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Which is precisely what L. V. Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research, declared, following it up with, "The advantage lies with those who cover it best"; and went on to let us into the fact of how consumers really don't care who they hear the news from — first. "You can be the first to 'break the news', but what's the point if you're not going to cover it and run with it till the end? The viewer will pick the news off your channel, and if it interests him, will channel-surf till he gets to the one, which is covering it best," he adds. He went on to express that the Indian viewer wants not only choice but, values expertise far above that.
This is just one of the insights shared on August 18, at the CNBC TV18 Story Board-DNA hosted interactive panel on the steaming subject of 'News vs. News: Will Indian Consumers Get The Best Of Both Worlds?' The panel consisted of L. V. Krishnan (CEO TAM Media Research), Vikram Sakhuja (MD, MindShare Fulcrum), Rajdeep Sardesai (Promoter, Broadcast News), Gautam Adhikari (Editor, DNA) and Uday Shankar (CEO, STAR News) and was moderated by the CNBC TV18's Anuradha Sengupta.
In a country with more than 16 major news channels and more than 55,000 newspapers, this subject of discussion was long over due — especially with the current burst of newspapers and channels we're being bombarded with of late. One question that comes to the mind is: is there a sufficient amount of revenue to support this influx? And do we have enough people in this country to watch/read all this news being spewed up? Well, evidently, if facts are anything to go by, there is, and we do.
Adhikari saw the country's growth as the catalyst to the media explosion. He pointed out that the Indian economy was currently in the infancy stage of growth; growing at about seven per cent every year; and this growth rate is expected to be sustained for the next two or three years. This means that the Indian economy is at a stage now, where it can witness a lot of new activity, and that's exactly what is happening. The cities of India, especially, are growing rapidly; and that is leading to a huge change in the market as it is demographically moving downwards age wise; and upwards momentum wise. The market has become extremely competitive which is why "Mumbai is the perfect place to launch a paper," as Adhikari puts it. Moving out of the cities, even now, there is a huge untapped potential audience. More and more channels and newspapers are realising now, that regional reporting is the way to go.
Shankar gave the example of how within the first three months of it being on air, STAR Ananda (the Bengali news channel) had 350,000 viewers. Referring to it, he said, "Current news channels are not losing any of their viewers — it was just a gap which was not being serviced." And the gap between the quantity of news channels required to tap these regions and news channels provided so far is huge, which actually explains why there are over 30 news channel licence applications pending approval with the Government.
Until about three years ago, the news reporting scene in India was very different. There were only three major news channels — STAR News (in its old avatar), Aaj Tak and Zee News — and each region of the country was dominated by one or two newspapers at most. The packaging of all the news channels was similar; they were all reporting the same thing; and most of the newspaper headlines matched. "Only through competition," said Krishnan, "do people become aware of their viewers". And it is only now that the media industry has realised that the only way they can keep people interested and sustain themselves; is by differentiating themselves from their peers more aggressively. Long gone are the days when the viewer would be faithful to any channel obsessed with the Government or politics.
To read the entire article, buy a copy of Impact Advertising and Marketing magazine dated August 22-28