but that, both literally and metaphorically.

     

    I have been questioning in my mind about why such mediocrity exists consistently. Why are almost 20 news channels not able to put up even one decent programme between them on such an occasion? Why does the best ‘coverage’ on such occasions come from channels like Sony Mix airing the best songs of the legend, than from a news channel? And what use is the archival footage gathered over years, if you don’t have the right minds to interpret it intelligently?

     

    Part of the answer lies in laziness. Journalism, even by the admission of several senior journalists, has become lazy. Of late, Internet has made it even lazier, where you can pick up a tweet or some wiki information, and just put it out in the media. It’s the easy way out. And it’s apparently enough.

     

    The second part of the answer lies in the quality of talent available in the newsroom itself. Whenever there has been a political tragedy, I have found our coverage fairly acceptable. That’s because most senior and seasoned TV journalists come from a political journalism lineage. In films, the sensible names like Rajeev Masand or Anupama Chopra are limited to a weekly show and an odd interview. In Hindi, even that’s a luxury.

     

    Try and question a news channel executive on their banal coverage of any of these deaths and the oft-repeated excuse comes into play: This is what the viewer wants.

     

    No sir! The viewer wants more, if only you cared to ask him.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • With digitization, channel marketers will need to drop the logic that to create brand loyalty, one needs to create programme viewership, writes Shailesh Kapoor.

    Shailesh Kapoor | Channel Brand: The Digitization Reality

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    D-Day has arrived. By the time you read this, analogue cable would have ceased to exist in three of the four metros, at least legally. The first phase of digitization is finally a reality amidst much speculation over the last few months and, now, chaos. It’s public knowledge now that large audience sections in the metros have still not moved to a digital cable or a DTH connection. If you ask me, there’s absolutely nothing surprising about this at all. After all, this is India. And we do things at the last minute all the time, don’t we? Then why should it be any different when it comes to changing one’s cable connection?

     

    If the government can enforce end of analogue television, the balance households will go digital in a jiffy. There is no such thing as ‘a life without television’, certainly not in urban India. So connectivity is not going to be a major challenge at an industry level. But digitization is sure to throw some new challenges into the arena.

     

    To begin with, the first challenge is right in the midst of all of us. It’s called ‘Nobody Knows Nothing’. There is uncertainty on multiple counts. There are no ratings available for the last three weeks. There are different reports and estimates floating around on the actual status of digitization. But in all this, the real question is getting muted: What will really change when the flux period is behind us and connectivity and ratings are not issues any more?

     

    The most substantive change will be a marketing change. With digitization, the consumer’s ability and acumen to choose channels he wants to pay for will progressively increase. With this change, the focus will shift from programme brands to channel brands.

     

    In nearly 25 years of satellite television in India, broadcaster campaigns have been primarily focused on building viewership towards specific properties, typically new fiction or non-fiction series, film premieres, events and specials. As a rough estimate, more than 85 percent of the marketing budgets of channels are spent on promoting programme brands, while channel brands get less than 15 percent of the spends.

     

    It’s popularly believed that GECs are watched for shows and not for the channel per se. But that’s not entirely true. In a recent large-sample segmentation research conducted by us, more than 35 percent viewership on GECs stemmed from channel loyalty, than programme loyalty. Importantly, this 35 percent makes the crucial difference in a closely fought battle. For example, Star Plus fiction launches typically tend to open at higher ratings than most other GEC fiction launches because the channel’s loyal base gives it the edge for every such launch.

     

    For non-GECs, like movie, news, music, youth and infotainment, upto 70-80 percent viewership is a result of brand loyalty. Live cricket is perhaps the only content type that is entirely driven by programme preference, with minimal brand interplay.

     

    Yet, we see channels spending millions in creating programme sampling. The oft-repeated argument is that to create brand loyalty, one needs to create programme viewership. To me, this has been the television marketer’s excuse for being lazy and not thinking like a true champion of his brand. And the excuse may have overstayed its welcome by a few years now.

     

    In the digitized environment, the arguments in favour of such lopsided programme brand focus will get even weaker. When the consumer has a realistic choice on deciding specific channels to pay for, a bigger brand story will have to be sold. Less than five channels can boast of a programme strong enough to become their brand story today. For others, the brand story will have to come from somewhere else.

     

    So, once the dust settles and the red herring of no ratings is out of our lives, the real digitization-related change should begin. A change that will make the marketing departments at channels more powerful than ever before. But also a lot more accountable than today!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

  • Unlike several other celebrated TV hosts, Salman’s real contribution to Bigg Boss goes way beyond his name. Evidently, he has immersed himself in the show, notes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor | Bigg Host: Salman Sets New Standards

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    He has been the most popular film star in the country for three years now. Salman Khan’s power and charisma has been evident both at the box-office and in the media. Many stars have been critics-proof, but Salman is perhaps the first star to achieve the ultimate pinnacle of stardom: Today, he is content-proof too!

     

    But there’s another component to true, unqualified stardom – television success. With the sixth season of Bigg Boss, Salman has achieved that too. As Sanjiv Sharma, chairman of reputed production house Optimystix, summarized aptly in a tweet earlier this week: “A TV host achieves excellence when it seems like he has created the format. That’s what Salman Khan is achieving with Bigg Boss 6.”

     

    Bigg Boss didn’t have an “anchor” in the real sense of the word over the first few seasons. It only had hosts who played musical chairs every year. It started with Arshad Warsi, moved on to Shilpa Shetty and Pooja Bedi, then to the Big B, before Salman stepped in for the fourth season. The fifth season, however, saw Salman making only a guest appearance in four episodes, being largely unavailable because of the overseas schedules of Ek Tha Tiger. Sanjay Dutt stepped in, and didn’t do too badly, given the Herculean task of filling Salman Khan’s shoes.

     

    But finally, the anchor has arrived. Salman Khan has a full season to himself this year, where he’s hosting not one but two episodes every week. These episodes have been even named after him – Jumme Ki Raat Salman Ke Saath & Super Saturday With Salman.

     

    But unlike several other celebrated TV hosts, Salman’s real contribution to Bigg Boss goes way beyond his name. Evidently, he has immersed himself in the show, almost unconditionally. Now that’s something one would expect more from the hard-working variety of stars, such as Amitabh Bachchan or Aamir Khan. One expects Salman to arrive on the sets and just go with the flow, without much preparation or rehearsals.

     

    In all probability, he arrives on the sets and goes with the flow anyway. Barring a crucial difference. It is very clear that he actually watches the show during the week. And that he has a take on what he watches. He takes positions on issues. And these positions are his personal positions, not of the channel or the format.

     

    So he can pull up the commoner in the house (Kashif) even denying him the right to be a Salman Khan fan, because Kashif’s behaviour in the house didn’t qualify him for it. He can initiate an awkward conversation around a separated couple, and yet make it come across as casual and comfortable. He can applaud Sidhu for being the face of the new Bigg Boss that Salman wants to create – a cleaner, family-friendly version.

     

    But the real victory lies in doing all of this with immense fun and entertainment. The two hours every week (Fri-Sat) are packed with so much ‘masti’ and humour, you will be willing to play a theatre’s ticket price for it. Almost the entire content in these episodes comes across as unscripted and improvised. From giving nicknames to the inmates, to mimicking them, to even asking the most interesting questions, he does it all. Not to mention the sheer effortlessness of the way he handles co-stars who come on the Saturday show to promote their forthcoming films.

     

    Bigg Boss is no KBC or DID. It doesn’t carry the burden of inspiring its viewers and making a change in their lives. It is designed for pure entertainment, of the voyeuristic and glamorized variety. It is a show that begs not to be taken seriously. And Salman Khan seems understood this better than anyone else.

     

    When I see cricket experts analyzing statistics at the end of T20 matches (like the Champions League), I often wonder if they are at the wrong match. If the T20 viewer is interested in slam-bang action, why bother him with wagon wheels, strike rates and dot ball percentages? The fit between the image of the show and the hosting style is the key. Shahrukh Khan struggled with it in KBC 3, where he tried to make a purposeful show frivolous. Amitabh Bachchan struggled with it in Bigg Boss 3, where he tried to make a fun show purposeful.

     

    I know it is almost blasphemous to compare any host in India to what Amitabh Bachchan has achieved on KBC. And I wrote about it in this column very recently too. But if Salman Khan were to make himself available for another season or two of Bigg Boss, he may just achieve the same. There I said it!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • No TAM ratings for nine weeks could well throw an opportunity for some channels, especially the one-show variety, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Ratings Blackout or Opportunity Feast?

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The unprecedented has happened. The much used and abused word ‘TRP’ (which even the end consumer uses and abuses now!) will be out of our lives for the next nine weeks at least. By deciding that they want a ratings blackout to avoid misinterpretation of transient changes as a result of digitization in four metros, broadcasters and advertisers have created a scenario that has no reference point at all. And that can be a recipe for chaos!

     

    Some may argue that it is not a total blackout, as the data will be released at the end of the nine weeks. But the fact that it is being withheld till then itself implies that it should not be taken with much seriousness even when it is released.

     

    At the channel end, everyone is asking the same question differently: How do we use this blackout period to our advantage? For those asking the question earnestly, the word “advantage” has acquired a connotation it should have always had. The focus has shifted from tactical eyeball-led advantage to the more strategic and enduring image-led advantage. “Now that the ratings monkey is off our back, can we focus on our image?”

     

    For niche channels in particular, this is an empowering thought. The pressure to deliver viewership (and hence a higher effective rate based on the CPRP benchmark set in the market) meant that many such channels ran an FPC that they didn’t necessarily believe in. Now that those shackles are broken, albeit temporarily, one can sense a newfound freedom in their strides. It has the “now, we shall do what we always wanted to do on this channel” vibe to it.

     

    While there is no one-size-fits-all recipe, I want to focus on one key opportunity that the blackout provides for, what I call, “one-show channels”. These are channels for which a disproportionate share of their viewership (35%+) comes from just one programme. On a rough count, at least 25 channels fall in this category.

     

    In ratings terms, a one-show channel can be identified as a channel whose top programme rates more than twice of what its second best programme rates. In image terms, it is a channel whose imagery is primarily, often entirely, defined by one programme. This club includes channels across genres, including some mainline GECs.

     

    In an ideal scenario, a one-show channel should put all its efforts behind becoming a two-show or a three-show channel. Hence, they should be promoting their next line of programmes, which they see as having the potential of being channel drivers in the future. In television, on-air telecast is a type of promotion in itself. The more you see a programme, the more it is being “promoted”. Hence, showcasing the second line of programming through repeats and omnibuses is critical, often even sufficient, to create a strong second line, assuming the content passes muster.

     

    However, the ratings reality rarely allows this to happen. Let’s take an example of a channel whose top programme rates 3 TVR and the next two rate 1.5 TVR. If the channel has five repeat slots available everyday, a future-oriented strategy will demand that it gives more repeats to the 1.5 TVR shows. Hence, the 3 TVR show should get one repeat, while the 1.5 TVR shows gets two repeats each. This sounds correct in more ways than one. For one, the 3 TVR show has a bigger primetime audience in the original telecast, and hence, should be relying on less on repeats. Secondly, its need to be “showcased” to irregular and light viewers of the channel is far lesser, as they are more likely to have sampled it in the past and made up their minds on it in either direction.

     

    In reality, however, the 3 TVR show generally gets three repeats, while the 1.5 TVR shows get one each. This creates a vicious circle, where the viewers see more of what they are already seeing, or what they are already familiar with. As a result, the one-show imagery of the channel is moulded even further, to the point of the channel being stereotyped for it (“Ispe ek hi programme achha hai” to “Ispe to jab dekho yehi programme aata rehta hai”).

     

    Why this happens is fairly obvious. In the short run, the 3+1+1 plan will give better returns (read ratings) than the 1+2+2 plan. The damage in equity is often invisible and intangible. And with that comes the resistance to adopt a plan that goes for the long haul; a plan that looks at the channel’s imagery (and hence, viewership) seven months from today, than seven days from today.

     

    For these 25-odd channels, there couldn’t have been a better opportunity than this. The ratings blackout literally takes the burden of following the 3+1+1 plan off their shoulders. They can now do 1+2+2, or even 0+3+2 as a reverse tactical move. Nine weeks may not be a long time, but it is significant enough to ensure that the impact of a well-planned repeat telecast strategy will bear fruits over time.

     

    I’ll be personally curious to see which channels actually adopt this line of thinking. These are the channels that will emerge as real winners at the end of this period, even if the results take a while to actually reflect in the ratings.

     

    This aspect may also raise a larger question in our minds – Has our ratings system made our thinking too current and tactical, instead of being more fundamental and strategic? The answer was clear even a few years ago. It’s a big, and an unfortunate, yes.

     

    Some day, this too shall change. And the next nine weeks should hopefully give us a sneak peek into that future!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor picks 14 definitive programmes that cemented Zee's place in the Indian television landscape, in his weekly column, TV Trail

    Shailesh Kapoor: Zee TV: 20 Years and a Piece of History

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Earlier this month, India’s first homegrown satellite television channel, Zee TV, completed 20 years of being on air. In 1992, when the channel started with about three hours of prime time programming, we couldn’t have imagined how pioneering this initiative would turn out to be.

     

    It can be a very interesting exercise to make your list of the top 50 landmark programs on Indian television. Programmes that have shaped our television content over years. Zee TV dominates my list with 14 programmes, second only after Doordarshan with 15. So here’s my list of Zee TV shows that will find an indelible place in our television history:

     

    1. Saanp Seedi (1992): The first game show ever on Indian television was based on a popular board game, but executed with a style that was flamboyant, almost brazen, in Doordarshan times. I have often wondered why our desi game shows have never managed such energy levels again. I’m sure Saanp Seedi’s host, Mohan Kapur, wonders the same too!

     

    2. Tara (1993): The definitive urban Indian woman’s show, Tara, would ironically be too modern for today’s television. But back then, it was on-the-edge entertainment; a programme in which a woman (Sheena played by Amita Nangia) actually sipped beer on-screen.

     

    3. Banegi Apni Baat (1993): Banegi Apni Baat was a progressive, urban take on teenagers and youth, aided by some of the best acting you will hope to see in an Indian serial. The starcast boasted of Irrfan, Surekha Sikri, Shefali Chhaya, Anita Kanwal, Divya Seth, Achint Kaur, Sandhya Mridul and R Madhavan. Phew!

     

    4. Zee Horror Show (1993): The visual of Archana Puran Singh’s severed head, on a plate on the dinner table, has been imprinted on my mind forever. Zee Horror Show had a somewhat cheesy feel to it, but it was a pioneering step in the mainstream horror genre, after some Doordarshan experiments like Qile Ka Rahasya.

     

    5. Aap Ki Adalat (1993): Aap Ki Adalat was Rajat Sharma’s first brush with television. When Rajat moved on and Zee replaced him with Manoj Raghuvanshi, the show predictably lost its audience. But Adalat gave us a TV format that has subsequently been exploited in several variants. Arguably, it also gave us India TV.

     

    6. Khana Khazana (1993): Recipe shows are on-air by the dozen today. We even have two full-fledged food channels. But when Zee signed on Sanjeev Kapoor for Khana Khazana, it was uncharted territory for both. I will always remember Khana Khazana as the first successful marriage of the kitchen and the television in India.

     

    7. Antakshari (1994): It is hard to recall Antakshari as anything else except Close Up Antakshari, though the series had Sansui and Titan as subsequent sponsors. It is even more difficult to think of this show without its impeccable host Annu Kapoor. Like Saanp Seedi, Antakshari was another example of how Zee brought simple but deep-rooted Indian concepts to television.

     

    8. Hum Paanch (1995): Much before Ekta Kapoor became synonymous with daily drama series, she produced Hum Paanch, a cult comedy about a mad family and their escapades. The supremely talented Ashok Saraf headed its ensemble cast. And Hum Paanch also gave us Vidya Balan!

     

    9. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa (1995): Singing talent has never had a more fertile nurturing ground than this landmark show, which has given us many singing stars, none less than Shreya Ghoshal. Another season has just taken off, and the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa legacy continues.

     

    10. Amanat (1997): In many ways, Amanat set the template for the biggest success mantra of Indian television – joint family dramas. Amanat was only a weekly, like most pre-KBC shows. But this tale of a father (Sudhir Pandey) and his seven daughters remained the centerpiece of our prime time television for almost five years.

     

    11. India’s Most Wanted (1999): I was never a fan of Suhaib Ilyasi’s guttural voice. But IMW, like many other new ideas in the 1990s, had a charming, camp feeling to it. You watched it because it was not well produced. Or maybe, it was meant to come across like that. Today, news channels have pale variants by the dozen, and even Ilyasi attempted one a few years back.

     

    12. Saat Phere (2005): Saat Phere was the social show that existed before socials oversaturated our serials market. The story of Saloni, who has to face tribulations because of her dark skin, eventually morphed into a meaningless one. But while it was at its peak, Saat Phere redefined new-age television in times of multiple marriages, plastic surgeries and resurrections.

     

    13. Dance India Dance (2009): Easily the biggest reality show franchise in India in the last five years, Zee TV took the industry by storm when it converted a seemingly low-budget, experimental show into a runaway hit. Several myths around reality show jury were broken, as three unknown choreographers became household names within weeks. If the recent Li’l Masters season is anything to go by, DID is ready to enthrall us for many more seasons.

     

    14. Pavitra Rishta (2009): Pavitra Rishta is, in many ways, the love saga that Indian satellite television never had in its first 15 years. With its afternoon soap texture, the series has managed to survive several story leaps and casting changes, and continues to have a fairly strong run. And its original hero (Sushant Rajput) is set to make his film debut this January.

     

    Hasratein, Astitva, Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai and Philips/ Colgate Top 10 narrowly missed my list. There’s also a fair chance that I may have missed out something else truly landmark, given the plethora of content on the channel over the last 20 years.

     

    Kudos to Zee TV. Hope they have many more aces up their sleeve!

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • What can be achieved in a certain time, should take only that much time. Short-form entertainment is soon going to play an even bigger role in our television viewing landscape, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Enter ‘short-form’ T20-style entertainment

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    India played Afghanistan last Wednesday in the T20 World Cup. It wasn’t billed as a high-profile game. There was little hype surrounding a game that was merely a formality, before we play the biggies. It was a weekday match, and wasn’t a very high scoring game either. Yet, the viewership of the India-Afghanistan game was at the level of the Top 10 programmes on television. If that’s some indication, we know what’s likely to come for the Super 8 matches vs. Australia, Pakistan and South Africa. They should easily be the top programmes of the week. The India-Pak game may even end up being the highest rated programme of 2012 on Indian television.

     

    There has been much talk about cricket fatigue over the last few years. So much so that the talk about cricket fatigue has fatigued itself out by now. Most such talk, however, tends to be shallow, starting and ending with the million-dollar question: Is there too much cricket?

     

    Of course there is too much cricket. You don’t need to look at ratings for that. A look at the ICC future tours and programmes calendar for the Indian team will give you the answer. But to assume that too much cricket translates into cricket fatigue is simplistic, even erroneous.

     

    The real change that has happened over the last five years is not that the volume of cricket has increased, but that a new format has been introduced in the mix – T20. As a result, Test cricket and ODIs stand exposed in terms of their entertainment value. T20 has made them seem like yawn-fests. Why?

     

    In India, core sports audiences belong to the 13-30 years age group. A large part of this segment is consumption-led, distracted, hard-to-please and perpetually wanting to move on with things.

     

    With this changing mindset comes the concept of ‘short-form entertainment’. Everything has to be shorter than it was before, to please this audience. Films that are longer than two hours begin to drag, unless they are extremely well made. Serials that continue more than two years are frowned upon. Channels that have long ad breaks are dismissed as being fuddy-duddy. Interstitials and gags that stretch beyond a minute acquire overtones of being indulgent and boring.

     

    There is so much to do and so little time. Most of this “so much to do” may be ‘trivial’ stuff, like social networking, but try telling a 20-year-old that. What! You called social networking trivial?

     

    Short-form entertainment is soon going to play an even bigger role in our television viewing landscape. It is not about 10 seconds or three hours. It is about: What can be achieved in a certain time, should take only that much time.

     

    1. If a promo can communicate a message in 15 seconds, why cut a 30 second spot?

    2. If a movie can tell its story well in 100 minutes, why take 130 minutes to do the same?

    3. Why do I have to watch the entire news if all I want are the headlines?

    4. You can give me engaging break content, like trivia and gags, but remember, it is break content and I didn’t come to your channel to watch a break. So keep it as short as possible.

    5. Why do I have to watch the entire Test match when all I want to see are the boundaries and the wickets?

    6. I’m not going to watch eight hours of cricket when I am now aware of a three-hour version that’s more entertaining.

     

    Get on with it, is what television professionals are being constantly told by the viewers. Today, this may be a sub-30-years mindset. But in the family context, it can be extremely infectious. We see it happening all the time with GEC serials. The dragging perceptions for serials first come from the daughter, and about 3-4 months later, viral their way to the mother or the mother-in-law.

     

    Increasingly, short-form entertainment will be the key to television success, across genres. It’s a dynamic and evolving concept, and the broadcasters who can keep pace with the consumer mindset on it, with bear a distinct advantage over others. This is true across genres, but even more so for sports.

     

    When India plays Pakistan in the semi finals of the 50-over Cricket World Cup, even a 24-hour game can classify as ‘short-form entertainment’. But most ODI cricket is not India-Pak in big events. It is cricket lacking any real sense of purpose or competition. That’s when watching Sehwag (now Kohli) bat is more exciting than the result of the match itself. That’s the short form that works.

     

    As a teenager, Mike Tyson’s boxing bouts used to interest me a lot. I wondered how so much sponsor money could be put on something that lasts merely 30-seconds. Today, I know the answer of course. It’s not about the time; it’s only about entertainment, entertainment, entertainment.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • The element of 'sanskaar' still plays a role in the life of the Indian youth, notes Shailesh Kapoor. How they behave at home is very different from how they behave outside it, once the family filters are switched off.

    Shailesh Kapoor: In A Family-Friendly Pack

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Bigg Boss will soon be back on the telly, for a sixth time. But this time, the programme that has courted controversy year-on-year, will be seen in new, “family-friendly” version. At 9 pm, in the heart of the prime time, Colors promises a programme that will get rid of the abuses, the affairs, the pole dances, the works. A whole new Bigg Boss indeed.

     

    There is scepticism about whether this new avatar will work for Bigg Boss. Only time will tell us. But there is enough evidence over the last five seasons to say that the franchise had hit a glass ceiling on viewership. Every possible trick in the trade was tried, some of them being nothing short of masterstrokes. But the programme could never compete with the top serials running in prime time. It got irregular and non-GEC viewers interested, while most core GEC viewers largely stayed away.

     

    Bigg Boss always gets media attention. News channels and newspapers love the property for the material it gives them. But the buzz doesn’t convert very well into eyeballs for the show. This week, an A-rated, “bold” film (Heroine) is set for a huge opening at the box office. But television content that’s even remotely bold loses out on a viewer base, especially in the lower socio-economic classes. Why?

     

    A part of the answer is obvious. Theatre viewing is primarily a friends-based activity, while television viewing is primarily a family-based activity. An 18-year-old would enjoy Heroine immensely in the theatre, but will quickly change the channel when the movie’s U/A-rated promo appears on the television set. That’s the element of ‘sanskaar’ still playing a role in the life of the Indian youth. How they behave at home is very different from how they behave outside it, once the family filters are switched off.

     

    But does that explain everything? What about the thousands of homes where such cultural filters don’t apply? Like your home or my home? In bigger cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune, there are many posh neighbourhoods that have “progressed” to more liberal (read Western) lifestyle and attitudes. This segment includes several professionals, entrepreneurs and opinion leaders, from across industries.

     

    In a country of over 100 million satellite television households, this “progressive” segment doesn’t add up to much. Even if they did, it’s unlikely that they would allow their house to be metered for viewership measurement. You will be able to feel the pulse of this audience on elite media options like Twitter, or even the more mass facebook, but it will never reflect in the mainstream audience ratings.

     

    Back in the 90s, when satellite television was still nascent, this audience ruled the roost. They were early adopters of a cable connection. Their taste reflected in the programming that succeeded in those times. Tara, for example, was a landmark show that was appreciated for its path-breaking portrayal of women. Somewhere in the late 90s, the ilk of Tara-like shows was overtaken by the Amanat ilk. Because the median market had moved from Mumbai to Indore. The median SEC had moved from A2 to B.

     

    Today, the median market is probably a Gwalior or an Allahabad. And the median SEC is C. And as satellite television (or rather its measurement) penetrates further, the medians will continue to shift even more. The large problem with this method of measurement is that it doesn’t take into account the purchasing power. A rich South Mumbai household is given the same weightage as a poor household in small-town Satna in Madhya Pradesh. Yes, the media agencies can filter data on markets and SEC, but popular perception is not based on such filters. It’s always the “4+ HSM” rating that is reported, be it in the trade media or in the mass media. The verdict is passed with equal importance being given to the two households above, not withstanding that one spends more than 500 times the other on brands that advertise on television.

     

    In any case, no data cuts are available by mindset or attitudes, leading to the entire planning process being based on stereotyping target audience into age, gender, SEC and market brackets.

     

    I have always felt that Bigg Boss has actually been a much bigger success than what its ratings have reflected. It gets the eyeballs of premium and progressive audiences. But our current measurement system is not suited to monetizing these eyeballs in an equitable manner.

     

    Our films have progressed over the last two decades. With our television, though, the progression has been very specific to a mass audience base residing in mini-metros and small towns. The big town audiences will be right in feeling left out. In cinema, they are put on a pedestal because they pay five times more than the small-town cine goer. But in television, nobody cares about them.

     

    Till we find a fair way of evaluating eyeballs that have the purchasing power, the ‘sanskaari’ family theme will dominate our mainstream television landscape. And we will be a poorer television nation for that reason.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

  • In India, food television remains peripheral, almost inconsequential. Food channels and food shows are one of the several genres that fall into a huge bucket called "niche television", says Shailesh Kapoor in his weekly column, TV Trail

    Shailesh Kapoor: India’s Unwritten Food Story

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Some eat to live, some live to eat. But everyone loves food. A good meal at the end of a long, hard day can make it all seem worth it. From wedding banquets to celebrations to business deals, food is always around to make its presence felt. Except on Indian television!

     

    A few years ago, ahead of the launch of his channel, leading chef Sanjeev Kapoor had mentioned to us on why he thought a food channel should be in the top 5 channels in India, if not better. He quoted several examples from across the world, of food shows and channels that have surpassed the best of the drama series and reality shows to become the most popular shows in their countries.

     

    Recently, I read this on the Wiki page of MasterChef Australia: The finale of the first season of the show surpassed the previous high for a non-sporting event in Australia since 2001, beating Australian Idol’s 2004 finale. It is currently the fourth highest rated program in Australia ever. It was also the most watched TV show in Australia in 2009.

     

    Food television has made its mark at the global stage, especially when the content has lived up to the standards set by mainstream television. In India, though, food television remains peripheral, almost inconsequential. Food channels and food shows are one of the several genres that fall into a huge bucket called “niche television”. They only get audience big enough to barely keep them going. Not too many of us will notice if they stopped being there on television altogether from tomorrow morning.

     

    We have a fairly strongly food culture as a nation. Our food has managed to make its mark around the world (often in versions that Indians will abhor and disown). Indian food has the variety, the spunk and the uniqueness that makes it stand out. Why, then, does it not work on our own television?

     

    Some argue that our broadcasters haven’t given the genre a fair chance yet. Star Plus came out with two seasons of MasterChef India. They met with moderate success. The second season was eminently watchable and got good audience response. But when you compare its performance to mainstream non-fiction like Dance India Dance, it begins to look “niche” anyway. A third season has not been announced yet. After all, there may not be much room for “niche” content on the prime time of the leading GEC of the country.

     

    In my opinion, there are three complexities that make food television a daunting programming genre in India. The first one is our cultural diversity itself. While our rich food heritage should be a positive, it creates a divide as well. You can’t get an average Indian to appreciate food beyond what he or she enjoys eating. Try selling the idea of good Gujarati food to a Punjabi, and you are almost certain to run into a cultural wall. We may be food-loving, but we are not a food-appreciating nation.

     

    This lack of appreciation creates a challenge for food programmers. How do you create content that pleases a Maharashtrian, a Tamilian, a Punjabi and a Bengali equally? There is no lowest common denominator to address here. The segments are mutually exclusive!

     

    The second challenge comes in the form of the aversion to non-vegetarian food in our mass audiences. A large (estimated 40%+) section of India’s population is vegetarian. Even KFC has started an oxymoronic vegetarian menu in this country. Non-vegetarian food is a taboo for many, and hence, a television show that captures any form of meat being cooked or shown (like in the food travel shows a la The Foodie) loses half its audience base instantly. The research response to such shows can often be: “Usmein non-veg dikhaate hain, yeh hamare culture mein nahin hai.”

     

    Having programming purely on vegetarian food is not a solution either. For one, the top chefs don’t like the idea. It defeats the entire purpose of showcasing variety and spreading food awareness. Also, the sizeable non-vegetarian population wants to see chicken and lamb being cooked to perfection on screen. No compromises there either. Yet another case of two mutually-exclusive, hard-to-please audience segments.

     

    But the third reason is the most interesting one. It is rooted in the socio-cultural reality of our country. A reality that dictates that women in our country spend a large amount of their daily time in the kitchen, preparing three meals and the in-between courses for their families, all alone, without any real help. Remember, we are talking of kitchens that are essentially devoid of equipment that saves manual work or time. It’s a grind, literally.

     

    As a result, most Indian women begin to dislike (“hate” may be too strong a word) cooking very early in their lives. They take great pride in their food, because a well-cooked dish at the in-laws is a triumphant moment. But that’s a triumph that’s more to do with the delicate nature of the saas-bahu relationship, and less to do with food.

     

    After exhausting herself in an unfriendly kitchen, the woman doesn’t want to see a glamourised kitchen with fancy ingredients on the TV screen. That’s a world she will never inhabit. A world she is not even remotely familiar with. A world she envies to the extent that she looks down upon it.

     

    Now, how will this change? Social-cultural reality does not change. It only evolves, bit by bit, at its own pace. The challenge for broadcasters in India is to adapt their food content to the realities of the Indian woman. The chefs in plush five-stars may do well with a visit to an average middle-class family kitchen in Kolhapur or Kanpur. That’s the reality of food in India. That has to be the starting point of truly mass food television in this country. It can be glamourised and made aspirational, but only to the point of not being irrelevant.

     

    Food can never be a “niche” genre on television. Anywhere. It is more central to our lives than almost everything else besides relationships. Any country whose television treats food as “niche” has an opportunity waiting to be tapped, however challenging the opportunity may be.

     

    Some food for thought there?

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

     

     

  • In this maddening age of weekly ratings, there is a word that is hugely under-rated and way more important than differentiator, positioning and strategy, writes Shailesh Kapoor in the 'TV Trail'

    Shailesh Kapoor | The all-important C-Word

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    There’s never a dull moment in the broadcasting industry. Fortunes fluctuate every Wednesday morning, when text messages and e-mails with weekly ratings do the rounds of senior management across channels. A large part of the organization’s resource during the day is then spent on analysing, slicing and dicing every possible data point to understand how the week-that-was performed. Often, tactical programming decisions (now we even have a word for it – stunting) are taken to improve the prospects of the half-week that remains, and the new week that’s about to start on Sunday.

     

    Some such tactical steps may work. They may give a boost to the ratings next Wednesday, or the one that follows thereafter. Being an ardent supporter of (good) quantitative research, I have never looked down upon the over-analysis syndrome that some channels tend to exhibit. However, it does make me ask myself – To what effect?

     

    Are you making a fundamental change? Is anything “really” changing? Three weeks later, it will be back to square one anyway. And then, you will start all over again. More tactical data crunching, more stunting, more mathematics. The more you try, the more you realize the futility of it.

     

    In this maddening age of weekly ratings, there is a word that is hugely under-rated. A word that hardly gets spoken of, let alone understood. A word that is way more important than (what-have-now-become) clichés like differentiator, positioning and strategy. It’s the C-word. C for ‘Consistency’.

     

    Consistency, in this context, is about doing most things right all the time. Every single time, not just sometimes. Every single time, not just when the pressure of ratings has piled up. Every single time, not just when you can feel the heat.

     

    Our television industry inherently operates on the premise that with creative products, you can’t do things right all the time. It is popular belief that if you launch eight new shows in a year, four or five of them are bound to fail. Or that if you introduce four new anchors, only one may actually make an impact on the audience. And the most important one: If you make ten promos, only two or three of them will do their job.

     

    In most other industries, success rates of this nature will be frowned upon. In television, the concept of failure rate has been slowly institutionalized. Now, I don’t claim to have any magic formula. No one does. But between 25% success rate and 100% success rate, there is still a yawning gap of 75%. Being consciously aware of that, all the time, is what consistency is all about.

     

    Why is consistency important? Because the consumer rewards consistency more than he or she rewards an isolated success story. Would a housewife rather than a channel that has six good programmes, or watch a channel that has one excellent programme and five poor ones? Would you like to watch a music channel that airs good music all the time, or one that airs a few awesome songs interspersed between many not-so-awesome ones?

     

    Lack of consistency manifests itself in various ways in our television business. Some examples that one gets to experience very regularly:

     

    1. The programme was doing very well, so the content head put it in auto-mode, handing it over to a junior executive, taking his own eyes off it in the process. The story begins to drag and the audiences begin to drop out. By the time the ratings paint the real picture of consumer dissatisfaction, it can be upto eight weeks. The damage is done. The programme has now officially entered panic mode. From being a winner that could have been nurtured by ‘consistently’ focusing on consumer satisfaction, the programme is now a problem child no one knows what to make of.

    2. The channel had about 3-4 back-to-back successes. So new formats and slots are opened up in the name of experimentation. Nothing wrong with that, as long as experimentation is not confused with a carte blanche to go wrong. ‘Experimental content’ is launched without consumer validation. In the process of doing it, the 3-4 successes have started losing attention. Back to point 1.

    3. The channel has decided it will run at least two promos per break. Enough analysis has gone into validating the importance of this promo time. Gradual build in viewership can also be seen as a result. Then comes the festive season, and the promo time is cut to less than 30%, to accommodate excess inventory. Once Diwali is over, we will go back to two promos per break, it is said. But in effect, you also go back to day zero, when you put that policy in place.

     

    I will excuse you for finding my tone cynical. But I have found that it is much easier to communicate a complex, non-linear mathematical model, or a layered and nuanced consumer thought, than the incredibly simple idea of consistency. Of course, there is enough intelligence in the system to process this simple idea. What may be lacking is the realization that consistency can win you far more success than isolated acts of brilliance can.

     

    Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The 10,000 hours rule’ says that in order for an individual to master any complex skill, he or she must put in 10,000 hours of practice. That’s about four years of hectic work. In television, that’s way too much time to wait for. But can you give something you believe in at least 13 weeks, and do it well? Really, really well?

     

    I often dream of entering a television client’s office on a Wednesday morning, when everything is calm enough for it to be a Tuesday. Nobody is panicking. There’s a plan being executed over a year. The plan has been debated, tested and firmed up with inputs across stakeholders. A plan that the leadership believes in enough to back it whole-heartedly. A plan that has a sense of assured confidence, almost cockiness, around it. A plan that is Wednesday-proof.

     

    Possible for this dream to come true? But then, we won’t be Indians, right?

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media & entertainment research and consulting firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor