 Well, it's now time for our first panel discussion of the evening with four media stalwarts of the industry that are going to discuss probably the number one question on our minds, digital and traditional friends or foes. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to our esteemed set of panelists beginning with our moderator, Mr. Ashish Vasidh, Chairman and CEO of Denson Ages Network. And our panelists, Mr. Arnab Goswami, MD and Editor-in-Chief, Republic TV, Mr. Raj Nayak, COO ViCom 80 and Mr. Rajiv Verma, CEO, HD Media Limited. Let's have a huge round of applause for this amazing panel and Mr. Basheep, over to you sir. Thank you very much. This is definitely going on my resume that I'm getting to interview Arnab. So, but I think the topic that we are discussing today to my mind has a very clear answer. It's not a question of friends or foes. The answer is obviously it's friends. But I think what we've got to figure out is that how does the traditional media coexist with the digital media in this fast-growing world? Really lucky and honored to have such an elite panel. I don't think any of them needs an introduction, but I must tell you the context in which and what they're representing and hopefully we'll hear their trend of thoughts accordingly. On my left first is Rajiv Verma who is the CEO of the entire HD Media Group and is also one of the finest gentlemen in advertising. So he will hopefully and his company has for it, of course has a big print background but has for it significantly into digital as well. After that is Arnab, the only introduction or context I can, actually two contexts I will give to you. Two or three days ago we met at the Zee party and my wife told him that you're the last voice I hear every night when I'm going to sleep. But besides that, Arnab actually before he launched his channel about a year ago, just before we had launched our first report, we had had the occasion to meet up and I told him that he's very harmful to the advertising business. He hadn't yet spent a single rupee on advertising his channel's name, but everybody knew he was launching Republic and I think he's one of the finest examples of how he used digital to actually connect with such a large audience for a medium which was television and if you see the tagline below his Republic, it says television, digital, medium. So it's sort of combined all of that and has also now launched the Republic world, the digital business. And of course after that is our dear friend, the man I love a lot, Mr. Raj Nayak who in this audience certainly needs no introduction. He's probably seen every aspect of media in this country, is a veteran in the advertising world, recently finished his 25 years and of course Beyond Colors is now CEO of Viacom. So very happy to have this panel. What I'm going to request, maybe beginning with Rajiv, is request each of the panelists to just give their thoughts for two or three minutes and maybe after that we can start our discussion and if there is time we will then open it up for questions to audience. So Rajiv, would you like to kick off? Hello, very good evening to everyone. I hope you are all up to it to kind of approach to this one hour of debate on digital or traditional, something that has been almost beaten to death. Before I start let me wish everybody a very happy new year because this is just the beginning of the year where as media companies we are coming off a year which has been called as the year of peak media. And the year of peak media what that really means in English is that there was more digital media consumed last year than any year prior. An average person in the US consumed almost 12 hours of media in front of screen and that's a pretty staggering number. No wonder as a result of that Netflix considers sleep as its main competitor and not exactly other media companies. The truth is that even in India I think the amount of time we are spending in front of screens, if you go by merry maker index and extrapolate that, then our would be easily five to six hours every day. I guess in larger cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Chakra, number would be closer to US and it could be as much as 10 to 12 hours. If you look at the way data pricing and data consumption has exploded, clearly you know radio stations powered by Google, possibly connections powered by Geo, they are all leading to an explosive consumption of media, most of which looks like it is videos and entertainment stuff which is being consumed. I reckon it's mainly pornography followed by Bollywood, followed by sports and probably if you go a little bit further food and stuff which goes viral, which has really no context to it, possibly news comes somewhere and serious news comes somewhere at the bottom. I don't think it's really very much among the top as far as media consumption habits in India might be concerned. This is not something which is likely to undergo a lot of change. I think this pattern of consumption as the prices of data keep coming down are only going to increase more and more and from almost a 23% people who are on the net right now and like China we are almost 51% people are consuming the data. I think we are on to a very major long change as far as the media consumption habits in India are concerned. What does that mean for companies like HT which have been there for more than or close to a century? Companies like HT and several other legacy media companies have no choice but to embrace this change and become a part of this change and possibly even lead this change. However, disruption of the type that we are experiencing right now is not something that's very easy for traditional media companies to navigate. Just to introduce, HT has among various other news websites like hindustantime.com or livebin.com or hindustant.com. Some other digital assets which are all focused on digital play, SHINE which is one of the largest online job portals, DC Martini which is rating and TV aggregator as far as the rating of movies is concerned. It's a movie rating aggregator. And then there are education play which is also you can do digital court sales using HT sites. So HT as a legacy company has been trying to embrace digital media but the challenge there is that these are not changes which come very easily because there are new skills to be acquired, new talents to be brought in. And then there is a whole question of business models. Are there effective business models which are possible where it's possible to make money? Because in the end, shareholder value creation is the goal of every company. So I hope over the conversation in this panel we'll figure out and have that debate around how all companies are progressing but as far as we are concerned it is a traditional media company which is trying to embrace the advent of digital media and figure out its way forward. I don't know if you launched in the middle and in the thick of the digital revolution so to speak. What are your initial opening thoughts? So first of all thank you Ashish for the wonderful introduction. You know I think that you know the way that you have yourself built the Benzoo Aegis Network and your emphasis on digital over the last three or four years proves where you think the future lies. So I think you've done a damn good job of it. I'm not used to flattering you. But having said that, you know, print is the past Rajiv and as this country's consumption habits change we have to keep in mind three things. What is your habit? What is the audience? And what are the levels of engagement? Now I find that anyone who feels today that we live in a non-fragmentable business will have to redefine their business model as all legacy players that Times of India and HD will have to do over the future. I think that essentially it does not matter whether you are in a print space or a television space or an online space. It's the power of your brand to lead a conversation and the conversation need not be about news. The conversation can be over a serial. The conversation can be over an event. The conversation can be about a habit or the conversation can be about something that the whole country is concerned about. I often say that India has four obsessions, ABCD, astrology, Bollywood, cricket and debate. So as a content creator I say let me take all these four habits and then ask myself where would I engage with each of these? Would I engage with astrology on television or online? Would I engage with Bollywood on television or online or in a movie hall? Would I engage with cricket online or on television or in print? And would I engage with debate on print as you used to ten years back in op-ed pages or would you do it online in the course of an online debate? Or would I do it on TV? I want to throw up on the discussion since you've given me two minutes which is one hundredth of my average question. And I'll close right now. I have all people looking expectantly at me when I'm going to keep quiet but I just say I want to spark a conversation here. Where would you engage? And which of these three mediums can you do away with if you want to engage? In my view it's simple. For the foreseeable future you cannot do away with television which is why it is not without doubt that there are reasonable analysis that TV will grow at fifteen, sixteen percent CAGR over the next five to ten years. You cannot do away with digital. I cannot either so nobody else can. Can you do away with print? Is a question mark over this. Therefore Ashish when you say traditional versus others it's not traditional versus digital we must debate. It's whether we must debate traditional versus TV digital or digital TV. Let's redefine this and then we can take the conversation forward. For both advertisers and consumers where would you engage and what can be an option to leave out in the process of engagement? I think a perfect lead-in to the Mr. Television himself. TV digital or digital TV? First of all I accepted this invitation because I thought Arnab will be the moderator. He will keep talking and we don't have to speak much. But the disruption has already happened in this room. Ashish has taken his role and Arnab is now... But will this disruption continue? That is the question. Because he will go back to Denso and he will go back to Republic and they will both coexist. That's the way to look at it. I was in a lighter note. I come from a slightly different school. I don't believe there is something called traditional media. What is traditional about it? Just because you've been there for a longer time but now digital in India has been there for 20 years. Now if 20 years is not long enough to build a business then there's a problem. So I don't think there is something called traditional media or new media or things like that. I think the question to ask and you know another thing which I believe Hindi is called Hauwa banana. What is digital media? For me, any content that goes through internet is digital media. Right now Grace Anatomy is playing on Hotstar. People will say it's digital content. It's playing on Amazon also I'm told. We did 24. We ran it on colors. People say it's TV content. Had we played it on wood, people would have said that's digital content. What Arnab said is perfect. I think it doesn't matter. It is a question of you are giving viewers today a choice to consume content whether it is text or whether it is video. You are giving it to them on different streams on different formats. It is for them to consume. Okay, I see less of a challenge for television as I see for print with due respect not because of anything. The consumption of news, I'm using news as a thing, is only going up. I get all my news on Twitter, right? At one time I only used to read Hindustan Times or Times of India. Today I read The Guardian, I read The New York Times, I read The Independent and all this through Twitter. Consumption is happening whether monetization is happening in the same format and that is a challenge. Two minutes, right? Or you want me to continue because otherwise I'll... Yeah, so that is the way I look at it and we'll come back once we get speaking then I will tell you all my thoughts on it. Unlike Arnab's show, we give enough time to everybody to speak so don't worry. Rajiv, I saw you almost itching to reply to Arnab when he said that. He does make a very interesting point that things are changing very fast. My own view is that India is one of the rare countries where all media can coexist for a long time. Of course the rates of growth are going to be very different. Digital is going to grow much faster than the other media perhaps print some parts of it will grow slower. But essentially the roots of your company are in print medium and the way Arnab pointed out that could be an area of concern. What are your views? How would you like to react? Well, first and foremost while the roots of the company as Raj also mentioned could be a century old but that does not absolve a company to transform and embrace as I said the advent of digital because that's where the audience is. I think the larger question is that of not just in India but across the world. The true business model that's still not been discovered. There was a time when the new media company like Buzzfeed was considered to be the poster child of how a new age media company should behave. But now there have been quarters after quarters that they have missed their running forecasts and whatever marginal increase in advertising takes place 80% or 90% of that is soaked up by Google and Facebook. So the challenges are still there a company like Mashable which was again considered to be a great media poster child just got acquired and lost its right to exist in its original avatar. So I think the real challenge still remains that what are viable business model that one can build where advertisers would like to find joy and place their bets as well as audience finds enough engagement as has been mentioned. I think the key there is how do you create engagement? I don't know, I'll just take a second if some of you have heard about the Robert Keele effect something that happened a week or 10 days ago in South Korea. Robert Keele is a professor who was giving an interview on BBC, it was a serious interview. Suddenly the door opens, his two kids, two year old and four year old keep running into the room. Daughter comes dancing, son comes on a stroller. It's a serious interview being conducted by someone like Arnab. And all of a sudden this small little clip of 55 second goes viral all over the world. And even the mainstream media in India on their digital sites have to place it because the crowd is all going there. Now question arises that should advertisers be placing bets on a site like this? Is this the kind of clip which would attract advertising and because eyeballs are there? Or are we going after engaged high quality websites where there's high quality content? But it's easier said than done. High quality engaged content is not that easy to produce. How many of us would have done binge watching had Netflix been producing terrible content? How many of us would have been willing to pay the money that we pay for a print media also to digital media as far as New York Times is concerned? So creating that kind of engaged quality content is not something easy to do. It's easier said than done. You really need newsrooms of very high quality people of very different ilk who are able to create content like that. So those are larger challenges that companies have to deal with, businesses have to deal with as to what kind of content we create which will engage the audience. Anup, you have a digital business, you have a television business, primarily a television personality in that sense. Somewhere will come a point where you sort of have to start prioritizing where are you going to monetize more? Do you see that happening? Is that a possible dilemma you'll face? No, it's not a choice where you'll monetize more. For the foreseeable future, you'll monetize more in TV. See, I don't want to be politically correct here. The fact is you will monetize more in television for the foreseeable future. So tell me next five years, six years, after five years, nobody knows. Ashish, but I can confidently say we'll monetize more in television over the next five years. Not because the levels of engagement in television are greater, but because you've established consumption patterns that have been predictable over a period of time. So if I tell you I reach 24 million homes, Republic reaches 24 million, so it's a deliverable figure that I can deliver on it. The other reason why I'll monetize more on TV is because there is a, with stalwarts like Raj and so many in the room, there is an established system and a discipline to the monetizability of it, which is accepted by the advertiser, along with a strong metrics of measurability. So I think the moment the measurability index changes, then the game changes. I believe the next game is video. And the next game video does not matter whether you see it on boot, whether you see it on Hotstar, whether you see directly on a Republic world, or whether you see it on a Netflix or anywhere or just on your phone. You need to decide what's the future. The future in this country with 1.4 billion smartphones and mobile connections by 2021, the future is not text. So I would appeal to text-based legacy companies not to invest much more in the replication of text. Rajiv, it's not the future. Engagement is only and only going to be on video. So the future, five years from now, four years from now is video. Then we need to decide whether we have the confidence to monetize it. I find that there's an underconfidence in monetizing it, which is why if you find today how many people are going in for programmatic monetizing in big media companies at abysmally low levels, you will find a large proportion, 70 to 75% of people are not doing original selling. People are just going in for programmatic selling because it's easy. Does an established player have the courage to change the rules of the game? Will there be a media entity in the future which says I don't do programmatic advertising? I will sell directly, like if I sell television directly, I'll sell digital directly. The day the confidence happens, that changes. Now when will the confidence happen? The confidence happens when you create content that you are genuinely proud of. If you create a wonderful, multi-layered, deeply investigated piece of content that is absolutely not available on your regular television medium, then I believe that there will be strong advertising for it. If someone were to have the courage to do a news equivalent of the house of cards, if someone were to have the courage to create a piece of content, and if you were to have an interview with your country's prime minister tomorrow, not to put it on television first, but to put it on digital first, then you're breaking the barrier. Right now, nobody's breaking the barrier. All of us are sitting in the room and saying, what is the advertising model to deciding whether TV is the future, online is the future, print is the future. Advertising is the follow-up. The root is the content. And the reason I always say this is that when we launch Republic, I told ourselves, and you may not believe it, Ashish, we said let's not look at the monetizability, let's make sure that we have a brand that is so strong that you will get the advertising. Today we are not spending enough time in the creation of original content. The moment we do that, we will have confident sales professionals going out and selling that content. But that requires a paradigm shift. And I think that paradigm shift is just around the corner. That's where I believe it. But what's gonna break this up? What, so who will, when will prime minister's first interview we put on digital instead of TV? What's required to break this from a digital perspective? Whenever he gives it next, we'll put it on digital. I can assure you, I would. I would. I'm sure you'd put it on your prime time. We have not even, we've not even sapped. I'll tell you a simple example, a real example, forget the theoretical stuff. I came back, I was really happy after the Gujarat election results and all that. Not for the result, I was happy about our coverage. Don't get me wrong. Prashant Bhushan may spring up here and say, I told you. The, when I came back in the next day, Vikas told me that I have a beautiful surprise for you. And he told me that you've got some 14 million transactions in terms of viewers on your election day online. You know, I would, I was so amazed. I told Vikas that I don't think we women understood the, you know, you realize the power of a media when you flex it. Suddenly you produced original content. And it just flexed. Imagine if you were to get half that number or one fourth that number on video, Raj, one tenth that number on video, Raj, on a daily basis, 365 days a year, which advertiser will not consider it putting their worth, their money in. The answer is you need to put that quality of content on a daily basis. Then hopefully there will be professionals here. Bach or others will put a measurability index to it. And then advertisers who will go out and say, now we believe in this, this is the future. So Raj, Arnab is saying that video, the content is most important. It doesn't matter. I agree with everything Arnab says. But I do know you're one of the biggest proponents of great content. Now if content, if it doesn't matter where it's going to be put, then is television going to be threatened by? No, I don't think so. Let me put it this way. I think Rajiv touched on something and Arnab spoke on videos and Rajiv touched on measurability, right? There are two things. First of all, digital, and like I said, Hava Banarakraya, the way to look at it is anything on the internet is digital. So because I'm from television and I know the panel has been chosen to in a way speak for television, actually I'm very uniquely positioned because as a company I have my own OTT platform and I have my television. Thank you. As you progress in life, you want a bigger house, you want a bigger car, you want a bigger TV. That's a reality of life. In the US, television viewing came down by five minutes in 2018, expected, and in 2019 it's expected to come down by six minutes. Out of four hours of viewing, which means three hour 47 minutes still is there. For content creators, whether it is Republic TV or whether it is colors, star, and if you, sir, tomorrow decide to do video content, I think it doesn't matter because the way to look at digital is like it's just another pipe through which the same water is flowing. We only had cable at one time, then we had satellite, then we had DTH, now there's digital. So for a content creator, all it needs to be this, it has to be monetized, okay? The problem that you have at this moment is, you know, my dear friend Aditya Swami is sitting there and I know Google has sponsored this, so I'd be mindful of what I say. But having said that when Google says we've got unique so many million views, the question to ask is from how many YouTube sites has it come and over what period of time? Okay, it is not time averaged. It's cumulative and it's fine. And the second challenge that is there is when you're putting out an ad, you have to tell a story. If you're watching a 30-second clip and a two-minute clip, you can't put a 30-second ad in a 30-second clip. Nobody will watch it. As it is on a, there's a skip button there. So that is a challenge. The challenge what Rajiv said is you have to be able to work on a model where monetization you are able to do. At this moment, and I heard Anurag Bhatra speaking, 85% goes to Facebook and Google. There's 15% left, right? It's completely disproportionate. And television is growing. If I ask, Partho is sitting here. We're from 180 million homes. We are planning to go to 250 million homes. So there's a headroom there. You have to get a measurement, which I'm told ACAM, ACAM, right? That's what Bach is doing. ACAM, ECAM, ECAM, okay? ECAM or ACAM, I think that's the right word. ACAM is the right word, yeah. One, combined, yeah. If you're able to get a measurement that's comparable, it's very easy. Arnab will tell Vikas, Satne Vejna. The difference is you may run a 30 second on TV and you may run a three second or whatever it is, four second on digital. So monetization will happen together. That's the way to look at it. Content at this moment, the reason why people are not putting why Arnab Goswami is not putting the Prime Minister's interview on things and he said he'll put it. But for a broadcaster like Colors, for me to put content on digital first is a challenge of sheer monetization. I would love to do it. But the economies don't permit me to do it today. Tomorrow, okay, if I had to do 24 today, we did not have Woot as a platform at that time and we did it. But if I had to do 24 today and if I have a subscription model where people are willing to pay me a premium, I may be willing to put my entire series first on digital, get premium customers to pay for it, get the opportunity to view it first and then put it on air for the masses. It will happen. And sorry, here there's not too many, so I can talk. Okay. So I think the way to look at the future is television and digital, whatever you want to call it, will complement each other. There is no better period for any content creator in any genre. Okay, this is the diamond era for all the content creators in any genre because they have to, whatever they produce, the streams will be many for people to watch. Now there's a challenge in that because there is so much of content that will come out because now you have Amazon, you have Netflix, I'm told Facebook is coming with something called, I don't know what it's called. I remember when I was outside, but they are coming out with content and then there's Apple TV, Google TV. But with more and more content coming in, I think the challenge that's gonna be there is of discovering the content. Discoverability is gonna be a huge challenge because of which the content has to really stand out. You know, the content, so these are some of the challenges that will be there. So I think that will be music to a lot of people who are in the content space, many of whom are out here. But just moving a little bit away from video, digital is way beyond video, right? The younger generation particularly searches for everything online. A lot of commercial transactions happen online. I mean, everything from booking your railway tickets to your movie tickets to buying popcorn, et cetera. All is happening online. Is that in any way, Rajiv, going to impact companies like yours? Let me ask a question quickly. There's a bunch of millennials also sitting here and a lot of young people. How many of you have bought a crypto in the last one month or two months? One hand up. So more than buying popcorns and more than buying groceries and appliances online, there's only two people who have bought crypto, which I think one of the largest opportunities our generation had. We just lacked curiosity. I know people in the US who have actually done very well for themselves. And I see my kids, you know, really engaged into buying crypto, living in the US. So fact is that I think for e-commerce and for buying online is a great medium. It's more than proven that the kind of convenience that Flipkart and Amazon et cetera are offering, that's unparalleled. The crushing of all the large format stores is bound to happen because of the sheer convenience, the joy, and the price benefit that you get when you're shopping online. And now going forward in case cryptocurrencies do become the, and who knows, that they might be here to stay, then clearly there is a possibility for serious amount of online transaction to be done there. But as far as media companies are concerned, I think we will be somewhat devoid of that. We can only tell those stories and hope that we inspire people to get to know the truth. And most of that truth is not fake news, but it's actually real news so that people can make choices about what's right and what is not right. You see, let's not move away from video. I'll tell you the reason why, because when we are talking about the future, this panel was meant to discuss about the future, we are urbanizing at twice the rate that China ever did. You know, we don't want to see the future, but that's the truth. Secondly, we have added 110 million more people who potentially converse in English. This country is going to achieve a hundred percent electrification which we are not factoring in and you'll see the impact. I think that number of 250 will go way beyond that because the first thing I always heard a story that first time somebody electrified a village in Sundarban, right? And a relative of mine was involved in the process of electrifying a village in Sundarban and they gave, there was one connection that was attached to every home and they had given a study lamp in each house and they later when they came back and they realized every study lamp was replaced by a TV. So the moment you have 100% electrification in this country, massive urbanization and of course easy accessibility of data, what will people do, Ashish? What will people do? People will not read, people will watch and people will watch insane amounts of video. The future is video. The obsessions of this country which is astrology, Bollywood, cricket and debate will be consumed on video. People will not read about these subjects. They will watch video because video is a medium which is accessible. It's easy. And sometimes it thinks on your behalf. No, you wouldn't say you wouldn't want to be illiterate. You shouldn't say this, yeah. That's a very controversial statement. Honestly, I mean like a person like my driver who probably doesn't know how to read and write, he can't read a newspaper, he can watch. That's why video is that much more impactful. So when you're talking about the future, what is traditional? Traditional as opposed to what is current. What is not watched is traditional. What is not watchable is traditional. What is not video will then be traditional. I'm supplementing it and I'm telling you the amount that people are actually reading. People are reading for a minute or two minutes or three minutes. If you go back and check news sites, they're giving you news in terms of one minute capsules, two minute capsules, three minute capsules. They actually tell you this is a 30 second read and people like news in shorts are excelling at the opportunity of giving you news in 60 words. What does that indicate? People are not reading as much. We're encouraging the trend of not reading. So the sociological demographic trend of this country is going to be watching original content watched by deeper sections of this country in multiple languages. I also want to say just one thing. I'll give you my experience as a news person. News changed somewhere around 2008 because the moment we did 2611 and we realized that opinion comes forth because we were so angry with what we saw in 2611, the format of news changed. Linear news died. The bulletin died. Nobody was watching 22 minutes. Nobody was coming at nine o'clock to watch the entire news capsule in the back of the book story. Does that mean that there is no space for range of stories? No, it exists. Does that mean that there is no space for multi-layered, deep investigative journalism? No, there is. Does that mean there's only debate that must be on television? It doesn't. Potentially it can be that this form of television works on a certain medium, but when you engage more and more on a solo format, you will experiment in kinds of content. So if you see online video companies are not producing the same content that a CNN on television would, which means it gives content creators a possibility of creating 10,000 different kinds of content from bite-sized content to curiosity content, to documentary content, through individual content, habit-based content, satirical content, which we may not want to take a chance with on television, because, for example, on TV, we say, we want to make sure that whenever you come on this channel, you get the big story or the big debate. There's a lot of news and video formats that can be done beyond the big story and the big debate. So I think it's all about experimentation. The digital format allows us to experiment. And video is a beautiful format in which you can experiment in multiple ways, Ashish. And I think that big change is about to come. I think that's undeniable, and you told me I could provoke you, so perhaps I'm just doing this to provoke you. Please, please. But, look, from an advertiser's point of view, if my customer is gonna go on Amazon and select something over there and buy something out there and complete the whole transaction over there, why don't I just go in place and add an Amazon? Why don't, if he's gonna search on Google, then isn't it better for me that I put my money on Google? So the question I was actually trying to allude to is that there's no denying video will be the primary medium for engaging with customers. But digital allows you various other things which perhaps other media don't. So do you think that is ever gonna become significant or no? Yeah, but there's enough space for all. I don't think this is, this or that. I do not think that Amazon is going to ever replace media brands on the online space because primarily people are coming there to transact. I don't see that as a threat for us, not with the kind of growth that we are seeing. And in fact, what will happen increasingly is that whether it's an Amazon or big brands, they will look at content alliances with people to provide a greater degree of engagement to their subscribers. Now the counter question can be asked that if they were so sure about the engagement levels that why would each of the majors who are already having a lot of footfall want more engagement with unique content? That tells you that the levels of engagement with unique content are much more than the specific transaction. So I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow on a ATM you would find the news. Now the question is not whether you find the news on a ATM. The challenge will come at this point. Let there be a content creator who says to a ATM or to an Amazon. I will recite my content on your large base. To your 50 million people, I will want to reach. But I do not want you to pay for the delivery of the content. I want your platform, but I will take on the cost of the delivery because eventually any media business is the cost of creating other content minus the cost of delivery. Now in our country, because we are not sure about unique sales, nobody's taking that on. But in the future, there will be media players who will go to the big guys and say, we'll give you the content, but we will take on the cost of delivery because we will monetize that content ourselves and not expect you to monetize our content through your traditional mediums. That change is about to come. So you need a paradigm shift. You need people with a sense of adventure in this business. And then the Googles, the Facebooks, Paytm's, Amazon's, everybody will then look back and say, are we looking at someone who can potentially compete with us in the future? So we need a little bit of daredevilry. I think it can happen. It can happen very smartly if a content creator knows how to create a content limited cost, has the confidence to take on the cost of delivery and also has the confidence to go and sell that content on his or her own terms. And I think the challenge is for media majors like Raj who come out and prove that they can do it because that's the spirit of adventure that drives growth in the media business, not traditional thinking. So I'm dabbling with many of these thoughts myself and I'm sure we'll get the answers in a period of time. Thank you. Raj, do you want to add something? No, I think Annabar said it all, especially with the, he said 100% electrification in the country and Reliance Geo, I think, has brought the data price so low that now everybody can afford it. So the consumption has really shot up. In the last two years after Reliance Geo, I think the consumption of content, video content, especially on, and I'm sticking to video to a large extent because it's shot up immensely. But again, the challenge is monetization and I'll come to that part of it because again, when it comes to consumption, the truth is you will watch a short format on a small screen or if you're going from here to Andheri and there's a live cricket match happening, you will watch it. The moment you reach a hotel room or you reach a home, you'll switch on the TV. So that is one. So whilst you have so many smartphones, not necessarily long format is being consumed there and there was also this, you know, everybody used to say at one time, millennials don't watch, they don't have the time. They don't watch long format. The truth is if you give them content that they like, they will show up all their attention on you. That is how binge watching has become such a phenomenon. Now I'm coming to the advertising part of it. I mean, there are so many people in this room. Can anybody tell me any brand that was built on digital globally? Yeah, yeah, I do. Sorry. Yeah, you're not part of that. Well, Republic was. Say this. It was not built on digital. Okay, it's, he advertised, there was hoardings, there was everything and there was Arnab Goswami. So Republic is exception. So, but the truth is the fact that Google advertises, Amazon advertises, all the major people advertise on television, it tells you a story by itself. We have experienced it ourselves. We also realized that if there's only 15% revenue in this current scenario for OTT platforms to be shared and there is a challenge of monetization because the inventory is growing up, the CPM is becoming a challenge. But consumption on OTT platform is not coming down. We have Big Boss. Big Boss happened on Woot. Big Boss on Woot went through the roof. Yeah. The number of people watching Big Boss on Woot was huge. But monetization comparatively for the audience we delivered on television and that was chalk and cheese. So we've consciously taken a decision. Moving forward, you will see some of our big properties. We'll sell it together. So you have to buy Woot and colors together or whichever platform that we have, especially the big properties. And I think this will be the way monetization will take place. And that's the way to look at it. Well, I guess IPL now starts selling it is the first example of that that we're really seeing. But if both you guys think that there is less excitement in print, just you wait until day after tomorrow when the IRS is gone. I know. So I think I will give before we close the debate and throw the questions over to the audience. Can I speak for one minute? Of course you can. The only place where I disagree with Arnab. Okay. Oh, God. I do. Is I don't think text will just move away. Because like I said, I did the New York Times. I did the Guardian. I want to read an analysis. I want to read a debate. Whatever you do when it comes to news, you know, there's only so much you can say in certain amount of time. And the pleasure of reading, I don't think it's going to go anywhere. So I don't, the other thing, which I think the growth will come from, whether it is even in content, we only look at is regional. Regional is going to be huge in this country. It's just a matter of time. Please come on my show today. I'll show you how much can be said in this amount of time. Secondly, vice was created online, only online, but it was created because it, it produced different content. But I want to ask you, Ashish, that would you know, you are in this business. Would you, if someone tells you, we provide you engaged, would you look at aggregated video consumption? Just asking. Definitely. You would look at it. So you would, would it be to a point where you would say, I would not distinguish between television and this, I would not distinguish on the basis of the screen, as he says. Well, at the moment, no, because the, I mean contrast is pretty huge, but I definitely feel we're heading in that direction. Okay. So I think before we open now, now, Raj, now, now. I have the exact figures for India, but one of the thing is the aggregated content on say YouTube, for example, okay, over a one month period. If you take all broadcasting networks, you'll be able to read the same audience in five days. That is the difference. I think before we throw the question open, Rajiv, I would like you to have the last word because I do believe personally that I'm one of those few guys who still paces up and down for the newspaper to come. And if it's delayed by five minutes, I'm pretty upset about it. I would like you to give your last words of where do you see print in this going forward, given that the points that are not been made about video, given the fact that you can't deny the audience is going to digital, what do you see as a future of print as a rapper point? Ashish, thanks very much for keeping our kitchen fires going by walking up and down in the morning, waiting for the newspaper. I'm your newspaper delivery boy and you can call me anytime newspaper comes late. But I think on a more serious note, as we know there is a tipping point that happened in the rest of the world when the digital advertising overtook television. First it overtook print and then it overtook television. And that tipping point, once it happens, do remember that in digital, 80% is soaked up by Google, Facebook, and possibly if you take fan companies and Netflix and Amazon to that, then you're looking at a very small piece of a shrinking pie, which all these digital companies with very low entry barriers are fighting for. So therefore, and with highly questionable business models. So what I'm concerned about looking at the future and who knows the future. However, if you look at it as a window and look at what happened to other mature economies where digital was ahead of where we are, I think you're looking at existential threat. And the only way to overcome that existential threat is by creating business models, which is built on extremely engaged audience, high quality content, credible journalism or credible content that will bring the audience back, create that binge watching. And you have a business model that VCs and private equity companies find viable enough to be able to fund it because this requires a very sustained, long effort because before that business actually starts to create true shareholder value. This is not something that has been proven by many companies around the world, including China. I think we'll just wrap it up a little late on time, but we'll wrap it up with two questions, perhaps from the audience. So if anybody has a question, please put your hand up before I conclude the panel. Any questions, anyone? Just one question. You guys have talked about measurability and selling together. So do we see an era where there will be a single measurability, which is CPT and everything sold through the same currency? Barth is already working on it. That's what I just referred to called ACUM, which is, which I think, Partho, can you tell us when it will come out? Pardon? Second quarter of 2000. So the question to Mr. Singh- It's not far away at all. It's before the next General Election. So the era of CPR, peace and all are over. Can we conclude that? I can't speak on behalf right now. I can't speak, but all I'm saying, but I think what you can be assured of is right now, when you compare digital audience and you compare marketers, when they're comparing digital and TV, it's Apple and oranges. I think the, when you combine both and the way they're working about it, at least they will be at least, they'll know where their money is really going. I think that will be solved. Well, rest you can answer. Well, I don't think it'll be over in a hurry, but I think that is the direction we'll go into. But, you know, when you talk about measurability across media, I personally believe that there is, it's going to be beyond just digital and television and measurement of video. There are a lot of media that are suffering because of lack of measurement. For one, we haven't had a print research for the last three years. It's now just scheduled to come out day after tomorrow, which is, you know, one of our best researched medium. But other media like outdoor, for example, out of home just has no research. You're just buying it absolutely on gut and some data that, you know, individual players are gathering. Radio has very meager research. So I definitely feel we're finally going to move into multimedia planning where there'll be somewhat common, it can never be the same metric, but there'll be somewhat common metrics. First bit of that may be achieved in digital and television video, but only the video part, because there's a lot of digital which is beyond video. That will probably be the first step, but I think that's the direction it's going to take, but I do feel it's going to take a long time because there's a lot of vested interests that actually don't want some of this to happen. And that's the honest truth. Any other question? Last question? Good, so we can wrap up with this. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for this fantastic panel. Thank you. Thank you. Before I let you go, I'd like to request Mr. Samp Singh, Director India Agency's Google India, to kindly join me on stage to present a token of our gratitude to our absolutely amazing panelists and moderator. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give another huge round of applause to our panelists and Mr. Basim. Thank you so much for moderating that very engaging session. Mr. Singh, thank you very much for doing the honors.