Our mantra is to deliver brand safety at scale: Vishal Bhatnagar, BBC Global News

BBC Global News Sales Director for South Asia Vishal Bhatnagar who leads the advertising sales teams across three South Asia sales offices and is responsible for domestic and international advertising sales for BBC Global News’ digital and broadcast assets in South Asia including BBC.com and BBC World News shares his thoughts on the TRP scam’s impact on the news genre, BBC’s new initiative on brand safety and much more. 

Excerpts:

How has the festive period been for the news genre and BBC World News? 

Frankly, the market didn't expect the festive season to be as robust as it turned out to be this year for certain categories. It's been a surprise to a certain extent how quickly markets and marketing spend ramped up the moment we went into Unlock 1.1. Initially, there was a bit of uncertainty as to what level of retail would be permitted. Or how and what will be available, at that point in time, some of the planning was held back to a certain extent. But as soon as Unlock 1.0 was announced, most advertisers were ready with their plans. On the media side as well, most of us geared up for this unlock and were ready for the proposals, options, and solutions we had for the clients for the festive period. Overall, for news, it's done well and even for BBC it's been a good season.

It's difficult to give the growth numbers right now but for the overall genre, it would at least be on par with last year's numbers. For the domestic India business, We are estimating it to be slightly higher than last year's numbers. We are quite satisfied with our performance for the festive season and the market has also done reasonably well this year.

It's been over a month since BARC has stopped publishing ratings. How different is it for news channels right now? Are you facing any challenges while you sell the ad inventory?

The planning for the festive period took place when the data was available. It is the current planning that is happening with the old data. I wouldn't say we've had any significant problem. I don't think a temporary halt in the ratings is going to be a problem for most people, including advertising agencies. However, what is most important is if that there should not be a cloud over the data, in the long run, that would be more detrimental to ad spends on news genres. A temporary pause to fix the system is welcome. The sooner we fix the system, the better it will be for the industry. 

BARC has suspended data for 12 weeks. Do you think things will be better by then? 

They have already set the timeline but from our point of view, we are really not letting that come in the way. We also subscribe to various other third-party research data as well. For example, IPSOS also covers India and it's one of the most respected audience research information that is available. As per the recent data, we are the number one international news brand in English Language category in India, across both TV and online. 

Are you facing any roadblocks, while you are dealing with advertisers in the current scenario? 

We have always been respected for the quality of information that we've shared and the highest standards that we have adhered to, in terms of reporting data. However, advertisers are reconsidering their investments and their relationship with platforms. They are waiting for a lot of these issues to be cleared and for some more transparency to come in. But as far as we're concerned our relationships continue to be strong in the market. 

We're not facing any such challenges in terms of ad spends. News has always been a very effective medium, because the audience is very engaged and trust is one of the more critical elements that come into play.  

How do you make sure a brand is safe on BBC?

Even in terms of the technology element of it, especially on digital, we've been very proactive. We've been leading the industry initiative on ensuring brand safety for everyone. We've been using our contextual targeting tools like grapeshot to make sure that the ads appear in the right environment. Because news is a dynamic environment, besides, tools, we also use human judgement to evaluate safety and suitability of the environment.

We partner organizations like Integral Ad Science and IAB to bring in the latest in brand safety tech. and practices to make sure that advertisers always get what they're paying for and they get the right audience.

What will be the key growth driver for the news genre in the coming months?