 Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to this conversation around what's happening in the television business going to COVID-19. As it is aptly titled, the show must go on. We are here today to discuss and figure out what's going to happen to our collective lives in whoever is related to the television broadcasting ecosystem, and also the larger media advertising ecosystem. I have a fantastic set of panelists from a very wide and diverse set of companies and backgrounds. Let me introduce them. We have Mr. Sunil Lulla, who arguably is the most powerful man in the broadcasting industry, and who decides the fate of the channels every Thursday. I'm sure all of you have known him for many years, and he brings immense knowledge and insights to the table. Next, we have Abhishek Reghe, the CEO of one of the largest production houses in India. And as you all know, as many of you I'm sure know, Abhishek has worked in broadcasting in the past, also with companies like Viacom in the US. So welcome on board, Abhishek. Vivek Srivastav, part of the time's television network. Vivek is a business head and has led their initiatives across the news as well as English entertainment. Thank you for joining us, Vivek. Megha Tata, who's in her current avatar, the MD of Discovery Networks. This is one of the leading non-fiction television networks in India. Thank you, Megha, for being part of this conversation. And last but not the least, a man who decides allocation of money on the majority of the channels in this country, Ajay Gupta, who has not so long back taken over as the MD of one of the largest media agencies in India, a wave maker. So thank you for coming on board, Ajay. Before I start this conversation, I'd like to lay some context. I was yesterday going through a few reports with regards to what's happening in the broadcasting and the larger media ecosystem. And I came across a couple of reports, one done by Chris Hill and another one done by media partners Asia. So at the peril of some sounding alarmist and pessimistic, let me just read out parts of that report and start this conversation. So according to Chris Hill, the ongoing economic slowdown made worse by COVID-19 is set to impact the Indian media and entertainment industry's revenue by 16%, which is almost 25,000 crores. So Chris Hill says the revenue earned by the M&E sector this year will be down by almost 16%. Advertising revenue, which accounts almost 45% of the pie will see a sharper cut of 18%. While subscription revenue, which accounts for the balance 55% will be relatively resilient and see a lesser cut. MPA is much more pessimistic. They say that the industry is likely to contract by 24%. Spends across the sector, across media will get contracted. And obviously the ones more severely impacted than the others will be cinema, radio, outdoor, and so on. What is inherently connected with the downturn in the economy and the media advertising sector is the lives of broadcasters, production companies, what happens to them. Just before this conversation started, we were discussing how some parts in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and other South-Southern Indian states have restarted production. So let me start this conversation by asking Ajay, we've had two terrible months in April and May. And the question on top of everybody's mind right now is, how is June looking? Are we going to be any better off? Yeah, you're right. April and May were quite bad. And starting with the last week of March, really, when the lockdown started, we had deductions from all clients. And it has been challenging. Like we spoke a little bit earlier, challenges have been at various levels. Firstly, is production. So advertisers, marketers are having difficulty producing because the factories are closed and different states have different regulations, which are not allowing smooth entry of workers and therefore smooth beginning of production. So it starts at that level. And then you've got the distribution challenges which face all of us, which face the marketers and getting from the factory to the distributor and then from the distributor to the retailer. These are the major challenges that we've been facing. But we have been seeing an opening in the last few weeks, I guess, starting May. Things have started improving a little bit. May was certainly a lot better than April. And from what I speak with my clients, at least movement of goods between states has improved significantly. It's not where it should be, obviously not, but it's improved significantly. Also, the ability to get workers into the factory has improved in across most states. So even from that perspective, yes, there will be an improvement in terms of production coming out. So if you were to look at essentials and groceries and personal products and that part of the business, certainly June looks a lot better for those categories. The other categories which are more high value, consumer durable, cars and in that territory, will still struggle, I'm guessing, in June, unless there's a sudden opening which really we don't see sitting where we are. So I would break it up into two parts, which is the personal care products and the consumer goods, which will certainly look a lot better in June compared to April and May. The other categories will take a little bit longer. Right, does that mirror your assessment of the situation? I mean, you run a law and broadcast network and your earnings, a lot of them come from advertising revenues. Yeah, so yes, I agree with that trade. Of course, and I think everybody in the industry would agree that March to April and May has been pretty much a washout in most of our books. June is indicating to have a sliver of hope, but far away from the real world we want to be in. So clearly, advertising is hugely impacted, but there are interesting theories one is hearing in the market, which at least categories like ours or genres like ours will hopefully be able to benefit if they do really come out true. You know, we were discussing earlier this whole concept of revenge shopping. And I think there's some examples which were floated around what happened in China. Like most of you would know that there was this, the air mess store which got opened after much, after the lockdown and one day of, the first day of opening, they sold $2.7 million of bags. So clearly the Chinese women were waiting for to go out and do their shopping and high end shopping and that's a classic example. So taking from that and seeing what is also happening in US, you know, online shopping has been very high even in during the lockdown. So in as much as online shopping is not very strong in India, I think there is a segment of the society which is waiting to go out and shop and that would probably help bring the higher end products to be out there to be consumed faster. So things like, you know, whether it is consumer goods, whether it's air conditioning or high-end television for that matter, phones, those are the catches come around and people are ready to revenge shop. Jewelry, for example, is something I think that there is an opportunity and high end watches in that luxury segment is where I hope it takes on because that's the category actually impacted genres like us hugely because, you know, infotainment, lifestyle, that's the space we are in, discovery is in and those are the high end categories who spend money on us as well, including automobiles. So I'm not sure about automobiles as a category, how fast they can get back into action. Though again, there is an example in I think China again where Toyota had crazy sales in the day they opened up their bookings. So I hope that those are the categories which will grow. Of course, FMCG remains to be depending on the demand and supply and I think Adler and Sunil are better equipped to give those, you know, what's the ground reality on it, but some of the high end products I do believe have the propensity to come back into the game by end of this quarter, by end of this year in the fourth quarter, yeah. Right, Sunil, so I was, I read a couple of reports, one about the auto sector. Moody's has predicted this year Indian auto sales to fall by almost 30% and one of the reports done by Nils and your sister company also says that FMCG growth this year will be almost 50% down as compared to the original projections. You work very closely with broadcast networks and then BARC is an integral part of the life of a broadcast network. If you were to look at, you know, this year into the next three to four quarters, what would be your assessment of the situation for the broadcasters and what would you do if you were a broadcaster today sitting in their chair? What would you do to kind of, you know, go after, you know, more revenues? So you need to put things in context. Volume of television advertising is down approximately 30% compared to Jan, 35% compared to last year. The big event we have, IPL did not happen, it's not happened in the first part of this year. I hope it happens in the second part of the year. I bring some confidence back. It gives a reach to many advertisers and it creates great entertainment. Second thing that's happening is in a lockdown situation when most people are at home, they have chosen television as the screen of the household. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the smartphone and then let's talk about what we think is gonna happen. So the initial entire kind of frenzy went towards news and news jumped from 7% to 21%. It's now down at about 15%, which is still double of what that category was, right? You mean to say viewership share? Viewership share, right? Movies were the second to grow. Kids grew marginally. So these categories added approximately, if I have not mistaken, 400 million viewing minutes of television doing. It went up by 42% at about 24% now compared to an earlier period. So an average home, average person which was watching three hours, 45 minutes of television started watching close to four hours, 45 minutes down to four hours, 15 minutes. The smartphone consumption went up by an hour per person per day and has gone up again now because a lot of the smartphone owners are also people like us who have been somewhere or the other have got to work from home. So they're using it equitably between the work for home syndrome, which is to make phone calls, do conference calls, as well as entertainment of any kind that they want to watch. Advertising has never seen such a bad time. Just as viewing went up by 42%, advertising is down 30, 35%. Will this come back? No, what's gone in April may ain't coming back. So is it going to make an impact and this is going to spread over June? I imagine until July, when you see monsoon, you see some confidence if supply chain opens up. We even looked at doing patterns in markets where there were relatively higher green zones and less red zones, compared to the ones where there were large red zones. There is still an increase in viewership but we are seeing less viewing over there. It's still higher compared to the earlier period. Many of the channels which were doing reruns, some of the entertainment channels started playing movies. Some of the channel bought back the old returns. The classic turn around is Durudashan, right? Let's not forget that. That's right, yes. It became number one network, right? With Ramayan and Mahabharata started with two advertisers, ended with 48 advertisers. So where there is great viewing, where it's reasonable, advertisers will come. I saw some advertising for automotive but I guess that's more brand building and that's a smart market out there saying, okay, there's great attention to advertising, there's great attention to content, let me go place it. But 50% of the basket is what is called essential service, essentials, right? Foods, personal care, the kind that we are discussing over here is largely that and I think that will continue. I don't think we should expect a vector return in June. With the monsoons coming in, I think June will be a month where if there's relaxation of production for television, factories, transportation, the supply chain starts improving from where it is today. Possibly the first time we may see something is July. I look at it that if I take the periods of March, April and May and I look at beyond the 27th, I have data in this morning till the 25th, if I look at those 25 days, they're almost similar in the three months. There is some change now between May and March, May and April, but they're almost similar. And the last 10 days of the month, last eight days of the month always have more advertising effect. I think we should expect a haircut on a volume basis, perhaps 10%, perhaps more compared to last year. The same thing will happen in digital because if you want good digital, it's programmatic, it's not cheap, right? It may convert to car mass or the same thing will happen across the board. Same thing will happen in TV, print, radio, everywhere. We should expect a steep haircut. I don't know who's gonna be right and that's not our job, but unfortunately it's not gonna be a good year. Yes. In fact, I recall three weeks back, Martin Suryal made a statement saying the recovery is going to be a reverse square root, which means obviously a downturn initially, then a little bit of pickup and then a plateau. Is that what your company is looking at, Vivek, when you are looking at this year? I'm sure many of you are not really, haven't thought about what happens two quarters down the line, but business managers need to start planning for a slightly medium term outlook as and living week to week. I agree with almost everyone when they said that June should be better than April and May. I see a little bit of turnaround happening in quarter two. That's when you will find a lot of these lockdown situations getting out. So for example, please remember that major GDP driven markets, which is Mumbai, Delhi, UP, MP, Gujarat, all these will at least continue their lockdown specifically in the bigger centers till about 15th of June. So therefore it effectively means that about 30% of the country will be in some sort of a lockdown or other till 15th of June. And then you have to moving forward as well. I don't see in the next two months major relaxations happening whether it comes to opening of public places or opening of malls and other institutions. So therefore June will be a little bit of a little bit of a better result as compared to April to May, but Q2 will be just gradual increase. My sense is by the time we get to the season which is September, October, November, that's when we should start comparing last year to this year. And if all goes well, we should be in the same range as last year. Mind you last year was also not a very great year from my colleagues. So therefore, if we say that we'll be in the same range as last year, we are still less than last year. I think that's a... Yeah, I think a lot of people are hoping that by the time the festive season comes around, we would be back to roughly the indexed number of last year. Though I think that remains optimistic assessment, given that a large number of companies in this country are facing at significant top line parts and their immediate priority is first to save livelihoods. And then second, as Sunil mentioned, is to save their bottom lines and unfortunately parts of the marketing spend or the budgeted marketing spend for this year might end up going into protecting bottom lines. Abhishek, production companies obviously are entirely dependent upon revenues from television houses. It's a double-edged kind of thing where obviously all the television networks need fresh content, so they have to do it for reasons of the nature of their business and also for the fact that it's a very competitive environment. Cutting down on fresh programming really becomes counterproductive after a while. And as we all know, when it stops raining at the top of the mountain, the streams at the bottom all dry up and production companies eventually earn from what's happening in the television larger ecosystem. So what is your sense of where the production ecosystem is headed? If you leave out the immediate part in terms of where shooting is starting, when it is starting, not starting, if you were to look at say the next three quarters going up till March, what do you think the three, four things will happen in the television production system? I know for sure one thing, we all know that the TV companies are already talking to production partners to figure out ways of reducing costs. What else do you see happening? So I think like rightly like everyone said and Vivek also said, I think largely see from a revenue from the broadcasters perspective, you will see an uptake with the festival season starting maybe even August, mid to end or September onwards. For the production houses in particular, like you said, I think the original programming is going to be critical. While all these conversations happen, there's also been a lot of standing costs that have been incurred over the last two months and we're going into June as well will be incurred. That plus the cost of being COVID ready as we go into shoots down the line until and until unless a vaccine comes out and all of that, there's gonna be a lot of measures that we will have to take to stay safe and continue shooting so as to not go into another issue afterwards. So all those will actually affect the costs on ground as well. I think one of the first things that broadcasters would look at is compare it to the revenues and maybe have lesser programming on air rather than just go for the juggler and cut down on all costs. Second bit could be looked at is some shows that are very expensive that could have an impact maybe through large VFX driven shows, et cetera would come down to maybe what is the regular daily fiction show kind of range. So I think those are some things that will happen but at the same time what we're also looking at is there is traction for what, like we said when you have viewership, advertisers will come to that. So there are certain shows that they will go all gungo. One of the key reasons is also this has been, this will be rather even a bigger restart than there was when we've had a couple of occasions of blackouts on broadcasters due to union strikes. This is a bigger one because it's almost like a restart. There's no 10 to 12 weeks of not connecting with those characters who knows what the effect is going to be. So you have to take that much of extra effort to go back into it. Coming back to the point that Megha also made on revenge shopping. I think even with the luxury brands I think even the normal detailing would become a big advertising point. I think because look at Amazon day one, three times the sales on an average is happening. I pretty much can see even as an example in my building the Watchman's kiosk looks like a little Amazon store. Just stocked with boxes all around. So I think people are desperately wanting they'd buy a small knife for 50 rupees but they just want to do something that they've not been able to do. And I think that's going to drive a lot of the demand soon enough. Yeah, I think one of the big trends of this digitization of the retail economy which was already happening over the last three, four years with just skyrocket, not just across the larger cities but the smaller centers, the rural, semi-rural, the smaller urban centers. And I think one of the biggest challenges for brands will be how to get onto that with adequate amount of learning. And a big challenge will be for agencies also to how to learn to connect with consumers through e-commerce rather than the, you know, format. But let me just come to the, back to the television part. You know, I think there is a larger consensus than that, you know, a significant amount of advertising revenues that TV companies have earned last year will get shaved off this year. Two months have already been a washout, June, even if it improves, it's not going to be significantly better. So you're talking one quarter gone, going forward next week, what has the impact will linger on, which in essence, means there'll be lesser money on the table. And as we all know, television being the largest in terms of, you know, advertising pie in this country has delivered for advertisers year after year. But now I think every single spend that is made on TV, every program that is sponsored, every five crore rupee or a two crore rupee spent that is done on television is going to be looked at by the advertiser and the agencies with the magnifying glass in terms of the ROI that it delivers. So I want to ask the panellists, do you think the way the advertiser agencies are looking at television will fundamentally change, right? Not just for the short term, not just for the next one, two quarters, but then beyond that. Sonil, what is your sense on that? See, from the advertisers as well as the agencies that I have tried to get a sense of, they still have great belief that television is great, is the best medium for drawing large reach. It's good for putting out the big picture over there. Yes. The messaging over there is unified to the household. So it's still the best medium for that. There are advertisers who may not be able to make an equitable spend on television to make a big impact. And they may decide to put that money down digital video and other digital products and services because, you know, that may be for them a smarter way to allocate their expenditure for their brands. It's also a function of what happens. Is a big boss going to come back? Is IPL going to happen? Are some of the big properties like a film fair award and things like that going to happen which take away a lot of money? Or is it going to be like, what's happened on the digital side where people have replayed their concerts, some of them are singing from home? What is the mode in which we operate? I think it's speculated because we're all guessing we don't know what's going to happen. What is true is the point that you said that when there is new programming or renewed programming because, you know, there has been an eight to 10 week, there will be a 10 week gap, minimum from the time you went off, right? So do you come back with the same story, new story, fresh ideas, take it forward, what do you do? Those broadcasters that do this extremely well will find advertisers want to participate in that show, in that programming, right? Because that's where the premium is going to go. But they'll want to queue up to get that best attention out there. I think if you look at what has happened in the news case, some of them intelligently integrated messages in the key communication that was happening there. They bought in webinars. Some of the news channels experimented with formats like music, it did not work. Some of the houses which had both OTT play as well as television play, put the OTT shows on TV, that did not work. Some of them bought back old programming, nostalgia, Rama and Mahabharata and Krishna and all of that, that seems to have worked. So I think there's a sociological undercurrent, right? Of want to see something that was good positive, which is out over there too. So as a broadcaster, I guess you've got to look at what audience you've retained. In the news case we saw, in the initial period of March, people came to news and they checked many channels out and then they settled back. So that volume went from 16 channels in a home to 24. It's back at 20, 20 is still bigger than 16. That is checked 25% more. That's right. Now people are staying longer on a channel of their choice. So if I was a news channel viewer and I was watching panel A, I'm staying longer on channel A when I find that programming is working with me than I did earlier. My distraction elements are fewer, right? The younger audiences have also moved a lot to watching TV as well as also watching shows which are on the digital stream. So that is a real opportunity for the digital service providers, right? It's a real genuine opportunity. Even for news, if your channel is dated is at the top and somebody is watching something else and I want to watch that channel. Again, we are seeing that on digital, people are watching different news channels than they are watching on TV. So when I put the, just for whatever's worth, the ranking, right? As if that was important, but if I put the ranking down, they're not aligned anymore. Right. What is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and news is not the same on digital. I'm just speaking over there. So I think it's very difficult. I think it's important to bring back storytelling and you may continue or you may bring in a new way of telling that story. Some of it's going to depend on the risk capital. I do know that most broadcasters are re-negotiating their costs. Yes. They need to, right? So it's going to be about, there will be some feel-good programming. I think Megha's point of event shopping also works on TV. You know, what do you bring back which has big impact? Which is new, unusual and unique that I want to watch that I missed out on, right? I mean, to me, and please take this with a pinch of salt. Our mind was exactly that. I saw it in 1986. Not everybody was born around this prep panel, I believe in 1986, okay? So at the end of the day, a lot of young people came in to watch that show because they had never seen it, right? So that is her idiomatic reference of revenge viewing, right? In a way of speaking. So I think you have to say that if you've had a good show, continue that show. If you want to bring in something new, when TV does come back to live fresh programming, there's a big opportunity and rankings may change. You know, the pecking order may change. Let me take this to Ajay. You know, yeah, Megha, you want to say something? No, just sort of a line to Sunil's point. You know, in as much as Sunil highlighted movies and kids and news as a genre has taken the higher consumption metric, but even infotainment for that matter had a big growth, to be honest, and discovery being a leader and that obviously saw the benefit of that. And we probably are the only genre which was able to bring in premieres in this lockdown period as well, because most of the GCC guys could not bring in the new content. We already had a lot of content to tell you. Not only did we premiere shows, we also premiered, we also launched our Discovery Plus OTT, and that right on the day of the lockdown, we launched, can you hear me? Yeah, on the day of the lockdown, we launched Discovery Plus. So I think, am I audible? You're audible, your video has gone off, but you're audible, go ahead. Okay, so and I believe to the point you highlighted, you know, what is the way we should be looking at things differently? And I think this is a time for advertisers and agencies to read as far. You know, it can't be as black and white earlier. And this is probably a good time to relook at the way, how the spends are done to create a metric of our wide, which is a little more than just a black and white space, because there's so much more you can do with the brands, which is integrated to the content, which can be integrated to the content. And I think solutions which every broadcaster can bring to the table, which was beyond the black and white analysis is something worth it's wide to look at in this market, because this is what's happening globally. It's not about just the CPRP deals, it is how you're creating far more integrated approaches for the brands to go beyond, which is something I would think would work for the brands as well. So Ajay, let me take this to you. That's a good point you raised, Megha. You know, as I said, there's a consensus that this year, there'll be lesser money to go around, right? And digital is clearly as a medium, really snapping at television's heels over the last two, three years. There's going to be significantly enhanced demands on accountability from television, right? We might not have, especially with lesser sports properties around, right? We don't know when IPL will happen. A lot of other sporting events have been canceled. So fundamentally, do you see, you know, the accountability ROI metrics from television changing from what they currently are, because a lot of television money is put in, obviously there is ROI currently, that's why the money comes in. But do you think clients will now demand sharper ROI from the money that is being spent for television, and how will that happen? Ajay, I think you- You mute, mute. Yeah, taking a step back, I agree with what Sunil said a little earlier, is that I think the general belief in television is there across clients, and the genuine, you know, the general trust that it's a medium that has worked in the past certainly exists. It's true that, you know, given the current circumstance in terms of money at play, definitely there will be challenges on the current way of evaluation. And while that is a currency that we are all very comfortable with, so it will take a while, obviously, for a new currency to come into play. I think what is essential at some point of time is to also be able to look at, you know, to find a way to have cross-media impact, because that is certainly going to become all the more important. Like you said, digital is becoming stronger and stronger by the day. A lot of news consumption is happening on digital. We know that gaming has taken off tremendously. And then the ability to move seamlessly from television communication to digital communication, and to follow audience, and to take a seamless piece of communication across media will become extremely crucial. And in that sense, I believe cross-media measurement of some form will be essential to, and is what clients will look for to be able to understand the effect of their investments better, and also to be able to derive better value in terms of taking down the investments a little bit down the chain, you know. We're talking about TRPs right now, and CPRPs, and that's the only metric that we've been using. But how can we look at how it is translating further down the tunnel? And once you're able to connect it with digital, there's a lot more granular data that you can get. And hence, if you're able to create that bridge in some fashion, I think that is something that advertisers will definitely value going forward. Also, we've seen OTT taking off really in the last, in the COVID times, and there's a lot of content, new content come out there because it has been available and people haven't been exposed to it. Getting onto OTT obviously is a function of having the hardware as well as the bandwidth, which is a challenge, but it is growing. Now, with OTT coming in, one clear thing is you know what people want to watch and how they are moving. The choices are a lot better. And I think there will be some learnings that could come from there in terms of understanding them better. And these are things that even content which the television channels could pick up, which is not exposed to the non-OTT consumer. So I think these are a few things that will come into play in the next few months. I also think that some of the tools that broadcasters have dabbled in the last four, five years, especially with regards to geo-targeting. I remember Star launched AdShop, I think five years back, Z has had a tool I'm not able to recall the name, which allows you to target specific markets and especially in a scenario where some of the states or markets are in red zones, others are orange and there are balance which are green. Green zones can easily be reached out through geo-targeting. So this might be a time where something like that could take off because it really never flew. You know on television geo-targeting, Mega might be in a better position to answer that, but I think that might kind of work for broadcasters and also provide them an extra solution to go to clients. Because some clients might not be anymore interested, at least for the short time, to do a country-wide bombardment of their messaging because some markets might not even be open for them to kind of get their goods across. Yeah, I mean, absolutely never. It's how, and I think a lot of broadcasters, the key broadcasters have a OTT offering today. It's about how the both can be combined and brought as a solution to the advertiser is also a way to look at it. This isn't an advantage. It doesn't have to be either or it can be an end economy. And that's up to the brands and the broadcaster to have gated effort. I think that's one. Of course, targeting that is the benefit of digital platform brings to you when you're able to really get into the specifics and that comes with the tools and technology the medium itself provides. But I think it's also about how you can be, how you can reinvent and producing and creating content integration and brand solutions which you bring to the table, which can like to at this point, add value to the brand. So it's really how you can define that, the question. And this is nothing new. It's always been there. This option has always been available. The problem happens when you get down to the business. And that somebody has to have the gumption to take those calls and say, okay, this is what we should put our invest in and take a bet on. Because that's where to adjust point was, then we need to create a metrics and we need to have some to evaluate that. And then it becomes a chicken and egg kind of a situation. So who blinks first is really the conversation. And maybe this is a good time. This is a good time to experiment this year because in many ways, a lot of clients in broadcasters have taken 20 to 20 years of wash out here. So why not experiment on things which you probably were a bit more scared to do in normal times. In the new normal world, try and experiment these, you might just be pleasantly surprised. I think I would urge all the brands to take that risk and put the money there, have those conversations with broadcasters, create an opportunity which will work for both of us. And you might just be surprised what the outcome would be. Let me ask Sunil a specific question on this. Sunil, it's kind of known from the past recessions that when there's lesser money to go around, obviously every brand seeks more ROI. And one of the ways to measure ROI is improve measurability of where the money is going in. So two questions for you. One, since Bach runs the measurement system for broadcasters, what are the things that you think we can do within the Bach system to increase the kind of measurability for broadcasters which will help advertisers? Second is the, you know, the kind of joining at the hip for digital video content and television measurement could not really happen in its entirety. You think now is the time to do it and do you think if it is not done, then broadcasters might be worse off? Worse than digital? I'll answer both the questions. We have a number of tools and services that some of our broadcaster clients use fairly vigorously for enhancing their content sharpness. Even at this stage, many of them are using these applications because I think some of them believe rightly so if they can retain audiences, they will be able to hold them through the next many months to come. So it's not just an episodic event of peak viewing, but it is attracting new audiences and holding on to it. And there have been changes that we have seen certain broadcasters are making either in programming or they approach towards audiences. We are also releasing in June, I hope, deeper analytical tools which will help both the agencies as well as the broadcasters. Why I say agencies is many broadcasters ask the agencies to kind of go invest into this for sharper analysis, right? So we are hoping to bring that in June. I just need to see how things play out over the next few days. So there are tools being introduced which allow this to happen. For advertisers and specific, we have done for a few advertisers, large advertisers, what we call is cohorts, which is cohorts, which is working with certain audiences. So let's say you're interested in women just because that's a common place, no share in television, right? As you're interested in women of a certain age and profile, we work with some of the advertisers and their agencies to actually look at their interests so that they can sharply target their spends. So if you're an advertiser, you're targeting women who want to do food that is easy to make at home, then you know what their pattern of viewing is, you know what ads they are watching and you know what to target with them and whether you're advertising is working with them or not. So they are buying their media according to those patterns and we are investing more in that. So it's working at two ends. One is the broadcast end for content. The other is the broadcast end for advertising so it can work with the agency and the broadcaster because that's a strong and close relationship of evaluation and then with advertisers from a purpose of planning. So if you're going to be a significant spender for television, it gives you an effort to plan better. So that talks to the TV component, right? A lot of our plans to do things on TV have, we've got to take a break for the simple reason of we can't get on the ground, right? But that will get picked up and we will cover that ground very fast. On digital, we are working on three models which is to look at our ability at the very worst case to measure advertising on digital and to lend our neutrality to that because most of the digital advertising now comes from branded houses, right? If a platform is offering you time or offering you space on their platform, the results come only from the platform. There is no neutral body to give it to you, right? And not to say that those platforms are giving you incorrect data, but it's just that you got platform A, B, C, D, E, F, G and you're not able to put this together. So we are working to create one for advertising. The content piece of it has its own challenges because everybody has their own tech and nobody wants you to kind of get into the garden, right? So even if you get the advertising part right, it will at least address some component and we are looking to hopefully bring that fused product. Now, I don't know what timeline we'll talk of because a lot of things are changing. We don't even know tomorrow or on June 1, the lockdown, that's lipid, say, in the city of Bombay. We don't know it for sure. So timelines may change, but we will have a product that will put together television and digital at the very worst in 2021, right? And then we'll build on to this, to have a better product maybe to take a year or more because also a function of investments, if the industry is not seeing good days, they are not going to invest more in pain for all of this. That's right. That's true. That's a function of that, but I think we will have something that is a good working product or digital advertising at least. And then we will get to the entire ecosystem of digital and television, hopefully coming into one table. Yes, that helps because you know, if you're able to combine things with it. When the first start is at least, see at the end of the day, let's remember we are a currency of advertising, right? So with that 30,000 odd crores, that's the currency that's used to kind of trigger of the 30,000 crores, now going up and down because of the economic and the 50 changes. But otherwise that's a currency. Now we can bring the digital video currency in the same way, aligned to TV. It gives a better, it gives a better metric to everybody at the end of the day. Yes. We are not here to suggest A or B, it's a neutral, sorry. Sorry, very good. What? So Vivek, the question I wanted to come to you was that one of the things that we have seen the large media tech players doing over the last couple of years successfully is also go up to the long tail of the market, which is the SMEs. Obviously that part of the market is very badly impacted, but what that does is that kind of reduces your dependence on large corporate advertising money. And news channels have also done that to a very limited extent. In Hindi it has been done, not so much in English and much lesser in entertainment and other channels. You see, television, the broadcasting ecosystem has the capability to go after the SME advertising in a large number because that could be a savior next 12 months, given that large corporate advertising might not really pick up. So from a business standpoint, I think the business models per se will change. And the business models per se will change, not only from an advertising standpoint, which is getting the SMEs or any other segments like these onto television, which traditionally have not advertised. In fact, for us specifically on the news side, we do a lot of work with the SMEs because we have the ability to give customized solutions to those people on our platform, whether it's on ground, digital or on air. But I think what is more important is that this is one, this period of the last two months and the next few months that will be, it'll change the way we are planning our entire business. So therefore one, from the production side, like you rightly mentioned, number of people on sets will go down, number of people who are earlier producing will go down. For example, for us, we used to have OB vans, which were going everywhere. We don't use OB vans anymore. We use LiveView as a software, which effectively means that you have cut down on a whole piece of machinery that used to go running around. And the same thing will happen in any and every aspect. Sunil mentioned, all the broadcasters are going and renegotiating the deals. I think that is bound to happen on the cost side, the efficiencies and costs, which traditional broadcasters have been lagging with for the last five to 10 years, will need to be reassessed and re-looked at, specifically in this scenario. And the third point, which is the point of advertisers, I think there are a whole host of advertising communities which have not been traditionally on television, which have to be brought in. Now, which is the format that they get into on the television will be very different. So for example, I don't see SMEs coming onto television for regular advertising or brand building. That's not their scope. But yes, can you give them a customized solution to help them grow their business, understand their greater detail and work with them closely? I'm sure that there are platforms that we can create to offer to them. So in those spaces, yes, I'm sure that there will be a lot of more activities which will be there. And the key impetus for all the advertisers and the sales guys would be to really increase the client pool right now. Yes, and use geo-targeting to kind of, dovetail into that and because SMEs naturally won't have the kind of money that a procter in Gamble and Unilever would have. Abhishek, let me come to you with the point we make made on production monies. Naturally, there is lesser money to go around when it comes to production. And there are two large components when we're talking television production. One is obviously the cost of production, the sets, the equipment, the machinery you're using and the other part is talent. And talent cost really varies from the lowest end to the really high end. What is your sense on both of these components? Where do you think the hit will happen more? Obviously, as you yourself mentioned, the amount of production, the volume might go down as well as the scale of production in many cases might go down. So given these two, what do you think will happen to both of these components and how does it impact the production ecosystem? So I think if you look at it from a percentage perspective, there's lesser scope in cutting the BTL, primarily because anyways, those are line item driven, budget driven exercises that happen. And obviously there are a lot of new cost factors that will come in as we get into this new era of the way we need to look at all processes. On the talent side, there could be a much larger revision either, sorry, either with the existing talent or with, by bringing in new talent on a lot of shows, et cetera. And I think that is how the battle would be. Also largely when we look at scripted and non-scripted, this is an approach that largely happens in non-script. But for scripted, where anyways it's a per day artist and however big they are, there's not too much of scope of cutting down the values to make a huge difference. I think you will bring it down to the type of content. Storytelling and all will be with a big push on how do we kind of keep people engaged and everything. But at the same time, not maybe too many of period or VFX heavy shows could be made, at least in the short term. Until the broadcasters get a strong footing on where their revenue is headed to match up with the new production dynamics. So I think these are the kind of broad ranges that you could look at. Obviously the type of show that they want to get. So like we've been discussing ROI on advertisers, on broadcasters and on ratings. Similarly, that mirrors itself on the programming we make. That's right, yes. Don't really touch base with the, with enough of a reach and interest in buzz from viewers, then that's going to impact those shows as well. So the last cases would form the basis for this, but we will be much more sharply looked at from a rating perspective, I'm guessing, as we go ahead. So would you guess that Salman would chart much less? I don't make guesses at that level, beyond my pay grade. Ajay, let me come to you, because you work with a set of advertisers across the board. One question on top of everybody's mind is how long will rates remain under pressure? And a connected question to that, rates have been under pressure for many years. I mean, that era has gone where rates were going up. So, but the point is right now, it is unusual time right now and rates have come under significant pressure. How long is that likely to continue? And a related to question to that is, due to COVID, a large number of pitches have been put on hold. Once this opens up, that process will restart. And as we've seen in the last, I would say 36 months plus and minus, is that pricing has become a very integral part of pitches. It was always so, but now even more over the last two, three years. Now COVID has kind of, one can say open the sort of stable doors. So there's no kind of bottom in some cases. How does this situation impact what happens to pitches after that? Because pricing has been and will continue to remain a very integral part of client working with an exigency versus a Y. You're on mute. I keep forgetting. Yes, so to answer your first question in terms of pricing, yes pricing has currently taken, certainly taken a beating and it's a function of cost pressures everywhere and it's bound to happen. And also the fact that demand is also low and hence the pricing going down. I think this will be there certainly till June, depending on how fast we recover post that, but the pricing will certainly be at the challenge in the next at least a month and a half. Going and you're right. You know, pricing is almost one of the most essential parts of every pitch. And that is about basically giving more value in some fashion. Yes, it is going to continue that way and COVID is kind of going to reset where we are. So obviously if at our current time we are lower than normal state, it will take some doing to get back to normal state and pitches which come in this period will are bound to attract rates which are lower than steady state. So given and it would get far more difficult if it stays a little bit longer, but assuming things remain till June or you know July, August is when we start coming back. We expect a slight reduction further when in pitches which come towards the end of the year because you're right, there's no pitches which are happening. I mean, most pitches have been pushed towards the end of the year and there will be a correction and then there will be a further reduction possibly which will come up. So that's not good news for broadcasters. It isn't good news. It isn't good news. Unless things change dramatically, you know, unless we make a rebound and economy is back on track and people are consuming because finally everyone is under cost pressures. Right now cost pressures are so high it is going to translate down the road to all of us. I think that's a reality we have to live with. So let me ask a slightly more generic question. What happens to jobs in the industry? Both on the advertising side of the business I was moderating a session last week with some marketers and one of the key objectives for them right now is not obviously to think about where to spend marketing monies but to save livelihoods. And I mentioned to him that the money that you spend on marketing is also generating livelihoods in the media and the advertising sector. So it's all connected. It's part of a very long value chain. So what happens to that because right now people are extremely anxious. Some of them have been laid off. Unfortunately many of others have had to take salary cuts and the future is very uncertain from what you were telling us and if a broadcaster is looking at earning 20, 30% lesser revenue this year obviously the first thing they will do is to look at doing that with lesser number of people. So what would you, what's your outlook on what's the job and career outlook for the industry this year? Neha, why don't you tell us? Yeah, that's so you've hit a very sensitive nerve I guess everyone is, and there is no right or wrong answer here I think businesses are taking decisions which are right for the business but it is obviously impacting individuals at a level which is obviously, they can't be any easy words to say to how they are going, what impact they are going through. But I think every organization probably is looking at it from their own perspective. Clearly there is a hiring phase for sure. There is no more hiring gonna be happening for a while. How each business going to take those calls whether to keep people cut salaries or let go are, frankly, none of us can have a point of view because each business has to take those decisions what's right for the business. But I would think that there is, it is a situation there is no shying away from that fact. There will be a lot of people in the job market very talented but no opportunities for them to look into how those people can go and look for them to come back into the business either good, whether it's existing organizations or new businesses all together. I don't know, your guess is as good as mine. It is unfortunate and it's not only in India we are seeing this happening globally. Some are dealing it sensitively, some are being ruthless, some are being more professional and some are being extremely unprofessional. So it takes all kinds to make this work but this is a genuine situation which has impacted our industry as well. And I mean, I think maybe it's not easy way. Obviously there's no easy way to do this. It is reality. Another point I'd like to submit here is that when it comes to revenues of television companies perhaps it might be, I know there is a TRI cap on what can you charge on content or channel which is a very unusual thing. Like what some of the papers have done, newspapers have done, they've gone behind a paywall and they've done it out of compulsion because there's lesser advertising revenue to go around. Vivek is there opportunity for news channels to monetize better because as we know a large number of news channels are free to air right now and good content costs money to make. So why keep dishing it out free to the viewer, especially in a scenario when there is lesser advertising and hence the reach that free FDA channels or free to air channels delivered kind of becomes less relevant at this point of time. So from our standpoint, we've always maintained that news cannot be free in the country. If you are giving news free to air then effectively you are either compromising on the quality of the content or focusing on certain number of audiences that are not of value to the advertiser. I think that is a clear cut thing. The moment you cut down DD dish last year, we saw the difference that came into a lot of free to air players and that was essential there. So yes, from a long-term perspective, if this slow down continues, the free to air players will face a lot more heat than the pay players because we have a second line of revenue which is relatively, I would not say it's completely stable, but which is relatively more stable as compared to advertising. And obviously because the consumption is high at this point in time, you require news is really your first port of call when it comes to information. People are not really removing news channels from their book. So I don't see that practice to go away and certainly a lot of the free to air news channels will face the heat. And in fact, not only news channels, I would presume a lot of the free to air channels will face the heat, whether it comes to music, whether it comes to movies, whether it comes to regular general GC advertising, all those channels will find it far more difficult to survive if the slow down continues because most of the free to air channels with the exception of news, at least they are some of the free to air channels are in the top four or top five channels. If you look at the other genres, all the other free to air channels are actually a part of the long tail. So that effectively means that they are already commanding a lesser share of revenue. And in this period when the pie gets smaller and the top two or three players are taking most of the pie, these guys will find it far more difficult to struggle. And thereby, you could see a few, unfortunate casualties as we move along. Sunil, what's your sense? Is this an opportunity for broadcasters to earn more money from consumers since advertising is kind of not solid? See, advertising and the GDP are interlinked. If the industry says that we need to get the GDP up, they have to advertise. And I think the industry will want that. It's a function of time now. Supply chain and other things interrelated, like people who have gone away. They have millions of people who left their place of abode and gone to their villages or their earlier residences. So this will take time to come back. As and when it comes back, the economy will get kick-started. Let us not be such big boom-sayers. Yes, we have to be pragmatic. But in the short term, conserving cash, spending less, is what most of us are going to adopt. But we've got to bring this back together. We are collectively responsible for our most sustainable economy. At BAK, too, we've done the same. We've cut back salaries, all of us have volunteered cuts. Costs have come down. We are trying to make that business far more sustainable. But there will come a time when we will need to invest back. So you can't throw the good out of, you can't throw your strength out of the window. For content to be charged, right? So it's a subscription. If you look at the OTT players to try and learn from them, it proved because there was no option on TV. Couldn't get out of news, I couldn't get other new stuff, right? Everything else was a replay. And it was good to see some of the replays. Retro always works within a context. But new programming was only on the digital streaming contents which either had it in the library, had not showcased it earlier, or could put forward things. YouTube has been a big beneficiary of this, where music concerts and things like that have gone live and people have raised money and done things. Will people pay more for TV? I don't think so in the short term. We've seen a lot of charging out. You know, people who have not renewed their boxes to a lot of home where people have left, they are not going to renew their box for some time to come. So if you have to go subscription oriented, you've really got to have a smart and a sharp product over there. If it's going to be the TV product, then it is only catch up. And for catch up, it's better to have an advertising solution than to have a subscription solution over there. So you will see. So if there's a big sporting event that comes in and it's on a digital platform, as well as a TV platform, both will stand to gain. But if it's the same show on TV going to digital, I don't see the money moving out there. That's correct. Right? It's different content. Yes, there's a prospect of it happening over there. Subscription in India will take time to pick up. What's happened now is the events are related to the episodes that have happened. I think the other thing which will happen, I mean, at an overall business level, is because this work from home has taught us that it is possible to work from home, right? And have the businesses run out of home. So the overall way of running the businesses will change. And which will impact in my view, the real estate, the way the real estate has been. Yeah, the real estate and the economy is. So do you really need that many big offices? Can you work a few days a week? Hence, you can have rotational staff coming in. And these are the genuine questions all of us at our businesses are probably discussing and evaluating and rightfully so. Because that's probably going to be the new normal as well when we go out into some form of normalcy. So that is the other thing which will happen, you know, and which will impact every way, all of us, whether it's production, how you're producing, you know, for example, for us at D Kids, the Kids channel, we've been able to bring in 100 new episodes during the lockdown because the animators are still creating new content sitting out of home. So it is possible to make, create new content as well, which was, you know, six months ago, somebody had said that you have to run a television network sitting out of food and laughed at them. But it's practically happening, we're doing it. So hence, that's another aspect in the way of new, doing new things in a different way. I mean, doing things in a new way is what's going to happen. Yes, actions have been shot from bombs. Actions have been produced. We produce shows for a particular client which is all being done, you know, indigenously sitting out of home, you know, actual production is happening. So I think it's how you really see it, you know, the glass half full approach, and I think that's been, that's the positive attitude to be bringing into the mix. So Sunil's point, it is up to us as an industry to bring it back to where it was, but till that happens, we don't have to sit and whine about it, we have to find solutions, move on and get on with it. And that's, the attitude will keep us off, keep the engines going. You know, I've always joked about, you know, the terms BC and AC have a new meaning in the new world order. So nowhere, you know, we are a before corona world and an after corona world. And after corona world is a very, very different world. And we just have to accept that. Yes. So I'm told time is up. What I'll do is I'll quickly come to all of you with one last round of question. What I want to know from is we're sitting in May 2020. Let's look a year out, 12 months from now, May 2021. What are your two or three predictions on how will this fundamentally change the ecosystem that we all operate in? Abhishek, why don't we start with you? So I think we, one critically is as an industry we've kind of worked on certain very set rules. And like Megha said, a lot of the rules have changed where no one thought of production from home. I think a lot more focus on what is really required to make the show would come back into focus. So therefore you would see a lot of different types of programming actually coming out with a lot of focus on cost and other safety measures. But on the whole, I think we're a little optimistic about the content production business as such as compared to the others because luckily for what is right now hitting the linear television, unfortunately, but luckily we have a balancing act in the OTT players who are commissioning right now. So we see the demand for content to grow as everyone has said it in different things. But I think we see that a little more faster. So by May, we're hoping that a lot of things would have possibly come back to normal for the content producers at least from that genre of the business at least. Okay, Sunil. So I think a few things will emerge. One, I will tell you what we are doing at Bach because I think it's first fair for me to say what we are doing, right? We are making our business leaner. We are making it more sustainable. We have already given up eight or nine of the places that we worked in. 33% of our staff is going to work from home, right? Right now everybody is 100%, but we have taken a call, 33% is going to work from home. We have enabled our company to be like this. We have brought our costs down. I mean, we have wiped out 20 crores of costs straight away this year. As an example, we are wiping out more so that we know we as a company can do more using less resources too. Like I said, we are exploring better tools and we are exploring things in digital so we can operate with transparency for a bigger ecosystem than just television alone. I think that's important to us. I think the broadcaster side, I see a 5% attrition of channels at the bottom of the channels, right? Just not doing the same business that they were doing. Easily 5% to 8% that's going to happen. They're going to shut their business or they're not going to want to continue in this business because it's been a terrible time in that business. I also see that there will be very smart programming that will emerge from some of the broadcasters which will change perhaps the way programming is consumed or which will change the pecking order if nothing else, so to speak. I also believe that TV has more confidence today from the cynics than it had ever before. So I see some of those who had walked out of television coming back. The big ticket programming, if IPL takes place, it brings in big confidence into the industry. There are some big ticket events in television which coincidentally happen only in the later part of the year or post-September. So if all of those start coming back in terms of production, it brings the confidence back. I think it's important to drive the GDP and the industry should do that. If the resources exist, people will invest in television. If not now, a little later. There will be a delay, but I don't think growth will go away. And we don't know, it's only March, April, May. We don't know what June, July, August is about. I don't think anybody can predict that. So the next three months are gonna be crucial for the next 12 months ahead. It's likely somebody will have a terrific September, 2022, August, 2021. Yes. But these six months are like dead. Yes, that's correct. Vivek? So I think, primarily three key things from my perspective. One is cost efficiencies and a lot of the companies will adopt digital in far more progressive manner. So therefore, digital transformation will lead to a lot of efficiencies as far as cost is concerned. That will be one key thing, which almost all of us are talking about. Cost efficiencies will come in purely one, from adoption of technology. Second, from being far more leaner in our operation system. So whether it's letting go of office space or letting go of people or letting go of the extreme, you know, the flap that we had in the system, those kind of things will be important. The second important thing which broadcasters will now start doing is, we'll have to start investing into newer streams of revenue. We spoke about PTA versus, you know, free to air versus pay. I think more and more we realize that advertising as a stream of revenue will grow at a much, you know, slower pace as compared to others. So therefore you will have to have alternative streams of revenue moving forward, whether it's digital, whether it's, you know, on-ground events or it's live, you know, whether it's anything else, but newer sources of revenues will have to come into the picture. And third is that consumption as we move forward into the next year, this is, this period of two, three months has virtually changed the way we had in human television. This heightened consumption of content is not going to go down just, you know, because we have gotten out of the lockdown. So consumption of content will be far more than what it was, you know, six months back. So these three things will happen as we move to the next year, next year around the same time. Fantastic, Megha. So over and above to what everyone has said, I think that's the general sentiment. I also feel that I think what we do not need further is the regulator intervening anymore into our lives. So, you know, we, so that is something I really hope we don't have to deal with, you know, with already with such bad year. The last thing you need is further to deal with some of those challenges. Fortunately, NTO 2.0 has been pushed back, but that's my concern because the industry cannot afford any further, you know, taking us off track because it's already a very, very tough year as we've already established. We're just trying to about to make the ends meet and just to start now revisiting and reinventing some of these regulatory challenges which we keep getting threatened with is something I am very, very, I hope, I hope that that's not something we'll have to deal with. And so I hope that my main exterior to your point, Neville, is that we will be back in a position of strength and, you know, let bygones be bygones and start focusing on how we rebuild our industry in a strong way. That's a message of hope. Ajay, my question, will broadcasters get good rates in May 20 when you are gone? Yeah. I think things will start coming back to normal. And the band is like... I think I think it just... Relative, everything is relative. So if you're down to 10, you'll have 20 which is 100% growth. Correct, correct, correct. So yeah, it will take a bit now. It will take a bit to come back to our current levels, the way things are going right now. But yes, a few things that we see changing at least is like everyone else said, work from home will become more of a reality as in people will start looking at how we can reduce usage of the office. Travel will certainly go down. I used to travel for about four days a week previously. Pre-March, I don't see that happening again. And we've got used to this kind of communication and this should continue. Digitization will certainly increase. So digital billing is happening now. Transfer of money is happening digitally. So all of that is going to continue because people have seen the benefit and the efficiency in all of that. So that will definitely continue. In terms of media, I think OTT, see content will remain to be important and possibly as someone said, will grow in importance. And therefore OTT will start, the tipping point of OTT will become closer. And I think that is certainly going to happen. On a lighter note, people will start paying a little more attention to the household products that they buy because you're going to be getting used to doing some stuff yourself. Like Sunil was mentioning, I mean, dishwashers have sold out in a place like Nanded. So that's certainly going to be there. And homes are going to become a little bit more equipped. I personally didn't have an office chair. I've gone and got myself one. I needed a stabilizer for my wifi. Those kind of things are certainly going to come into play. Fantastic. So thank you, everyone. We are short on time. We'll have to finish the session before I end. Thank you, Sunil, Abhishek, Vivek, Mejha, Ajay. Two, three key takeaways. You know, economy is resilient. Hopefully things will be better off by the time the festive season comes around. Importantly, broadcasters, the television ecosystem, this is a very good time to experiment, do bolder things, do newer format shows. The confidence in the television ecosystem continues. But at the same time, rates obviously will be under pressure because of lesser advertising. You know, talent-sized, as Abhishek said, there'll be revision and cost. And Mejha made a very relevant point. The trend of brand solutions which picked up over the last two, three years will become even more accentuated now because clients will seek more ROI from television. So with that, thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Wednesday afternoon. We look forward to seeing you soon on another webinar. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Navan.