Tag: Shailesh Kapoor

By Shailesh Kapoor

An election results day is here again. And this time, it’s a Sunday too. Bihar elections have been a long-drawn process, with an extended campaign period and five phases of polling. It will all come to an end on November 8, when the counting begins. And it promises to be a cliffhanger.

Election results coverage is perhaps the only form of structured programming of any significance that news channels still have, besides the ‘talking heads locked in a debate’ format. It all gets over in a hurry, but it’s great fun while it lasts, especially if you can identify the best 2-3 news channels on the day and watch within that set, than surfing across more than a dozen of them.

Most exit polls show a close finish for these elections, though Today’s Chanakya, best known for their 300+ forecast for NDA in the 2014 General Elections, is predicting a clear majority for NDA in Bihar. Sunday will be a crucial day for Chanakya too, not just for the two sides locked in a prestigious political battle.

When we shifted from ballot paper to EVMs, the nature of election results programming changed overnight. Till then, anchors had all the time to engage in deep analysis. Psephologists, political experts and politicians themselves with spend considerable time in news studios. No one would be in a hurry. It would all roll out at a leisurely pace, with banter thrown in for good measure. Dr Prannoy Roy shone through those days. This format really suited his personality.

When the EVMs arrived, we witnessed a time collapse. The real action, from the first leads coming in to a clear picture emerging, would take anything from half-hour to maximum two hours, depending on how one-sided or close the battle is.

Most news channels are still experimenting with an ideal programming format that delivers to this T20-type brief. The viewer is bound to focus primarily on the leads window, much like business news channels are watched in market hours. So should one create a show that presents the leads information to viewers in a direct, almost idiot-proof, manner? Or should one create engaging programming for the high-engagement viewers who are deep into politics, and let everyone else focus on the window on the side or the bottom of the screen

This is where anchor personalities can play a significant role. Choices like above are not easy to make. But viewers eventually tend to watch election results programming because they trust certain anchors for their experience and knowledge of the topic. Every anchor has his (rarely ‘her’ in this case) style that he needs to bring to the coverage. Technology and talking-heads are only aids.

Yet, after Dr Roy, we haven’t had a standout election results anchor. Most top news anchors (across languages) do a serviceable job of the day, but there’s no one who will be remembered for his election results coverage before anything else. Perhaps an outcome of the EVMs coming in.

By Shailesh Kapoor

It’s been a week of very little action on-air, but there haven’t been too many dull moments behind the scenes in the television business. As the atmosphere around the release of the first rural ratings three weeks from now builds up, so does the battle for top honours in the Hindi GEC category.

Last week, Colors toppled Star Plus by a single GRP (in Hindi-speaking markets), and this week Star Plus took back the top spot, but with an even smaller gap than last week. We may just be seeing the beginning of a very exciting battle for leadership.

Colors’ media response on taking the top spot last week was restrained, and we did not see any press announcements or electronic mailers. It’s also in line with the BARC India advisory on what constitutes responsible use of data in trade communication.

However, the same cannot be said about many other channels. In a silly trend, we are seeing more and more channels promote their “leadership position” on-air, on their own platform itself. Then, there are ads in mainstream print, not just the pink papers, on a certain channel beating others in its genre. The target group, time bands and the period of reporting are selected to suit the output. Even after that, some of these ads promote “leadership” where the gap is less than 5%. And these are genres where total viewership is so low that even a 20% gap won’t constitute real leadership.

This flow of ratings information in the mainstream media is something we could have done without. The usage of the term “TRP” by consumers has gone up significantly over the last two years. When “iski TRP sabse achhi hai” becomes the reason to like a show or a channel, you know there’s a problem.

The problem is not very different from what happens in Bollywood. Box-office figures are central to a lot of communication around films. Consumers speak about the 100-cr club with a lot of false confidence, emanating from truckloads of media information but no perspective on how to read it.

However, there’s a reason why the TV problem is worse. In films, at least the numbers being discussed have a physical meaning. They are in Indian Rupees after all. In TV, no one outside the media industry (and some would say, many within it too) knows how to read the ratings data. It’s just a notion, and hence, it is easy to be misdirected by what one sees and reads.

Once in a while, you see a genuine e-mailer based on ratings data that makes you go: “Whoa, that’s some achievement”. But in the clutter of many claims and counter-claims, they just become one of the many things being said.

But while one can debate the idea of good trade communication vs. poor trade communication, there cannot be much debate against the merits of sparing the end consumer of information on TV ratings.

They, the end consumers, are the ratings themselves. If they start watching something because it rates well, we can be caught in an infinite loop of silliness.

By Shailesh Kapoor

Two strikingly contrasting events highlighted the week that was. On Sunday, the season finale episode of TVF Pitchers went online. During the week that followed, BARC India conducted roadshows to share more information on rural ratings. I have written about both these topics here over the last few weeks, but their proximity in time is fascinating, even though it is purely coincidental.

TVF Pitchers achieved a major milestone by featuring on the IMDB Top 250 TV shows charts, where it is currently ranked no. 38, ahead of Friends, Dexter, House Of Cards, and the likes. The show has also received considerable, some would say disproportionate, attention from online media. One such article (by Quartz India) is headlined “How an Internet show on startups delivered a stinging blow to Indian TV”.

TVF Pitchers has watershed qualities to it, a lot more than its predecessor Permanent Roommates. The latter was a romcom, and while it differed from our regular television fare, it was not entirely unfamiliar, especially if you have seen some of the many Bollywood romcoms over the last decade.

But TVF Pitchers enters an area Indian entertainment has never been able to capture authentically – the corporate world. Barring an odd Rocket Singh, most films that have dabbled in this world have caricaturised it, none less than one that was called “Corporate” itself (in which a management trainee gets a cabin to herself, of a size that most CEOs would be envious of). In our TV serials, we hardly see offices anyway, and work is just an excuse to get the men out of the house.

TVF Pitchers manages to bring an authenticity of portrayal, in turn getting the appreciation of a fairly large corporate population of India, across industries. It is corporate but not elitist. It also does not have the shackles of censorship (or self-censorship) around it. It is just intelligent fun.

At about 2 million views per episode, the numbers speak for themselves. But the perspective of mass vs. niche should not be lost here. 2 million is less than 10% of the viewership of an episode of a typical hit Hindi TV show. And these are shows that have hundreds (often thousands) of episodes. We are talking of different degrees altogether.

But the 10% mark may just be the first step in a journey that the ‘parallel TV movement’ may have to make over the next five years. I say “TV” because that’s really what it will compete against. We would need more companies like TVFs and more shows in more genres to grow the market. There are a few others that already exist, but they lack the belief and confidence that shines through TVF Pitchers.

Our mainstream television couldn’t possibly care less about these developments. The rural ratings are round the corner, and the gap between the two worlds is bound to widen. But if the 10% number grows to even 20% over the next year or two, more advertisers, especially those targeting the bigger cities, will begin to evaluate their options. It’s “our kind of TV” after all.

But lest we should get carried away, every online show will not be a TVF Pitchers. And therein lies the real problem, the one of scalability.

Let’s see what the future has in store. Besides, of course, Permanent Roommates Season 2.

By Shailesh Kapoor

In the short history of news television in India, there would be very few weeks as bizarre as the one we are currently in. We are in the middle of a full-blown investigation of the Sheena Bora murder case, unfolding in near real-time across news channels. Everything else has to take a backseat then, including the disturbing state of affairs in Gujarat.

It’s understandable that a high profile murder case would generate audience interest, especially when it has elements that point to decadence of values, much like the Aarushi Talwar murder case. I’m all for running a story that the audience want to watch. But is debating a whodunit with half-a-dozen talking heads the best way of reporting a murder case? I’m not too convinced about that.

That Indrani Mukerjea, the principal accused here, has a broadcasting lineage has created that much extra interest in media offices. If you have spent at least three-four years in the media industry, chances are very high that you are within one degree of separation from everyone else in the industry. It’s easy for journalists to find colleagues and ex-colleagues who knew Indrani. But very few like Ravina Raj Kohli have chosen to go on record with their views.

So, we end up with the same generic talking heads that we see all the time when a non-political story gets prime-time coverage. But when you see Rahul Roy as one of them, you know it’s getting really desperate.

Last month, I read Avirook Sen’s book on the Aarushi murder case. Coming from a journalist who followed the case and the trial all the way through (for Mumbai Mirror), and continues to do so even now, the book was an eyeopener in many ways. I have spent a fair share of my primetime viewing on the Aarushi case, but when I read Sen’s book, I realised how little I knew about the case till then.

I then googled a few news channel videos from the day of the verdict, and even found Sen on-air in a couple of them. But he got only about half a minute to speak on about three occasions, and while you sensed in that short time that he was the one who knew the case better than everyone on the panel, including the anchor, you never got to know his point-of-view in that short period of time.

If viewers are interested in a story, investigative journalism of Sen’s quality would engage them a lot more than debates based on half knowledge and conjectures. But then, that requires some effort, doesn’t it? As Sen says in his book, there were several days in the Talwars trial when he was the only journalist at the Ghaziabad court.

Are news channels getting addicted to this easier way out, where debates from the comfort of the studios are the new form of journalism? It would seem so, going by what we see all the time.

One hopes that there are young journalists with fire in their belly wanting to change that perception!

By Shailesh Kapoor

The ratings provider may have changed, but the definition of the central programme performance measure remains the same. Called TVR % (TAM) earlier, and Rating % (BARC) now, it is a time-weighted measure of the % of universe that watched a programme, effectively connoting the “viewership” of the program.

In primitive days of measurement, TVR % of 25-30 was not uncommon, delivered by blockbuster films such as Hum Aapke Hain Koun. Through the decade of 2000, the best of daily fiction on Star Plus scored in the 13-20 range, led by the K triplet of Kyunkii, Kahaani and Kasautii.

With time, touching 10% became harder, as more channels meant higher fragmentation. An odd film premiere like Main Hoon Naa or 3 Idiots would get close, but even at its most masterfully manipulated high point, a fiction show (I speak of Hindi here, down South is a different story), would hit a glass ceiling at 7-8 TVR.

Over the last two years, the benchmark continues to reduce. No Hindi programme has crossed an average weekly rating of 4% over the last two weeks. For a huge film premiere, 7% is an excellent result, perhaps an equivalent of 10% not too long ago. Even big-ticket cricket doesn’t rate like old times anymore.

In my opinion, GECs have not spent enough time understanding this area over the last five years or so. Yes, there are more channels and the consumer has more to choose from. Much of the trend till 2011-12 could be explained on account of this fragmentation. Digitisation further fuelled fragmentation, acting as a level-playing field for smaller channels, which would lose out in the analogue environment because of poor placement.

But instead of looking at it as a trend, what if we just asked the question: Is it so impossibly difficult to create a programme (daily, weekly, whatever) that only 4% of Hindi-speaking India watches?

For every show that goes on-air, at least five, often more, are considered. That means that there are more than 150 daily fiction shows alone that enter a stage of serious consideration in Hindi GECs every year, not to speak of the weekend options.

A diverse set of producers, some of them channel employees in the past, churn out these concepts. The writer pool that is engaged to work on them is not too diverse though. It’s the same set of writers that freelance for multiple producers, sometimes working on 2-3 running shows, while working on pitches for another couple. The seamless movement of plot points from one show to the other is easy to catch for anyone who follows the category.

It seems, then, that we have caught ourselves in a seemingly vicious circle of the current output becoming the input for future output, and thus, both the current and the future looking remarkably alike. For a consumer, that means “nothing new”.

The Hindi GEC category has been steady at about 1,100 GRPs over the last two years. But no superhero shows have emerged in this period. Admittedly, there is no magic formula to churn out one. But the best bet will be to infuse fresh writing talent into the industry. It’s easier said than done, because a lack of understanding of the daily fiction audiences and its grammar can be genuine roadblocks, as seen in recent examples like Yudh and Everest respectively.

I’m convinced we’ll have a consistent 4+ TVR show sooner than later. I’m curious to see what it will be and how soon it will come our way.

By Shailesh Kapoor

We are a country of many channels. At last count, more than 400 channels have enabled themselves with watermarking that’s a pre-requisite for them to be measured and reported by BARC. About 250 of these have a viewership of at least 0.1 GRPs.

The top 10 channels contribute to 48% of the total TV viewership in the Hindi-speaking markets (HSM). Six Hindi GECs and four Hindi Movie Channels (HMCs) constitute this list. The Top 20 contribute 64% of the total TV viewership. Regional GECs and kids channels find a place in this extended list, along with Hindi GECs and HMCs.

The Top 30 contribute 75%, and the new genres to enter this list are Hindi News and rerun-based Hindi GECs like Star Utsav, Zee Anmol and Rishtey. The tail flattens out here onwards, with the Top 40 contributing 81% and the Top 50 contributing 86%. There is no past data to draw a trend here (BARC vs. TAM is a fallacious comparison), so it is difficult to conclude if the long tail is getting longer. But even as the big guns fight their fierce battles, it’s this long tail that is going to be of increasing interest to potential investors in the broadcasting sector.

Look beyond the Top 30 and you see variety in great measure. Regional channels feature prominently in this list, as do genres like sports, news, music and infotainment. However, there’s no ‘only-in-English’ channel in the Top 90, till the English Movie Channel (EMC) category makes an appearance.

There has always been considerable investor interest in the television business in India, over the last two decades at least. With the advent of digitisation and the (somewhat overrated) phenomenon of non-linear television, this interest is increasingly concentrated on the long tail. It is not to suggest that the GEC category has no need gaps available, but the sheer investment in a mainline GEC can make even the most risk-prone investor think twice.

Hence, the focus seems to be on differentiated ideas that can stand out in the long tail. A common problem, however, seems to be that many of these ideas have the potential of being a long tail champion, but the aspirations and funding requirements of one of the Top 20 players.

Like in the films business, there’s no such thing in TV as a good channel or a bad channel. Every channel is as good or as bad as the ROI it can generate for its investors. The long tail has higher chances of creating such high ROI propositions, but with channels that control budgets to suit the long tail potential.

Thinking regional becomes a smart choice in such a scenario. There are more need gaps in the regional spaces, and like-to-like content costs are 30-70% lower in regional vs. Hindi, depending on the market being targeted.

For every eight new channels launched in the long tail, only one breaks even in its first decade. As we mature as a television market, we will see more long tail channels. But we also hope to see more success stories.