TV news should be measured on metrics of accuracy, independence & depth: Peter Mukerjea

Back in news since the release of his book StarStuck, Peter Mukerjea, in a candid interview with exchange4media, shared his thoughts on the integrity of news in a competitive world, working with the best in the TV industry, his negotiations with Big B around KBC, things he learnt from media maverick Rupert Murdoch and reasons he recommended Uday Shankar as his successor.

Edited excerpts:

Q1.Was having a superb team a coincidence or did you look out for star performers?

Coincidences are wonderful events in one’s life to happen, no doubt, but when putting a team together, it requires more than mere coincidences. For me, at that time, it was crucial to have the right fit and no “square pegs in round holes.” As I’ve tried to convey in my book Starstruck at different places, it was more about individuals who could think laterally, have their nose to the ground, not give up on a trail, persevere with a set goal and not give up at any stage until the job was done. 

The guiding mantra was always “efforts don’t count, results do” and that “winners have parties, losers have meetings,” which simply meant that we would celebrate every success no matter how large or small. Individuals had to have a striking personality, preferably have been a sportsperson as very often they understood the concept of playing by the rules, working in a team, practice makes perfect and so on. They are better than people who have never played a sport.

In fact, being single and unattached was also almost a prerequisite for us as we needed to have people on board who were not going to be concerned about a partner expecting them home at a certain time or working late followed by early mornings on a regular basis. 

A hundred per cent job security was never on offer as the environment was so dynamic. So we made up for that with a higher level of compensation and bonuses. Each one had to be proud of their work and the company despite everything that was regularly written about the company by a relatively hostile media in a relatively hostile environment.

In the movie Ben-Hur, the night before the legendary chariot race, when Ilderim hands over his four beauties (Andalusian white horses) to Ben Hur he describes the profile of each of them and then places them in an unique sequence based on their individual strengths and qualities - strength, speed, size, etc.,  had to emulate that and place the right person in the right slot and on that there could be no compromise. They were all precious jewels and had to be treated as such. 

Q2. In your book, you have discussed briefly the TV measurement system, which has come under fire recently. As someone who has been part of the TV industry for over 15 years, what are some possible solutions to fix the problem?

Far be it from me to suggest some possible solutions as there are brighter and sharper minds at work. However, when I see the state of play, it does make me a little despondent that in all this time the powers that be have not yet been able to regularise the audience measurement system in the country. There are companies and people around the world who do exactly this in considerably more complex markets than ours and we ought to take a leaf from their book. 

For what it’s worth, I believe that news channels should not be governed by a standard ratings system that prompts them to outdo each other by attracting viewers for the wrong reasons. On the contrary, news should be evaluated on a different scale using a qualitative system rather than a quantitative one. 

Metrics like, accuracy, bias, independence, depth of coverage, etc. should be the areas of measurement and as this cannot be done daily or weekly or perhaps even monthly. This should be evaluated maybe twice a year at best and news channels will be compelled to deliver a far higher level of quality news than is presently the case and they would have to be consistently at it. There is no reason why India cannot turn out a BBC equivalent for the world to respect and find credible. 

But for that, one needs to have a will as then the way will come. As regards, general entertainment, sports and movies need to be measured more accurately too and technology has a big role to play. Maybe, there ought to be an independently funded body who invest in the technology, the hardware and then they have a team who monetise the data by selling the specifics to advertising agencies, production companies, media buying groups, platforms and broadcasters at a price that makes it an independently profitable business. 

The way we have it now seems to be a constant tug of war between the three groups that fund everything - broadcasters, ad agencies and advertisers. As I said earlier, there are far sharper people than me to decide this, but I would simply say that speed is of the essence to restore some semblance of credibility.

Q3. Coming to KBC, in the book you have written about how you spent days and nights at Amitabh Bachchan’s house discussing the deal, but not much about the deal has been revealed. Could you share some details of the conversations and the final deal price?

I cannot recall the monetary values specifically, but I do remember that the numbers were significant and were “telephone numbers” rather than hundreds or thousands! 

Some of the aspects of our discussions revolved around a sense of nervousness about moving from the big screen to the small screen, whether the show would work, the effect of being seen as a show host have on his movie “superstar” image, the reaction of the fans amongst other things.

All of these were serious concerns and the host needed reassurances that we would not take him off the show and introduce someone else in his place or remove the show altogether in case it didn’t perform. All perfectly rational concerns. In many ways, these concern areas were as important, if not more, than the monetary compensation.

Q4. In one of the chapters, you make a strong statement: “Nothing I read in the newspaper is true”. What circumstances led you to conclude this?

What I’m trying to convey here is that I’m a cynic when it comes to newspaper content. I do believe that often what is available for readers in a newspaper has been put there for a reason and there is a hidden agenda. Now when you consider everything, it makes me wonder why I should believe what I read in the papers.

In any case, newspapers have finally been relegated to the back of the bus in our media consumption habits and in very few cases are seen as a credible news source. Only some newspapers can put their hand over their heart and say they are unbiased or unfettered as they indeed ought to be.

Q5. In the book, you mention recommending Uday Shankar as your successor to the global team. Can you tell us what made you believe that Uday 

can pull off your legacy?

Uday was a journalist first and a business manager second - I always believed. Therefore, his skills in being able to navigate almost any situation were likely to be par excellence, given the way that journalists tend to be good at that. 

As a company, we were likely to have an ongoing number of delicate situations in our lives and therefore, having someone there at the coal face, who was able to handle that was critical. 

Also, his Hindi is excellent and given that our main thrust of activity was going to be Hindi general entertainment, it was important that the person has to be my opposite since my primary language was English and content was never my strength. 

Apart from these, Uday was also known to some of the folks at the company even though he was attending Star News, which was in essence a joint venture.

So he was also, by default, experienced in managing a joint venture relationship and at that time we had several of those with many more to follow in the years that followed. 

There was a level of comfort therefore in my recommending Uday to Newscorp as there was considerable turmoil at the organisation at that time and keeping the ship steady through those storms was going to take some special skills. Finally, Uday and I were colleagues but were never very close and to do justice to the task at hand, the person should ideally be someone who wasn’t simply going to do things the way I had done, but take things forward in a new and fresh way.

Q6. You worked with people from all across the globe. How did intelligent friction among owners and partners from different cultures contribute to productive outcomes in your role?

‘Intelligent friction’ is an interesting phrase. Like all disagreements or differences of opinion, they are not always intelligent nor are they always frictional. Very often, in an organisation, differences of opinion are looked up as a means of finding a solution to a problem or finding a better way to approach something. 

Very often a consensus is arrived at. However, there are inevitably times when a consensus is not possible and one has to take instruction and follow direction. This does not necessarily mean there is ‘friction’ at play. I was told a long time ago, that if two people are constantly in agreement with each other one of them is unnecessary. 

Often, the best results are achieved when there are conflict and differences of opinion. One of the benefits of working in a multicultural and global context is that one is exposed to an array of international resources in terms of experiences from different parts of the world and I was able to tap into that limitless pool of talent that existed in the company overall and we were able to use that as and when we wanted. This was a key differentiator and I believe it helped us immensely in a few areas of our business, namely programming, advertising sales, distribution, on-air presentation, to name just a few.

Q7. You have mentioned many of your ex-colleagues—Raj Nayak, Sameer Nair, Megha Tata and many others who now are in senior leadership positions in the media industry. If you were to choose one name, whose would it be and why?

I’d liked to have mentioned names of every colleague but I have to say, as I did earlier, that they were all like those Andalusian horses in Ben Hur- all precious jewels with their own skill sets and it would be impossible to pick one as the "finest example". Each of the people that worked at the company at that time had a huge role to play.

You will recall the famous story when President John F Kennedy went to visit NASA and asked someone about the job he did there. The person replied that he was a janitor but he was helping to get a man on the moon. 

What I’m saying is that each person’s role was critical no matter which part of the company they were working in at the time. The guys at the staff canteen made sure everyone was fed and watered. The drivers made sure their bosses got to work on time and safely, the cleaners made sure that the offices were clean and hygienic, the engineers made sure we had everything working, the sales guys wrote the revenue, the programming guys got the best content money could buy, the distribution folks got the channels to air, the finance guys made sure everyone got paid on time and quite simply - it was all hands on deck, which is what made it all come together. Had anyone of these pieces not worked, the system could have ground to a halt.

Q8. How did working with the world’s biggest media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, for 15 years help you evolve at a professional and personal level?

The man is a maverick in more ways than one. And of course, I would hope that some of his unique powers rubbed off on me somewhere along the way and thus helped me to grow both professionally and personally.

It would be hard for me to be specific about any one such thing but I might venture out on a limb here in saying that when staying at a hotel or dining at a restaurant, I would make sure that I tip the hotel’s housekeeping staff and the table attendant extraordinarily well. I learnt this from Rupert. 

It’s probably got nothing to do with my professional life or my personal life, but I think that as a human being one needs to respect staff that are not so well paid but nevertheless work really hard to earn a living. Dignity of labour is so important and more so for a fast developing country like India and I do wish more people would follow that example as it would make for a better place to live.

Q9. The book ends with you hinting that you would love to run a media business all over again. Should we expect some news from you soon about our own venture?

I’m not sure about running a media business all over again is what I said. If I had the chance to do it all over again, would I? In a heartbeat.

But of course, the world has evolved and as Matt Ridley famously says, “Progress and success are always relative.” In history and in evolution, progress is always futile, a Sisyphean struggle to stay in the same relative place by getting ever better at things.

And to quote one of my favourite Hollywood stars Lauren Bacall who said, “Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world”. Furthermore, I’ve been inspired lately by Robert de Niro in his role as The Intern which for me would be a great way to hang with people at the cusp of change in a world full of startups.

So I keep urging some of my ex-colleagues and in some cases their kids who are working in some interesting new media businesses to consider me as an intern. We ourselves were a ‘startup’ - working out of a shed-like office with one kettle and one piece of furniture, which we all shared whilst the handful of others like Yash and Megha ( nee Monica ) were out meeting clients. That was great fun and yes I’d love to do that over again and build something from scratch. But there are no plans as yet - not even on the proverbial drawing board!

Q10. You are working on two more books. Tell us something about them. Do you have some working titles in your head already?

Indeed, I am working on a couple of more books but those are very much work in progress and embryonic at this stage so there’s nothing more to say on that. It’s “working title one” and “working title two”.