Rewind 2013: It was a year of loggerheads for the TV industry - Sunil Lulla

Five things that I think defined some mega-shifts in the world of social media in 2013:

Virality is dead! Long live Social Media
When social networks first came into being, it was christened as earned media, and marketing gurus went at length to explain how digital brand strategy needs to encompass owned media, paid media and earned media. Now for all practical purposes, ‘virality’ is dead. You can buy ‘fans’ and ‘followers’. You can buy ‘likes’ and ‘views’. Pretty much every social media metric is up for sale. Useless content, with money behind it, can sit at the top of your timeline while un-promoted good content could be languishing. Social networking sites that promised a democratic consumer-brand relationship, have now all become IPO-enabled corporations with bottom line thinking. In effect, putting an end to the concept of earned media.

One World, One UX
The UX (user interface) for the top three SNS seems to be now converging. Facebook-introduced concept of trending, LinkedIn is trying very hard to make its wall the centre of communication for the community and Twitter now allows images to be seen in the timeline itself. While each SNS hangs on to its specific TG and objective, the UX across these SNS seems to be converging to a best-of-breed across these platforms.

Google gets off the social networking race
So, finally Google Plus has stopped positioning itself as a social network. Nobody and his uncle seem to be using Google Plus. It is instead trying to remain relevant to the concept of crowdsourcing of communication by introducing the concept of authorship and author rank.

Social Media Listening: A gold mine
Brands are finally waking up to the power of social media listening. For the first time in the history of brand kind, one can listen to real time conversation between authentic consumers. Brands are now beginning to use social media as a real time research tool.

Of the People, For the People and By the People
The outrage expressed by citizens on social networks during the Nirbhaya gang rape case galvanised the bureaucracy and the Government into action. The ruling class is beginning to realise how faceless commoners can quickly mobilise mass opinion. Talks by ministers of censoring social media are testament to its true power.

Hareesh Tibrewala is Joint CEO, Social Wavelength.
 

With the falling GDP, rising prices and depreciating Rupee, the year 2013 was tough for several sectors of the economy. Marketers lowered their growth targets and slashed budgets to overcome crisis. Many ad agencies faced the heat, but there were some agencies that witnessed a profitable year.

Dentsu India considers 2013 to be a good year as the agency reported 60 per cent growth over the previous year. The Dentsu India Group also acquired 80 per cent stake in Webchutney, one of India’s leading digital agencies, taking a big leap forward by strengthening its digital capabilities with this acquisition. With this deal, Dentsu bought Capital18’s stake in the agency. It will be interesting to see how the agency adopts an integrated approach and delivers the best possible solution for brands.

Meanwhile, the Southern network of Dentsu kicked in with important business wins such as MRF, TVS and a few others. In the North, Dentsu won the creative mandate for Akzo Nobel and Toshiba.

Rohit Ohri, Executive Chairman, Dentsu India Group and Soumitra Karnik, National Creative Director, Dentsu India Group talk about how the year has been for the agency in terms of major acquisitions, business wins, good campaigns and the challenges faced.

Watch the video to know more…
 

The year 2013 started with a row between two of the major publishing houses –Bennett, Coleman & Co’s Times Publishing House (TPH) and UK-based Pearson-owned daily Financial Times. Both the parties locked horns over the right to the title of ‘Financial Times’ in Supreme Court.

IRS shows readership slide continues
Seven out of 10 Hindi magazines continued to decline, while language dailies showed some growth in different regions. English magazines witnessed the worst quarter, whereas Hindi and English dailies showed mix performance.

Print players were expecting the new IRS version in December, but it has got delayed. Though Nielsen and MRUC promised error free, transparent and large sample data to the print players this year, the latest readership numbers are yet to be released even though the pilot study took off in March 2013, while the field was work initiated in May 2013.

End game for many titles
The Times of India’s decision to shut down its elite weekly supplement ‘Crest’ surprised readers and industry experts alike.

The Outlook Group also decided to close down its international titles – ‘People’, ‘Geo’ and ‘Marie Claire’. This decision was a wake-up call to magazine owners as the industry has been bleeding in terms of revenues.

Major players such as The Times of India, Dainik Jagran and The Hindu admitted that the Rupee depreciation had significantly impacted their revenues. The fall of the Rupee also led to some of the smaller magazines to shutdown their operations, while others hiked their cover price to survive.

Mergers & Acquisitions
The print industry saw no major announcements of merger or acquisition during 2013. The news of Delhi Press acquiring Business Standard Motoring and the sale of BusinessWorld magazine by the ABP Group, however, made it to the headlines.

During 2012, two major print players were actively negotiating to buy Amar Ujala in an attempt to get a foothold in the Hindi print market. Though the buy-out didn’t materialise in 2013, the industry saw an unexpected attempt by Rajul Maheshwari and his family, founders and promoters of Amar Ujala, to buy back 14 per cent of the company’s stake from the Agarwal family.

Surprises galore...
The year also experienced some controversial appointments and resignations. Some of the leading print editors resigned from their respective organisations to join social media companies.

In March 2013, Dainik Jagran confirmed the resignation of its MD & CEO, Manajit Ghoshal from the English tabloid, Mid Day.

Even as the magazine industry was already reeling under the shock of closures and price hikes, the management at Forbes India took a surprise decision by asking four of its top editorial hats – Editor Indrajit Gupta, Managing Editor Charles Assisi, Executive Editor Shishir Prasad and Director of Photography Dinesh Krishnan to leave.

Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, Indian Express announced his decision to relinquish his charge as CEO of The Indian Express Group in an internal mail to the employees. The year also saw Chaitanya Kalbag stepping down as Editor of Business Today.

The year 2013 also witnessed some controversial resignations. In October, Siddharth Varadarajan tweeted his resignation over a row with the management of the English daily The Hindu. Following his footsteps, MK Venu, Executive Editor, The Hindu, also turned to Twitter to announce his resignation, citing the same reasons as Vardarajan’s. The Hindu also lost its CEO Arun Anant in the same week.

Hartosh Singh Bal, Political Editor, Open Magazine, too, chose Twitter to tender his resignationin the second week of November.

But perhaps the most shocking incident not just in print media, but the entire journalism profession was Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal being accused of sexual misconduct by one of his junior female colleagues. Tejpal subsequently announced his decision to “recuse” himself from his duties as Editor of the magazine for six months as “atonement” for the incident. He is currently in police custody. The mishandling of the entire incident also cost Shoma Chaudhary her position as Managing Editor of Tehelka.

Indian television industry has emerged as the latest illustration of how India leapfrogs many nations. This is what makes India both exciting and dynamic.

The television landscape in India has transformed exponentially over the past two decades. Every participant of the industry has witnessed a sea-change in technology, consumption and growth. This transformation has come with its fair share of challenges and opportunities. The transformation from analogue to digital has undoubtedly been the most significant change stories ever witnessed by any industry in India.

With digitisation spreading its territories and gaining foothold through Phases 3 and 4, I expect a lot more of the same; but overshadowing everything else, I envision a very bright future for the Indian TV industry.

At Discovery, we have been preparing for this environment. We realised that in the digital era the viewers will transcend towards well-defined and high-quality channels. Anticipating this trend, in the last three years we increased our channel portfolio from three to eight networks, launched multiple language feeds across brands and continued to bring innovative content to suit viewers’ preference – be it the launch of Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, Discovery HD World or our second Discovery feed in India – Discovery Tamil as well as Discovery Kids in three languages – English, Hindi and Tamil.

In this new digital era, we continue to believe that TV will remain the dominant screen.

Innovation will become more significant than ever. How a channel markets itself will define its success. Marketing strategies will have to be rehashed to become sharper and more focused. Television will provide something for everyone, making it imperative to talk to each audience set individually. The viewer will have to feel, talk and experience the brand. Brand differentiation will become the core value. It is no longer about buzz; conversation and community are important. Marketers will have to think of ways to become part of viewers’ conversations and discussions to build affinity with the brand.

This new phase of Indian television has dramatically changed our outlook towards content creation, brand differentiation and above all, the economics of the television business. It has significantly enhanced the television viewing experience and alongside, has had a matching impact on our society.

Digitisation marks a turning point for the industry, and I am confident that the industry will continue to respond with commitment and innovation.

The author is Senior Vice President and General Manager, South Asia and Head of Revenue, Pan-Regional Ad Sales and South East Asia, Discovery Networks.
 

Just about everything in the media Industry is disruptive. We are in the process of at least two or three massive tectonic shifts that are taking place, and each ofthem is disrupting the entire the business model. It is a good thing, particularly as things haven’t been working very well for broadcasters.

The first disruption is with digitisation, as benefits are still to be seen on the ground, which is something unfortunate. Benefits from the point of view of subscription money are not flowing to the broadcasters, but we are hoping that it will happen four or five months from now.

A second major disruption is going to be change in ratings.

But if you asking for one specific innovation that is going to shake up everything, I think a lot of things are going to be on digital format – for example, where are people watching videos, are they watching on standard television or watching on apps or are they watching them online?

From NDTV’s point of view, we have already launched two products that are disruptive and a little ahead of the times as you’ll see the full potential of things rolling out in two to three years. The first product is the second screen, which enables you to use your gadgets in your hand and dictate the content on the television screen. Viewers can tell anchors which question you want to ask. We are using this in all our programming. The second major disruptive product is the NDTV Play List, which is also ahead of its times and enables you to do on your news. You can create your own window and watch the stories, post it own Twitter and so on. In short, it gives you the power to customise your news in your way.

The author is CEO, NDTV Group.

The radio sector is still waiting for a final resolution on migration to Phase III, even as the existing licenses will start expiring by 2015. Despite this, private radio operators that exchange4media spoke to arestill upbeat about the year.  Let’s take a look at some of the key happenings that defined the radio industry in 2013.

The elusive case of Phase III auctions
Private radio operators were hoping for a resolution to the migration quandary, but the issue has got delayed once again. Operators now hope that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) will bring clarity (and the auctions) sometime early in 2014. Primary among the concerns are clarity on the migration fee and the actual process of migration.

Ravi Nair, Director – Programmes for Kerala-based Radio Mango remarked, “There was a lot of anticipation that the Phase III auctions would finally happen this year. I think most private operators spent the year consolidating their business and preparing for the auctions in terms of arranging funding. However, the bidding has still not happened.”

The frequent delays are worrying operators since their current licenses will begin expiring from 2015. Earlier in December, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) invited radio operators to share their views regarding the proposed migration to Phase III of FM broadcasting. An open house to discuss the suggestions is expected to be held early in January 2014 and operators hope that it will speed up the auction process.

Private operators still banned from airing news programmes
This has been a bone of contention between the Government and private FM operators for quite some time. A PIL has already been filed by social activist Prashant Bhushan this year regarding this and the Supreme Court has also questioned the Government regarding the existing ban. As a sop to operators, the Government has provisioned that they can carry “unaltered” AIR news content under Phase III, however, operators are far from satisfied. “In the current form (as offered under Phase III), it does not make any sense. News is available across all media, so why is the Government targeting only radio?” asked Ashwin Padmanabhan, National Head, Big FM.

Nair also agreed that the Government’s argument that radio channels are not mature enough to carry news content is weak. “We need more licenses to operate than even TV channels, so no one can be irresponsible, no one wants to damage their image,” he said. Sooner or later, the Government will have to end its monopoly on news on the airwaves, but for now the wait continues.

Radio operators invested in innovative content
An important change in operator and brand outlook towards radio was the recognition of the importance of content. Nair agreed that clients have realised that radio is not just about reach, one needs to also have great content as well. According to Padmanabhan, a new trend in 2013 was investments being made in creating daily shows as well as branded content, which he sees becoming a major trend in 2014.

Radio showed strong growth in non-metro cities
This year, too, radio witnessed strong growth in terms of ad spends and popularity in non-metro cities. Earlier this year, My FM, which operates in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Indore, Amritsar, Nagpur, etc., hiked its ad rates by 20 per cent due to high demand for its inventory in non-metro markets. Even operators such as Red FM had announced a 20 per cent hike rates across all cities, including non-metros, and this strong performance in non-metros continued throughout the year.

“2013 has been a good year. Metros did better as compared to last year. Tier II and Tier III cities have also been doing really well. I have always believed that the next level of growth in radio will come from the non-metro cities and 2013 was a reflection of this,” commented Nisha Narayanan, COO, Red FM. According to Nair, ad rates for cities such as Kochi were almost at par with the metros.

TV ad cap issues pushed advertisers to radio
Private radio operators saw a lot of first time advertisers in 2013, along with the usual suspects – telecom, FMCG, retail, etc. One reason for this was the ongoing ad cap issue in TV, which caused advertisers to look at other options. “We have seen some categories such as TV shows increasing their spending on radio and I expect some others to do so too. What we saw in 2013 was that some brands which earlier did not believe in radio have started doing so after a few campaigns. They have realised the advantages of radio, like it is customisable, you can regionalise it, and so on,” said Narayanan.

Padmanabhan added here that the radio sector saw significant spends from the SME sector, especially in the last four months of 2013. According to him, the ad cap challenge has led SMEs to look at radio as a serious medium when it comes to providing reach.
 

Ashish Bhasin, ‎Chairman, India and CEO, South East Asia, Aegis Group, talks about the significant trends of 2013 in an exclusive video report to exchange4media. 

Bhasin believes that 2013 will always be remembered as the year that was the tipping point for digital. “Because the market environment was tough, this was the first time that above the line advertising came under pressure and the value of below the line, through the line, digital and out of home increased. The ratio of above the line and below the line is going to change in favour of below the line,” he observed.

According to Bhasin, 2013 has also been the year of consolidation, wherein Publicis and Omnicom announced their intentions of coming together and the Dentsu Aegis merger took place. “There have been a lot of consolidatory moves, going forward this trend will only continue. Particularly in the television industry, you will see a lot of consolidation now in the media owner’s side,” he concluded.  

To know more watch the video…