Telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has empanelled Euro RSCG, Mudra, Percept H and Prachar Advertising for its creative business. The account size is pegged at Rs 150 crore. The media biz would be with Motivator that had pitched for the business along with Mudra, and Prachar.
Nikon India, the 100 per cent subsidiary of Nikon Corporation, has made some key new appointments within the company in recent times. Hiroshi Takashina has joined as Division General Manager for the Imaging Division, Sajjan Kumar has joined as General Manager, Sales & Marketing, Jitender Chugh has joined as National Sales Manager and Khushraho Kapadia has joined as the Senior Marketing Manager. All the four professionals with their combined expertise and experiences would be assisting Managing Director Hidehiko Tanaka. In addition, Nikon has also appointed Regional Sales Managers and several more executives.
NDTV Convergence has joined hands with widget developer SocialTwist to promote its content online via word of mouth. The association allows NDTV.com’s web pages to be powered by a ‘Tell-a-Friend’ button that enables NDTV content to be shared through email, Instant Messengers (chat), blogs, social networks, and bookmarking sites.
TRAI on December 31, 2008, announced its decision to extend the deadline to January, 10, 2009, for receiving comments from stakeholders on the consultation paper related to the quality of service (QoS) issues for cable television in non-CAS areas and for DTH services.
Lintas Media Group Chennai has been assigned the media mandate for Oriental Cuisines Pvt Ltd. Oriental Cuisines run a chain of bakeries, food courts and restaurants in Chennai, and is now expanding across the country.
When it comes to creativity, agencies are expected to be anything but mundane or routine. True to their calling, agencies have been at their wackiest best in saying Sayonara to 2008 and Bonjour to 2009. exchange4media wades through some of the interesting greetings that would bring a smile for a long time to come.
TAM Media Research’s ratings of the last week of 2008 are here. The Hindi general entertainment genre has had a good year-end. The ratings were especially noteworthy for Colors as the channel has recorded it highest ever GRP of 255. Star Plus led the genre with 295 GRPs and Zee TV took the third slot with 191 GRPs. Sony and Star One were near about neck and neck, followed by NDTV Imagine. SAB, 9X and Sahara One follow in that order.
Continuing with the overview of the Hindi general entertainment genre in 2008, in the second part of this report, exchange4media finds from industry players about what worked and what didn’t work in 2008, as well as the way ahead and key drivers in 2009.
2009 has set in and with begin the implementation of plans for the year ahead. exchange4media undertook a dipstick study recently to find out what all rank high on the FM players’ wishlist this year. The year promises to be an action-packed one for the industry with quite a few important developments lined up.
ET TV, the business news channel from the Times Group, is all geared to meet its first quarter 2009 launch deadline. In a recent internal announcement, Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, Publishing, BCCL, said, “In what is perhaps a global first, the Times Group is working on a convergence model that will make it possible for print, television and online to work together.” This structure is being put together for The Economic Times brand for now.
This economic slowdown is affecting everyone globally, But again, look at it dispassionately. India is not going to grow at 9-10 per cent. Let’s take a worst case scenario – 5-5.5 per cent or 6-7 per cent. But the rest of the world is in recession, so we are ahead of them. The wise companies are saying that this is the opportune moment to get in because at this time you will get valuations that are very attractive. Eventually, I believe this downturn in India will last for a maximum 18-24 months on the outside. We would be out of it faster than the rest of the world. The rest of the world many take more than two years.