'Cricket, elections offer premium opportunity for advertisers & TV news'

Cricket and elections are two of the biggest mass gatherings that bring people from across the country together. This attracts a lot of attention from the advertising industry as there is a huge potential to create an impact beyond just the reach and frequency of advertisements.

These events offer a premium opportunity for advertisers to deliver effective campaigns that can make a significant impact on the TV news industry and their target audience.

At the e4m NewsNext Summit 2024, media industry leaders came together to discuss the possibilities and strategies of how 2024 could become a breakthrough year for TV news revenue.

The panellists included Rajiv Dubey, Head of Media, Dabur India, Deepali Naair, Group CMO, CK Birla Group, Mehraj Dube, Founder, Managing Partner, Your Next Orbit, Sanath Khullar, Director, Vishesh Promoters and moderated by Vivek Malhotra, Group CMO, COO, India Today Group.

Vivek Malhotra, the moderator, initiated the discussion by asking Desai to share his thoughts on how news consumption has evolved and how advertisers interpret this change.

Rajiv Dubey, Head of Media, Dabur India started by sharing the journey of how consumers used to discover news earlier and now. “If you look back thirty years back, you used to discover news through your newspaper or say there used to be one news bulletin at 9:00. However, today news is on the go. So, you have a popup on the screen every second every minute of the day,” Dubey highlighted.

“As a news channel or a news provider, one has to look at how the consumer journey maps up and where all say advertisers can fit in,” he added, sharing the way advertisers could interpret the change.

Deepali emphasized on the need to build an omni-channel brand to cope up with the changes in the TV news industry. “In the past, it was easy for advertisers to understand consumer behavior and their preferences in terms of where they were spending their time. However, now, there are frequent surprises that come up every 12 to 18 months, which makes it difficult for advertisers to keep up with what's working and what's not”, she mentioned.

"If a brand is only present on one platform, they will lose consumers who are active on other platforms. The only way to keep consumers engaged is to be present everywhere" she added.

Talking about the new trends going on in the industry, Kullar marked 2024 as a very important year for the Indian media industry due to the occurrence of several significant events, including the IPL, the 20-20 World Cup, general elections, and three state elections, which mark the elections.

Referring to the growth of revenue in the TV news industry, Kullar mentioned that the revenue will definitely increase because the viewer ships are increasing day by day, ultimately leading to an increase in revenue.

Moving forward, highlighting the complex challenges faced by advertisers in the news industry, Deepali highlighted, “The news genre may remain the same but the further fragmentation that has happened on account of the platforms that are available has made the advertisers job extremely complex now.”

“I think 2024 is definitely going to be a big influential year and it's going to influence all of us on what we think and how we do, and how we handle TV news because it'll force us to rethink and reinvent ourselves," Mehraj Dube shared. Moreover, he highlighted that even before revenue, product and perception really play a big role in promoting growth in TV news revenue.

Taking a cue from what Mehraj said, Deepali shared, “There was a point of time when Hollywood movies were just movies. But now they have become huge merchandise and marketing opportunities to make money for the producers and also to create excitement for people.

Additionally, Naair highlighted that TV news has the potential to reimagine how they report on elections, using a completely different format to create a unique and engaging experience. This could help bring back the appeal of TV news and differentiate it from social media coverage. The format could be either an Omni-channel version or something that is exclusive to TV and cannot be replicated on social media.

Giving a sneak peek into the future, Dube shared how we can utilize the 2024 opportunity to make the revenue more permanent and not just limited to the election cycle. He suggested that advertisers should keep advertising on a specific genre and ensure that they spend enough money to make a significant impact.

In conclusion, Sanath suggested that the media should act as a bridge between the events on the ground and those in power. He said that platforms like YouTube may have credibility issues due to the prevalence of fake news, but CRI channels have no such problems. Even if they don't cover a particular news story, viewers can be assured that the news TV news cover is 100% accurate. Therefore, consumers are likely to return to TV news channels to confirm the news accuracy.