MxMIndia

Tag: Peter Mukerjea

  • Peter Mukerjea: A Real Live Whodunnit?

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    So the tentpole industry event of last week – Goafest , is over for another year. Advertising , marketing and media industry executives will be back at their desks catching up with the backlog of work and the start of a new week. Some will still be nursing hangovers and some will be recovering from other forms of stimulation, no doubt. Judging by the numerous photos in the various picture galleries, I’m sure many new relationships will have been forged – digitally or otherwise.

     

    Meanwhile the biggest global media business event, so far in 2012 and by all probability, in all of 2012, is about to begin this week in a court room in London. Apart from the employees of News Corporation around the world, all newspapers and media organisations here in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada and other parts of the world will be looking forward to the chart and TRP-topping opportunity of seeing several media owners take the stand this week at the Royal Courts of Justice. Not just any owners but the Barclay brothers , who own The Daily Telegraph newspaper , the junior Lebedev who owns the Evening Standard newspaper, but above all James Murdoch and his father Keith Rupert Murdoch who will be taking the stands – separately on different days this week. All of these will make for very enjoyable viewing for a lot of us, particularly those who have worked at close quarters with these people. A family affair once again.

     

    Hours of television and on line viewing (itn.co.uk on Tue, April 24 / Wed, April 25 / Thu, April 26 ) will take place this week without doubt and journalists all around the world – both pro-Murdoch and anti-Murdoch will be glued to a screen of some sort and will analyse and dissect each and every word for the benefit of their readers/ viewers.

     

    No matter what the result of the findings, public perception of all of this is going to be very interesting and insightful. I’ve asked friends who have never had anything to do with either of the Murdoch’s other than as readers of the newspapers or viewers of TV stations owned by them and their take on it is very simple. It seems they both come across as walking on extremely thin ice and that they should take responsibility for the actions of their executive and their staff, appears to be the most favoured impression so far.

     

    The issues at hand are email hacking and phone hacking which seem to have been committed by journalists, numerous times over, sometimes ‘ in the public interest ‘ and sometimes in the interest of gaining an advantage over competitors. There’s the relationship between politicians and the media and and also the relationship between the police and the media. All of these issues are not uncommon in our own ‘ desi’ world today. Many of us reading this will have had to juxtapose our personal beliefs and interests versus those of the organisation that we work/ed for at some time in our lives. This, should then concern those in media and it’s surely a question that we should be asking ourselves, as to whether we believe this conduct is acceptable or not.

     

    Editorial priority is a critical ingredient as is the question of proportionality and both of these should be written into the charter document of all news channel and newspapers if it isn’t so already. Who takes on the enforcement of this responsibility ? Should we believe and trust the CEOs, Editors and owners of these organisations who advocate self-regulation as the best way forward, given that they are all reasonable, just and responsible citizens. Perhaps ‘fit and proper’ too. Or, should this be the task of a Media Commission?

     

    Do we genuinely believe that media owners should be treated differently to their executives, who run the organisation/s and who are hired hands at the end of the day? Where does the buck exactly stop? Where do investors fit in ? They want profits but very often are not keen on getting their hands dirty with integrity issues. Perhaps Rajat Gupta, who is due to go on trial for alleged insider trading and passing on tips to a friend, will have a point of view here as he’s been an investor in media companies himself and is also going on trial in a month or so.

     

    Is there a conflict of interest if the owner is also the senior-most executive in the organisation or should that be ignored and seen as a mere coincidence? Or should they all be looked at in a similar way and therefore expect to have the same respect for the concept of law and order and governance?

     

    Either way, the next few days will make very interesting viewing and I would advocate that that all news channels, media companies, law firms that have or would like to have media clients, law schools, the regulator etc make this essential viewing for all their staff who are engaged in similar matters so that they can all have a more evolved sense of how to deal with these often complex issues of media ownership, media management, media ethics and governance.

     

    We may not be willing to impose this on ourselves but i would argue that if we are to be seen as a responsible industry, then we must make a note of the developments on this side of the pond. Then make the most of this opportunity and watch the grilling that’s going to take place, of some of the most powerful media people on the planet. There is no doubt however that the barristers who will be doing the grilling over the next few days will do so – ‘very carefully’ and will bear in mind Rupert Murdoch’s comment in July 1995, when the newly elected British PM Tony Blair came to Hayman Island to visit him and Rupert said ” I suspect we will be like two porcupines making love – very carefully”.

     

    Peter Mukerjea, celebrated media professional and former CEO of Star India, mulls frequently for MxMIndia.com

     

  • Sitting on the fence and watching these media moguls do a self-destructing act is motivating for those who don't take life too seriously and recognize that being born with a silver spoon is as much a curse as a blessing.

    Peter Mukerjea: Murdochgate update

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    As I write this, it’s Sunday 1st April. It’s April Fool’s day and I thought it was an appropriate day to remind myself that one should not take life in media too seriously at all even though each one of us secretly believes that we matter. If that is so, you live in a fool’s paradise as that’s simply not true. It’s almost a case of ‘Mirror Mirror on the wall – who’s the…. of them all? ‘And that doesn’t just apply to Snow White.

     

    Do you believe that James looks himself in the mirror when he wakes up and asks himself that question?

     

    I doubt that somehow. For if he did he would know that he is now toast. Certainly toast when it comes to running his dad’s empire, towards which he was sailing comfortably just over a year ago.

     

    It’s been a while now, almost a year actually, since I suggested that James should step down. I guess he hasn’t yet done so from all his positions but almost 50 percent of them. But it’s not over yet. And it took him longer than I thought it would, but he did. At least from numerous boards in the UK that enjoyed his presence and executive prowess. The decision with regard to the ‘fit and proper’ test is yet to be taken by the regulator in the UK and in due course we’ll find out what their verdict is. The news which broke last week about the hacking of pay-TV codes will not bode well in their decision-making process even though James probably had nothing to do with it even though he was on the board of the company that claims that the allegations are ‘baseless accusations’. Oddly enough, the very same words used by the company last year when the phone hacking story broke. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge (of sighs) and as we now know, those accusations were never really baseless.

     

    From what I hear, shareholders in the company are gathering ammunition and momentum to get James off the other boards too but Rupert seems to be paying them huge dividends to keep them from pushing him to pull the plug on James. How long will that continue? Another six months or a year perhaps? But James cannot be in the consideration set for the top job at the corporation. And I think that’s the right decision anyway. He’s simply not there yet. And Chase – he is by far a more charismatic, knowledgeable and seasoned executive and what he knows on the tip of his little finger is more than the man in the sharp suit with a strange accent and super polite manners that make you feel a touch weird. So why is he still there? Perhaps, because, where else will he go?

     

    In India, where the presence of the Murdochs used to be regarded with the aplomb normally granted to that of a state visit, they now keep their head down and have their executives come to them rather than the ‘let’s visit the troops’ approach because reputations have eroded and some of the earlier public interest litigations may rear their heads once again.

     

    The fact that there’s trouble in the UK across several fronts is now a well logged fact and getting James to the US may do some damage control but can’t stop the avalanche completely. There’s potential trouble in the US, with the possibility of there being an investigation into the companies’ overseas corrupt practices. There’s a possibility of an investigation in Australia. In China there was trouble a few years ago and the company contracted quite heavily when the companies’ offices were raided and executives were shipped out. So far they’ve been safe in India. So, an earlier suggestion of mine in this column that James should consider setting up base in India now must make more sense to him although his presence in India would be regarded as a predatory move, of course, which will raise the shackles of all competitors. But that’s not a bad thing for the corporation and indeed for the man himself to use this an opportunity to reinvent himself.

     

    What finally happens will be known to all of us as time goes by but the there is a lighter side to all this. There’s the case of the horse that Cameron borrowed from Rebekkah (seeing as they have a home next to each other in the British countryside) and her hubby’s (who is Cameron’s school chum) laptop, that was found (and is still in the custody by the British police), in a bin in their garage that was ‘accidentally’ put there ! And then there’s the story of the German lingerie company that ran a series of ads in a campaign (last July) where they used James and his dad to full effect. They’re called Blush and if you were to Google – how to make Rupert Blush – you can see the ads for yourself.

     

    Wonder how far we are from a similar ad campaign like this in India. Piyush, Prasoon, Balki et al, are you listening?

     

    Sitting on the fence and watching these media moguls do a self-destructing act is motivating for those who don’t take life too seriously and recognize that being born with a silver spoon is as much a curse as a blessing. This entire episode to me is reminiscent of the late Robert Maxwell who was the owner of the Mirror Group of newspapers in the UK and who had a rather sad end. There were plenty of stories about Robert Maxwell but the one where he met two of his bankers on the rooftop of his building on Fleet Street and plied them with oodles of champagne is particularly noteworthy. After several glasses of champagne one of the bankers asked if he could go down to the loo for a pee but Robert Maxwell said that the best way was to pee from the edge of the building down on the street. Both Robert Maxwell and the banker then stood at the edge of the building and peed. When the banker asked “Will no one notice down there?” he was told by Maxwell “No – no one notices anything.”

     

    I’m sure there are a few more revelations yet to come and we’ve not seen or heard the end of this saga, but maybe by next year’s Fool’s day we’ll have had enough and will be truly sick of the goings-on, unless the new ones are so juicy and closer to home that they make us all sit up and ask for more. By the way – there’s a movie doing the rounds presently called The Hunger Games and it’s all about reality television and the extent to which broadcast companies will go to get ratings, and how it can be manipulated. If you haven’t seen it – you should. Particularly if you’re in the business of buying ratings or selling them. Never mind the content, it’s all about the ratings. More on that next week.

     

  • In Media Mullings, Peter Mukerjea envisages a scenario that will enable the media industry in India to reshape and reinvent and become truly 'world class'.

    Peter Mukerjea: Dream On… after all we’re in March 2012!

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    So, if I were the next Minister of Information & Broadcasting for the Government (which is about as likely to happen as a month of Sundays) here are the 7 things I would want to do in my first 7 days of taking on the job. Sorry Ambikaji, this, of course, is not to say that you’re not doing a fine job, which you are – but like my school report card said term after term, ‘Could do better’.

     

    1. I’d start with issuing a mandate to privatize Doordarshan asap and thus enable the public to buy shares in the new entity and operate it like a proper commercial organisation and remove all Government control over it. I’d call a Nandan Nilekani, Deepak Parekh kind of person and get him to take on the project of getting this done in no more than a year. He could in turn invite the world’s best financial gurus and merchant bankers to have them pitch for the job. Then to appoint a proper CEO and a management team to develop a growth plan for the business which would include online, social media, cable distribution and task them with getting on with that in the following 12 months. They would report to a Board and be accountable to them and the shareholders.

     

    Benefit: The taxpayer would not need to fund DD any longer and its independence would be ensured. Profitability would emerge which would enable DD to become the largest media company in India and compete with the likes of STAR , ZEE or any of the international companies like the BBC or CBS or SKY or FOX. It would then attract the world’s best talent and be seen as a jewel in the crown for India. The company would bring about an amalgamation of all media activities under one roof and take its place in the list of leading companies of the world. If the Oberois can do that with their hotels, there’s no reason why that cannot happen with DD.

     

    2. I’d create an OFCOM (the regulator in the UK) like organization who would be responsible to the Minister for all the regulatory issues and they would have the power to prosecute and de list broadcasters if they didn’t follow the letter (and spirit) of the law. This would be run by socially responsible individuals with distinction and standing in the community.

     

    Benefit: This would in turn, enable the various media organizations in the country to be mindful of their social and legal responsibilities and not abuse the same. OFCOM would also be required to ensure that the people that run these various media companies are categorized as ‘fit and proper persons’ to do so. Managing media will then not be the direct responsibility of the Minister who could then take an unbiased view on issues if they were ever escalated to the Minister.

     

    3. I’d call TAM and get them to install an overnight rating measurement system and give them one year to do that. No more. Meanwhile, to expand the current system to include rural markets across India and to do this in 6 months. If they were not able to commit to getting this done I would invite other Research and Technology companies from India and the world over to replace TAM.

     

    Benefit: We would move industry to the 21st century and be similar to other developed markets where overnight ratings are the norm. This will help broadcasters , content producers and advertisers alike and will also be a reflection of the consumer. The expansion of the measurement universe would benefit the country as whole and content providers and advertisers would then pay more attention to the needs of the rural consumer and this will help the current imbalance between the urban and rural.

     

    4. All news channels in the country, both Indian and foreign would be required to present their credentials via a barometer of measurement which is based on quality, integrity and depth of journalism rather than GRP’s (ratings) alone. This would apply to all forms of news – be it entertainment, sports, business, current affairs, social etc.

     

    Benefit: The consumer would benefit by being presented with news reporting which is responsible and credible but not driven solely by sensational and scandal. Maybe there will be a news channel from India that will emerge to compete with the BBC or CNN in international markets. Here again, if Infosys can be world class, there’s no reason why a news channel from India cannot be world class.

     

    5. I would remove all financial barriers immediately to foreign participation in all media and would therefore allow 100 percent FDI in media and media related technology businesses. However, those owning and running these media and technology companies must be Indian nationals as is the law in the US.

     

    Benefit: This will attract the world’s largest companies to participate in the growth of Indian media and speed up digitization and internet connectivity in the process. This would provide a base for on line connectivity for all, across the length and breadth of the country from the smallest of villages to the largest of cities which would in turn accelerate communication and exchange of information for all Indians everywhere.

     

    6. I would remove all price control mechanisms instantly for the pricing of cable TV & internet connectivity provided by cable operators, MSO’s, DTH and other service providers as this would urge them to provide their services at prices that are market driven and competitive. None of these services are ‘essential commodities’ and therefore should not come under the purview of price control. However, each such service provider would be required to provide channels from each available genre, in proportion to the viewership they attract e.g. GEC channels – say 25 percent, News say 5 percent, Sport – say 10 percent, Natural History – say 5 percent, Music – say 5 percent, languages – 50 percent and so on.

     

    Benefit: The consumer would benefit the most as services would be provided at commercially viable rates and the quality of service would undoubtedly be enhanced as the various service providers would compete to retain and grow their consumer base for their custom, by improving service levels and quality. The Government should have no role in pricing media and entertainment services.

     

    7. All private FM radio stations would be free to broadcast news and current affairs, weather, traffic info, business news, for as long as they feel is commercially viable. Private FM radio stations would also be free to broadcast any genres that they choose to and the license fee for each genre would be adjusted (by OFCOM) according to the value of the genre – ie talk radio, sport phone in, 24-hour news & current affairs, Bollywood music, Indian classical music, education, health, western pop music, western classical etc etc.

     

    Benefit: Consumers across the country would then receive news on their FM radio stations and be informed rather than exist in the dark as they are currently. If we believe that the right to information is a democratic right for all , then we must live upto that ideal and enable private FM radio stations to provide a news service to their listeners 24 x 7.

     

    I doubt that any of these will see the light of day in the near future but I do hope that decision-makers in India will move quickly to turn all of these into reality as they will help the media industry in India to reshape and reinvent and become truly ‘world class’. Or else we can dream on!

     

  • In Media Mullings, Peter Mukerjea on why James Murdoch must move to India

    Peter Mukerjea: Rupert & Son

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    So, it’s finally happened that James, or JRM as he is known within the company, has stepped down. I’d said that he should (see Firstpost.com article) and for whatever it’s worth, I’m glad that he has.

     

    Enough has been written and no doubt more will be written about the rights and wrongs of the people involved in the entire phone hacking case and we will never know who will finally go to jail for the crimes that are alleged to have been committed.

     

    But that would be looking back and surely it’s much more fun looking forward and trying to gauge what’s about to happen next. If Rupert is true to his word, JRM will now be spending more time on international operations and on the TV business at large . Now that leads me to suggest that he should for Newscorp’s sake spend at least 75% of his time in India looking at new business opportunities that exist in the country. STAR experienced it’s highest ever growth in it’s business under JRM’s watch when he was the CEO in Asia. That’s not a coincidence, I can assure you. Conversely, STAR experienced it’s lowest growth when JRM left the Asia region and handed it over to pixies in Hong Kong who had no clue about India. For example, the lady who was given the baton by JRM had never visited India ever in her life. Strange decision, it has to be said.

     

    JRM, on the other hand, was a respected executive and was seen as a path-breaking scion of his father. And the fact that not everyone loved him was simply par for the course and to be expected. He was effective in reshaping STAR’s fortunes and turning a loss making company into a profitable one.

     

    Incidentally I continue to believe that none of the new channels that popped up in 2007/8 would have happened if Rupert had not taken his eye off Asia but he moved JRM to London to run SKY and with that opened up the gates for newcomers. Some channels failed to make the grade – 9X & Imagine for example, and others did well – Colors & 9XM for instance, but none of these should ever have been allowed to get started given the complete dominance that STAR had on the market. And all the people that went to run these channels, including myself , were almost all from STAR.

     

    Since then STAR has held up well, although after a wobbly start. Credit for which should be given wholly to JRM for giving autonomy to the current leadership in managing their business and most importantly cutting them loose from the Hong Kong intermediary, which was rightly cut to size.

     

    JRM’s big opportunity is now to push ahead with developing a range of new TV and other media products for the India market and enable it to grow speedily to create a very clear leadership position with plenty of blue sky space between the No1 and the rest. And only he can make that happen by physically being there and making the big decisions which would otherwise be lost in power point presentations between numerous layers of management.

     

    This would in turn spur ZEE and Sony and MTV and the rest to do the same and compete with each other and with the pace that STAR would have set for them. This will then collectively turbo-charge and accelerate the industry as a whole and taking full advantage of the economic growth that the country is experiencing. The next 10 years for the media business in India will be huge and despite the slowdown in the global economy the pace of growth will be better than almost anywhere else in the world.

     

    JRM once said “let’s make the best use of a crisis” or words to that effect and I think this is a crisis that has presented itself for just that opportunity. He has moved to New York from London but may be he should have a home in Mumbai too and really shake up the market. There’s tons to do with a very exciting future for a 40-year-old – like JRM, which regular or even above average executives will simply not be able to take full advantage of. They can at best take limited risk, if at all – but JRM can and he should.

     

    Will he or won’t he? Or will he slip in and out of the country quietly, once very few months and leave the big opportunity to the pixies once again? If he ends up doing that he will have missed a great opportunity to grow the business and also to get himself back up and be recognised as being one of the best TV executives in the world. After all, he is the son of Rupert.

     

    Although it started as a fortnightly column, Peter Mukerjea’s Media Mullings will now appear regularly on MxMIndia, but with no definite frequency.

     

  • In Column #1: The absence of Indian papers at a Heathrow lounge & what irks him about NDTV in UK

    Peter Mukerjea. Why no Indian papers in the lounge?

     

    ‘Read your comment to Anil Thakraney’s blog’, a friend smsed me a few weeks ago. I said I hadn’t, only to discover that the ‘PM’ on the messageboard was none other than Peter Mukerjea. One of the brightest stars in the media, Peter may have had a setback with 9X and INX Media, but there is no denying that the former Star India CEO has been one of the finest minds and much admired captains of Indian broadcasting. He may be in distant England, but he’s still clued in to what’s happening back home.

    I wrote to ‘PM’, thanking him for dropping by and invited him to write for us. He agreed… so here we are.

    MxMIndia is proud to present Media Mullings, a new fortnightly column by Peter Mukerjea.

    As you’ll figure as you read along, he’s also a brilliant writer.

    – Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    Media Mullings: No desi papers in this lounge!

     

    By Peter Mukerjea

     

    I’m sitting in the Emirates lounge at Heathrow airport about to board a flight to Dubai en route to Mumbai. The flight’s delayed a wee bit as a passenger has suddenly changed his/ her mind about making the journey and so the bags need to be offloaded!

     

    This delay isn’t unusual in itself but but I’m now weighing up my options of how I would spend the next 30-40 minutes having already arrived early and had a glass of wine with a snack, checked my emails etc.

     

    Thankfully there are no TVs in the lounge and I suddenly realise that this is such a pleasant change from the airport lounges in India. So, TV is not an option. I could be on my mobile talking to friends and family but I’ve done that too. As it’s nearing the end of the day, I’ve read my favourite newspaper but then i catch the sight of the newspaper rack and wander across to see what other papers there are and which one I might fancy.

     

    The array of newspapers is fascinating as one would expect in a high quality airport lounge – starting with The Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune amongst others from France – Le Monde, der Speigel from Germany, Italy and even Hong Kong. Of course, being the Emirates Lounge you would expect to see papers from the Middle East in Arabic and also in English such as Gulf News and Khaleej Times.

     

    As I’m en route to India, I’m quite eager to read an Indian paper, even if it’s may be a day old, but given that the news changes so little on a day-to-day basis , I knew I wouldn’t miss much if I got hold of yesterday’s paper either. But, no such luck. There wasn’t a single Indian paper in sight – not today’s and not even yesterday’s!

     

    I thought there must be a run on the Indian papers and that they must have all gone. So, I asked the lovely lady at the desk but she claimed ignorance and said that she didn’t think that they carried any Indian newspapers. She politely pointed me to the business centre and suggested that I check on the net.

     

    Now that surprises me. We’re the world’s largest democracy and we have some fairly decent, vaguely readable newspapers being published but they weren’t part of the offering in an English lounge of the Emirates airline. How astounding I thought.

     

    But I figured that the newspaper executives in India or their distribution agents couldn’t care less about ensuring the presence of Indian newspapers in such a place. After all, it couldn’t be too much of an effort to get these to all the lounges in at least the primary destinations around the world. After all, Spanish, Mandarin , English and Hindi are being touted as being ‘the’ four most widely spoken languages in the world today and yet we don’t have at least a presence of our national language papers in this lounge.

     

    Or that they are so far ahead of the game that they believe that it isn’t worth putting newspapers in lounges and those who are interested will find what they need to know on the internet. How true and how clever and so ahead of the curve.

     

    But the airline ought to reflect their clients’ needs and consider keeping Indian papers for so many of us who travel on their airline.

     

    And on the subject of Indian TV channels, particularly the news channels, I was pleasantly surprised recently to find that NDTV 24×7 had suddenly appeared on my TV screen at home in England, even though I don’t recall subscribing to it. I’m not complaining. And it’s not like Virgin or Sky give anything for free. When I found out that this news channel was available within my existing service, I was delighted and rushed to watch with much enthusiasm rather like a dog rushing to fetch a ball that he’s just been thrown.

     

    The excitement, equally rapidly, changed to annoyance when I actually started watching the channel. And I used to love watching NDTV once upon a time. And then after watching for a while I figured what was wrong with it. There were far too many commercial breaks. But what was even more annoying was that there were no commercials.

     

    In India we sometimes forgive the news channels for the poor quality of the news, thanks to the fact that the commercials occasionally make you chuckle or they provide some light entertainment and relief from the often horrid news that sits in between the commercial breaks. But then the penny dropped – it must be OFCOM – the name of the body that governs broadcasters and has been set up to make sure that they are staying within rules of decency and broadcast regulation in the UK.

     

    Thankfully they also govern – on commercial time usage, and heavily penalise any broadcaster who overruns the permissible secondage as stipulated by OFCOM. In India no one bothers and it’s a free-for-all, despite there being regulation to that effect.

     

    Consequently the broadcasters in India stuff the commercial breaks with as many seconds of commercial time as they can sell, put logo after logo on the tickers and call it branding or ‘added value’.

     

    And given that the same news channel feed is delivered to the UK, they are governed by OFCOM which means that these commercial breaks with super excessive secondage will not be allowed to go on air.

     

    NDTV, it seems, is having to fill the gaps in their commercial time on the UK service with stacks of inhouse and channel promos. The promos are never as sexy or funny as the TV commercials and filling the channel with boring promos makes the channel’s news service look seriously out of sync with any other home-grown news channel available in the UK. They really ought to do something about this and tighten up the volume of commercial time being stuffed into the breaks in India. Sadly though, this applies to almost all the channels in the country who find it hard to raise the prices of their commercial time and in order to increase revenue, they simply expand the duration of the commercial breaks knowing that no one’s watching. But then, when the channel is transported overseas , it becomes a messy channel indeed and no wonder it does not get too much local advertising in the UK , for the UK , from the UK. Surely there’s a smarter way to do this.

     

    At least they cannot say ‘I wasn’t aware of it ‘. No prizes for guessing who said this when and in what context.