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Tag: Puneet Goenka

  • Pradyuman Maheshwari lists 13 reasons why 2013 could best be hashtagged #Fail (and also a few reasons why there is hope in 2014)

    Thirteen Reasons why 2013 was a #Fail for the Indian Media

    By Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    Okay, so we are all going to down our sorrows tonight… in alcohol, in parties, stuck on the road in traffic, at office, on television watching Kapil Sharma for the nth time or an awards show or some other semi-entertaining stuff. Or just a quiet moment with family and friends.

     

    But before we do that, let’s take one last look at the 2013 and wish we could put some of the downers behind  us. Sadly, they can’t.

     

    Here goes my list of 13…

     

    Tarun Tejpal

    Tehelka founder. Alleged rapist. And as it has emerged, misused his position in recent years to achieve his ends.

     

    Mumbai Photojournalist Gangraped

    The media was at the forefront of the movement against atrocities to women through the year. And then one of our very own was gangraped. On an assignment, in daylight, in Mumbai, a city that prides itself to be safe for women. The lady is fine, but the scars will never go away.

     

    Hindustan Times Paid News

    And we thought that the corporate types running Hindustan Times knew what happens when you devalue a news brand by going in for a Medianet-like paid content service. Agreed there’s a footnote, but it’s in fineprint and the paid-for stories aren’t tagged ‘Paid Content’. Why, just why?

     

    Paid News still rules

    The recent elections saw many instances of paid news around the time of the elections with the EC asking the law ministry to make it an electoral offence. However,  what about the publications publishing the news? Shouldn’t those indulging in the corrupt practice also be suitably penalized, even if means losing the RNI registration/licence.

     

    Minister’s priorities

    Even the most sensible of politicians do bizarre things as I&B ministers. We’ve had one of the earliest ones in independent India banning film songs on Vividh Bharati. One went ballistic against news channels. Another frowned upon ads. Our current minister – Manish Tewari – isn’t bad news, but he could do with a better set of priorities. And not just talk about contradictions and paradoxes in his speeches. Also, not interfere in DD news.

     

    Industry divided

    The various industry associations in media,advertising and entertainment are a divided lot. The officebearers may be good friends otherwise, but their associations are often at loggerheads. And paying the price for all of this is the industry.

     

    Abby has really turned Shabby

    Of the various awards held in the country, the Creative Abby has turned out to be shabbiest. The biggest in the business (Lowe, Ogilvy) have not been participating, there are disputes about scam ads and last year we even had some complaints about a few awardwinning ads being plagiarized. All practitioners need to get together and discuss the future of the Oscars of the creative advertising business.

     

    State of magazine media in question as ABP sells BusinessWorld

    In a sense one should be thankful that it was sold, and not shut like the Indian editions of People, GEO and Marie Claire magazines. But BusinessWorld is an iconic brand and was owned by a large, prosperous media group like Ananda Bazar Patrika. The fact that the group lost interest in the magazine and found they couldn’t make the kind of money out of the publication was a sorry commentary on the state of the magazine media. Thankfully, Annurag Batra bought it on behalf of a group of unnamed investors.

     

    Professionals v/s Families

    There are many large and successful business conglomerates run by professionals, but in the world of media, not many professionals have done too well when the family gets active in the business. Two years back, The Hindu brought in professionals on the editorial and business front. It was a bold decision. But in 2013, both Editor and CEO were booted out. I don’t think any rightminded (or leftminded, given it’s Hindu) editor would ever want to join the paper at the helm after this.

     

    Corporate influence in media

    We all agree that the media must ask the tough questions, often being cynical when there is no need for being one. But that’s what it used to be. In a recent accident, the identities of the owners of a car that hit two others was hushed up by most media. The name of the corporate cropped up, but the news wasn’t investigated  in the same way as any other high profile accident case. Is this the influence of big business on the media? Why is it that media entities not directly owned or managed by big businesses also buckle under pressure? Wake up, guys. There’s no point being in the news media when you are going to crawl even there’s no one asking you to do so.

     

    Retrenchment rules

    Staff sackings are not a new story in the media. Some do it with a jhatka, others prefer halal. The best of newsmedia organizations have seen sackings. This writer has been involved with many over the years. The question is how you do it, and how sensitive you can be to the employee’s personal life. We hear of many cases of people opting out of journalism and media companies because of the way employers behave.

     

    Most media schools suck!

    The media wave of the 1990s and 2000s ensured a mad rush for the media and mass communication courses across the country. Everyone wanted to be a Piyush Pandey, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt and now Arnab Goswmi. But the faculty sucks at even the AICTE-approved institutes – mediocre professionals and trainers teach at these places, the curriculum is pathetic, fee cheques and not a rigorous entrance procedure is the only barrier for entry. The result: products of a large number of media schools are below par.

     

    Hold a mirror, News Media!

    What upset one most about the Hindu’s humbling of the Editor and CEO as well as the termination of edition and employee services at Outlook group’s publications was the way in which both were done. Is it the same media that otherwises sermonizes on how the world should behave? Hold a mirror, guys. Mr Ram, did you really need to write that looong letter detailing your misgivings about the editor and CEO? Thankfully, both of them have found jobs, but had it been in another era with no social media, people would’ve doubted their bonafides.  Ditto with the Outlook group, the same magazine company that has Vinod Mehta at its helm…. how could they not have the decency to even speak to employees who got to know about the closure from a tweet?

     

    But there’s hope…

    Indrajit Gupta fights for PR exec

    You don’t hear too often about editors taking up the cause of PR professionals who are subjected to harassment for a negative story in their publication. IG (as Indrajit is called) took up the case and cause for the late Charudatta Deshpande and continues to do so

     

    Arindam Chaudhari thrown out of Mid-Day

    Yes, Mid-Day actually junked his column after it realized that it’s giving the paper a bad name (now Kushan Mitra needs to do the same at Pioneer)

     

    Shashi Sinha cements the industry

    If there’s a Nobel Peace Prize for the Indian media, IPG Interbrands CEO Shashi Sinha should walk away with the awards. Hands down.  He tried his best to cleanse the Creative Abby at Goafest, in fact he did manage that and what happened in the 2013 edition was not really his doing. And now he’s building consensus on television measurement amongst broadcasters and advertisers and media agencies as head of BARC’s technical committee.

     

    Uday Shankar, Punit Goenka, Raj Nayak… entertainment merchants think big

    There’s hope for 2014 as our entertainmentwallahs are truly dreaming big. Uday Shankar is thinking big at Star India, Punit Goenka has planned some 10 new channels for Zee, and Raj Nayak pulled a mega serial in 24 with ease.  And you can’t keep Sony out of things for too long. Three cheers!

     

  • Mark Hollinger, Puneet Goenka and Carolyn Everson discussed the challenges and opportunities for media

    @FF12: Entertainment has become a revolution

     

    The second session of FICCI Frames had ‘industry doyens, including key enablers, shed light on challenges and opportunities for the times ahead’. The session was moderated by Vishnu Som, Editor, Documentaries and Senior Anchor, NDTV.

     

    The session was opened by Mr Som welcoming Mark Hollinger, President & CEO, Discovery Networks International (DNI), who took the stage to talk about DNI’s journey in India. From a single network launched in 1995, today DNI has grown to seven channels. Mr Hollinger gave the credit of this success to DNI’s advantage of being an early mover in the Indian market.

     

    While talking about the process of digitisation, Mr Hollinger said that it is a great opportunity for a truly interactive pay TV experience. He appreciated the investment  made by the C&S community (the set top boxes and the marketing for the same).

     

    Mr Hollinger was of the opinion that the viewers today prefer sophisticated technology and the same applied for TV too. He said that digitisation is a win-win situation for all. The consumer gets a better product with ‘wider choices’ and the broadcasters will get a better business model which allows ‘faster and broader penetration of HD channels’. He stated that embracing digitisation will push broadcasters to perform better.

     

    In the Q&A session with Mr Som, when he was asked about the benefits of producing content v/s revenue, Mr Hollinger said one-third of their operational revenue and profits is recovered from the market due to their early mover advantage. He revealed that they spend almost $1 billion on producing content.

     

    Being an international channel which enteredIndiain 1995, Mr Hollinger talked about howIndia, as a country, is more open to foreign content. He also said that even then they offer regionalised content created specially for the local viewers and also the option to view the international content in the local language. Mr Hollinger stated that their strategy worked as was evident from the Brand Trust Report which has named Discovery as the third most popular channel and TLC as the fifth.

     

    In the Q&A session, when Mr Som questioned him about the pros and cons of local v/s international content, Mr Hollinger said that the local staff keeps them appraised about how the content is received. He said that the mix of international and local content is almost 50-50.

     

    Mr Hollinger saved the best for the last. While closing his speech, he announced that DNI is launching Discovery Kids in India, which is the launch pad for theAsialaunch. The channel will also be launched inIndonesiaandPhilippines.

     

    He also revealed plans to expand DNI’s scope to DVDs, retail, publishing and merchandising in the “biggest satellite market today”.

     

    Next up was Puneet Goenka, CEO and MD, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL). Mr Goenka opened his address by stating entertainment is no longer an evolution but has become a revolution. He said that digitisation of content is a good move as the drivers of today’s content are “highly motivated youngsters who are high risk takers and have large disposable income”. They have the power to influence products to be customised and digitisation will help achieve just that.

     

    With the help of a powerpoint presentation, Mr Goenka listed out the pros and cons of digitisation. He listed the fact that the penetration of private channels is still low and there is a lot of scope to grow as a benefit. Citing the example of Ditto TV, he said that now new media is the media to go to.

     

    During the Q&A session, when asked about the benefits of digitisation, he said that the sheer choice that the consumer gets is the benefit which will also be beneficial to them as the number of channels being offered in HD will go up.

     

    While talking about self-regulation in media, Mr Goenka said that it is still early days, as the norms have just been laid out by the news and entertainment industry. Time is needed to let them evolve and make a difference.

     

    Next to address the audience was Carolyn Everson, VP, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook, whose address featured on how Facebook can benefit the media and entertainment industry. Giving the example of Open Graph, Ms Everson illustrated how Saavn in music, Zinga in gaming and films being released in theUSuse Open Graph by sharing stories built their brand on “top of Facebook”.

     

    Her ‘Aaha’ moment about Facebook came when, while talking to an anthropologist, she realised that communities and networks have always been around us but Facebook brings them to us at a scale never seen before due to the technology available.

     

    She said that Facebook is a reflection of the unique individual identity and the social graph is created using the information shared by the individual.

     

    Ms Everson also dealt with how Facebook is trying to take marketing from ads to stories. The thought behind the idea is that ads may be remembered once but stories are shared and remembered by millions. The best example of this is the Timeline pages for the brands which allow them to communicate one-on-one with their fans.

     

    During the Q&A session, Ms Everson faced some tough questions from Mr Som, when he asked her about how Facebook has been dealing with objectionable content. She answered that they work very hard to regulate content and address complaints regularly. When she was asked how and why do they decide what is unsafe or objectionable, she answered that the communities regulate the content and Facebook takes their input very seriously.

     

    Photograph: Fotocorp