Day 2....TV.NXT 2011... Place: J W Marriott, Mumbai

Place: J W Marriott, Mumbai ..Day 2....TV.NXT 2011.

After a sumptuous breakfast the panel discussion entitled “Tyranny of the single TV home” began. It was anchored by Vanita Kohli Khandekar, the speakers were Ravi Rao (Mindshare Fulcrum), Shruti Bajpai (HBO-Asia), Seema Mohapatra ( BBC Advertising), Monica Tata (Turner International India) and Farshad Family (The Nielsen Company).

L To R: Vanita Kohli Khandekar, the speakers were Ravi Rao (Mindshare Fulcrum), Shruti Bajpai (HBO-Asia), Seema Mohapatra ( BBC Advertising), Monica Tata (Turner International India) and Farshad Family (The Nielsen Company).

Monica felt that the word “Tyranny” in the topic title was too harsh. She explained that as per the dictionary “tyranny” means, cruel and arbitrary use of authority, which is not correct. As per Monica it is not tyranny, it is more of a challenge from the point of view of the Indian family with single TV homes. She said buying one more TV is not an option for them, maybe these single TV homes would like to buy something else instead of a second TV. Moreover single TV viewing binds the family she added.

Seema was not sure as to what kind of people will have a second TV in their homes. She felt that in India, there are more social reasons to have a second TV. Seema was also of the opinion that in future TV buying will go down as more and more are choosing other platforms to view content. In US, from 99% TV homes it has come down to 95 to 96 % TV homes because of other media platforms. In a nutshell, channel viewing behaviour of a consumer has changed and is changing.

Shruti And Seema..Empowering Media

Shruti felt that TV watching has further fragmented and second TV in a household may not be the call of the times. She added along with Monica that in India we have probably missed the time for that second TV home. May be the Indians have leapfrogged directly to new platforms and the young Indians are consuming these platforms.
Farshad talked about the other screens at home apart from TV, which are helping the households to consume content differently. He added that India is a young country and the new generation is adapting more and more new media platforms, hence the need for the second TV in its present avatar may be redundant.

Ravi felt that multiple TV homes increases the viewership of niche channels, which in turn leads to fragmentation of the society.

From 11:30 to 12 noon the topic was “Thought Leadership – An Aggregators Guide to TV and New Media”. the participants were Anil Arjun and James Hannafin of Reliance Media Works. The ppt provided by the experts was more of a PR exercise for Reliance.

 I skipped the panel discussion on “Consolidation in Distribution – a force for good.”

  Paritosh Joshi (Star CJ Home Shopping)  Sunil Lulla (Times TV Network), Tarun Katiyal (Reliance Broadcast Network), Devendra Parulekar (Ernst & Young), Ashok Venkatramani (MCCS India) and Raman Kalra (IBM Global Business Services).

Post lunch Paritosh Joshi (Star CJ Home Shopping) took the centre stage as anchor for the panel discussion –The future of television. For a change the panellists in this discussion were vibrant. The speakers were Sunil Lulla (Times TV Network), Tarun Katiyal (Reliance Broadcast Network), Devendra Parulekar (Ernst & Young), Ashok Venkatramani (MCCS India) and Raman Kalra (IBM Global Business Services).

Pratish asssured the audience that they would not get the chance to drowse off, after that heavy lunch as “this is a loud panel”. The entire discussion was based on the question “what will be the future of TV 10 years down the line?” Raman felt that TV will continue to inform and entertain, how content is aggregated generated, distributed and consumed will change.

Tarun said “there will not be large mass consumption of TV as time spent viewing is reducing day by day. A lot of content creation will also change with the changing technology.

Ashok made it clear that content companies in future will continue to deliver the content agnostic of the platform.  

The lunch break...

Sunil Lulla said that 40 % homes in India don’t have a TV because they don’t have a home. However he felt that 10 yrs hence these 40 % people who cannot watch TV today, may be watching porn because of the easy availability of various media platforms, as technology will cater to their needs.

Devenrda said that capability of uni casting or multicasting the content will be the future of broadcast.

The Coffee Break...

After the coffee break, the audience were waiting to hear the man whose name is synonymous with advertising in India. Sam Balsara. The topic was “Is air time in India overpriced.” Sam’s opening remarks were “your point of view and answer should not necessarily be based on fact, ultimately it’s your perception of things that make you understand them.” He then presented the advertisers point of view, wherein

·        The ratings of the channel were dropping sharply

·        Clutter increasing dramatically

·        Advertisers unable to make an impact on TV in the present situation

He then gave the example of Cinthol Lime from the house of Godrej, one commercial spot on 4 slots on Mahabharat on Sunday in a month’s time picked up 5.3% of the market share. 18 yrs hence the same agency launches its product with a thousand different spots on a daily basis but the market share doesn’t move more than 1 %.  

·        Today the cost of reaching the Indian customer is very high compared to his buying potential and his per capita income.

·        Poor accountability on account of broadcasters, no assurance of audiences and not even carrying committed inventory.

The real issue, Sam felt was, that the Indian market is still small and not adequately growing.

Mukesh Sharma (Doordarshan) and Sam Balsara on the same platform

Media Owner point of view:-

·        Dramatic increase in TV owning households (more than 100 million C/S homes)

·        CPT v/s CPRP (what basis were TV inventory sold) simple argument is, when print is sold on CPT, then why is TV sold on CPRP basis.

·        Advertisers taking advantage of media owners’ vulnerability.

·        Advertisers do not seem t be recognising the important role of media owner or brand building which delivers lasting value to the advertisers.

·        Indian TV rates among the lowest in the world.

·        Clutters level not so high.

·        Channel production costs are hitting the roof.

·        Carriage fee and production costs rising dramatically.

The real Issue:- the advertising market in India is just too small and advertiser and agencies are not doing enough to help it grow. It is about 27,000 crore out of which 10,000 crore is TV market. China at US$ 40 billion is 8 times ahead of us in terms of volume.

Engrossed Sam's Audience

Coming back to the advertisers point of view, Sam felt that TV is definitely cheaper than most of the other media, but the effectiveness of TV has dropped sharply, so this should be a concern for broadcasters, as the advertisers can always opt for digital media.

Sam also gave the example of upward cycle and downward cycle. He said that channels fail to recognise that ads are an intermediate product and not a consumption product. He gave the example of upward cycle wherein the programme Rajni on Doordarshan, with just 10 episodes delivered to Godrej, what the company couldn’t achieve through KBC. This was a downward cycle. 

Prashant Pandey of Radio Mirchi, and the speakers were, Rohit Gupta (Multiscreen Media), Raj Naik (Colours), Puneetha Armugam(Madison Media India), Baskar S (Amagi) and Bijay Subramaniam (Disney India Media solutions).

The last session of the day was the panel discussion on “Advertising innovation- missing in action”. The anchor was Prashant Pandey of Radio Mirchi, and the speakers were, Rohit Gupta (Multiscreen Media), Raj Naik (Colours), Puneetha Armugam(Madison Media India), Baskar S (Amagi) and Bijay Subramaniam (Disney India Media solutions).

There is nothing much to report in this panel discussion, Sam’s presentation was the icing of the conference and truly worth reporting.

Day One...TV.NXT at JW Marriott ,Mumbai

     On September 29^th  faces behind the camera from the media sector, started emerging and converging at JW Marriott as early as 9am.  The company to organize this event was afaqs! The gathering was to attend the two day conference - TV.NXT .

After networking tea, registration and the welcome address by Prassanna Singh of afaqs! the day began on a sombre note. Then came the most important part of the meet, the overview of the report, on the Indian media industry and its future trends was presented by Vivek Couto (Media Partners).  

A speaker at TV.NXT in Mumbai

Highlights of the Report

1.     Global Media, increasing exposure to India

Sony, News Corp., Walt Disney, Viacom, Time Warner & Discovery will increase their presence in the Indian Sub continent.

2. India TV sector sales i.e TV distribution and TV advertising will reach more than US $15 Billion by 2016

3. By 2016 the CAGR in TV Markets of US will be 3.45%, China 10.3%, UK 2.5%, India 12.1%, Indonesia 16.0%.

4. Indian TV advertising will grow at a CAGR of 15% by 2016

5. As of today Indian TV markets stand at no.5, after Japan, China, Australia and Korea. But by 2016 India will overtake Australia and Korea to be the 3rd largest market in the Asia Pacific region.

Full report can be read at afaqs!.com.

Richard Fernandes Key note Speaker with Mukesh  Sharma, DD

  The Key note Address “Creating hits across the tv, mobile and the internet-the do's and the dont's” was read by Richard Fernandes ( Turner Broadcasting  System Asia Pacific).

He emphasised on the use of Multimedia platforms for the broadcasters. He opined that TV watching is a passive activity. It needs to be clubbed with other media platforms to make the viewing interactive. Clubbing tv , mobile & laptop will garner better results for broadcasters. Richard suggested that broadcasters in the concept developmental stage should work out if the content will work for all platforms. 

         Panel Discussion: Do Investors make money in TV business.

Pre Lunch Panel Discussion: Do Investors make money in TV business.

Anchor: Vivek Couto ( Media Partners Asia)

Speakers: Bala Deshpande (NEA India), Manjit Singh (Multi Screen Media), Jayant Mathew (Malayala Manorma ) and MK Anand (UTV Broadcasting).

Bala felt that "media sector can be highly profitable". Darius was of the opinion that "most creative people are not the best commercial people. We need to look at the best of both". Jayant Mathew from the print media informed all about the journey of Malyala Manorma to the electronic medium, more so their change over from journalism to entertainment segment. MK Anand of UTV felt that a team at the right place can create profits to any upcoming or new brand. To him TV business was like a real estate, quite safe & profitable. In a response to a public broadcaster as to why a health channel is not being perceived by the broadcasters as a profitable venture? These were the famous words uttered by MK Anand of UTV: "As long as the channels live on ad support, no one would like to cater to old and poor, only the rich and youth will be looked after. Hence a health channel may not find a place in this country." Indeed famous last words of this session.

Many facets of the conference

 After the coffee break Phu Truong of BBC Worldwide was invited to talk about “Thought Leadership- The power of Content”. He started by saying that we tell stories to keep dreams and hopes alive, to make people laugh, to bring out emotions etc. The power of content of BBC lies in its in-depth coverage, impartial presentation, stimulating content.  He shared that BBC has learned 5 things over the years.

1. Tell the story that fits the page.

2. Tell the stories where people want to hear them. (the device etc.)

3. Never underestimate more. (if users want more information, pl provide)

4. Don't be afraid when people tell you their stories (we must respect if people  want to talk to us)

5. Be true to what you started in the first place. (don't change your vision statement just to make profits)

A session in progress

Pre –lunch panel discussion-2-  Getting the game right in sports broadcasting

Anchor:- Sundeep Misra, Network 1 Media.

Speakers:- Sharmista Rijhwani (Independent Media advisor), Anish Dayal (Adv Supreme Court of India), Prasana Krishnan (Neo Sports), Sanjay Trehan (MSN India).

Sanjay felt that sports broadcasters should realise that the audience have shifted base from TV to new technologies, hence the broadcasters should now take a call from the audience point of view rather than just monetization opportunities.

Prasana from NEO was of the opinion that there is an opportunity for regional sports channels.

L.V Krishnan CEO TAM Media Research

Sharmista emphasised that cricket will continue to have its place over and above all other sports and with IPL there is no turning back now.

Anish Dayal the advocate felt that stealing footage from the right holder broadcaster is one major issue that all channels are facing. He added that it is better for broadcasters to issue guidelines vis-a-vis use of their footage. He narrated his experience about the problem he faced with the Public Broadcaster during India Pakistan cricket series. Mr. Mukesh Sharma Deputy D G marketing and Sales of Prasar Bharati, clarified DD’s position vis-a-vis cricket rights.

The TAM team at work

After a well laid out sumptuous lunch at J W Marriott, the broadcasters were back in business and the post lunch topic was “Thought Leadership – Redefining the Indian TV viewer – the new SEC” by L V Krishnan (CEO TAM Media) and Sharan Sharma (TAM).

Through a power point presentation the TAM team gave insight of the new classification system which it tends to bring out. This system will take care of both urban and rural audience measurement since the cable penetration has now entered into the rural  areas significantly.

Phu Truong of BBC Worldwide 

After the coffee break Sreekant Khandekar (AFAQS!) spoke to Sailesh Rao of Google on “Why TV firms need to take new media seriously”

Sailesh Rao (Google) gave quite an insight on youtube videos and how in the last couple of years the uploading of videos have doubled per minute, i.e. 48 hours of video every minute. Youtube boxoffice has also become very popular to watch films. There is a significant rise of youtube on mobile devices. Over 100 million people are active on the internet today making it the main form of media consumption. He summed up to say that “It is more important to go to where people are than wait for them to come for the first time to you. Youtube is doing this”

Last Session of the Day

The last panel discussion of the day was – “Why content firms can’t seem to scale up”

The anchor Vanita Kohli Khandekar (Business Standard) threw open the discussion for the panellists to analyse that in spite of the fact that the TV market has grown to more than 15000 cr, the maximum annual turnover of a production house still hovers around 150 cr which is miniscule. The speakers namely Anil Arjun (Reliance Media Works), Sunman Sood (Acendo Capital), Karan Ahluwalia (Yes Bank), Richard Fernandes (Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific) and B Srinivasan (Vikatan Televistas) shared their experiences with the audience but did not impress much. 

Mukesh Sharma Deputy DG Mktg , Doordarshan at TV.NXT

In fact it looked like one of the speakers had not done his homework when asked “what was the age of television in India?” he thought that TV broadcasting started in this country around the 70’s. One of the audience had to inform him of the correct date which was 15th September 1959, in order to set the record straight. At one stage it looked like the TV broadcasting in this country appeared to have started when the satellite channels started beaming in India in the 90’s. They pretended to forget the national broadcaster Doordarshan, maybe because they can never match its sheer reach and the nation building work it did after Independence.