 The news is available in a different form, which is news in shorts, in short format through Twitter, but that doesn't take away the trust from it. So what takes away trust? I'll tell you what takes away trust. What takes away trust is that, you know, I get a WhatsApp message which says that during, say, ex-government time, 99% appointments were for a certain caste and religion. So that you have to filter information in your head, you know, and you have to filter out information and see what is trustworthy and what is not trustworthy. So I know where the source is, so I know that, you know, this is the platform. You believe that there's been no differentiation and for you as an advertiser, three years down the line going forward, say in 2020, 2021, you would say your advertising budget on a news channel will be the same what they were, say, three years back. Yes or no? I would say it will grow. It will grow on a news channel going forward. Of course, yeah. So Sai, my question to you on this is that when you have, you in the policy bazaar, right? So let me take the essence of policy. You have the finance minister doing a Facebook live. You have the chief economic advisor coming on Facebook, Twitter, and using these as the mediums. You do not have the prime minister of this country doing a single press conference for the television. So somehow don't you believe that for brand building as in a sense the monopoly that television or news had say three years in say 2012 and is no longer valid and somehow the advertising budgets and the brand point of view also it is more distributed and somehow do you agree with what Rajiv is saying that even three years down the line the quantum of advertising revenue will be same for a news channel? So first of all as a marketer, you know, you don't look at brand building in isolation. You don't look at brand building in news channels. So I build a brand and news is one of the mediums, one of the important mediums where you advertise. So brand building in news channels per se, I would say is not the question. The question is that as a marketer I build brand and news is one of the important source. Coming back to the second question, you said that FM is on Facebook live and everyone is on Facebook or their Twitter pages. So as a marketer I have to be true to where my audience is. You're right, the audience is moving to digital, audience is on social, audience is on mobile all the time but even today as per my data TV is the single largest medium in this country. Sorry to interrupt you, the TV is the single largest medium but TV is not the single largest medium to consume news. So the question is in context of a news channel which is TV driven. So TV is the single largest medium in the country in terms of penetration followed by the fastest growing medium which is digital and this number is reported everywhere and this number I'm talking from the people who are coming to my site. By the virtue of being an online player we are blessed with data which consumers drop on my site and we can even track it by source. They're coming from a direct source or a digital source or whichever source they're coming from Facebook, they're coming from Twitter. I clearly know from where they're coming. So now coming, drilling down to the fact that is news channel where I will invest more. The answer to that is I will continue to invest in news channel mainly because I see audience coming from there. Will you continue to invest in the same rate as you were doing right? Now that's my question, yes or no? Okay, so what has happened? Let's quickly look at the landscape, how the landscape has changed. I started my career in advertising and at that point of time digital advertising was miniscule and people were hardly even talking about what they should do. A lot of people were learning on the job. To be honest, I learned on the job. The entire team that we have set up, everyone was learning on the job. At that point of time, people were spending 95% of the budgets on above the line media, which includes TV and print and everything. There were around 4-5% on digital just because everyone wanted to experiment and all marketers and everyone was saying that I know digital, that's why I'm investing. But no one knew it at that point of time. But cut to 8 years now, 8 years hence, it is clearly the budgets have shifted. But having said that, the percentage of budgets has changed but I still continue to invest heavily on television as a medium as of today. Things might change. Maharaj, my question to you is, you have a lot of other brands like Zeke and there is news and other content-generating platforms. So when the same advertiser wants to build a brand, how does he view building a brand on a news channel, vis-a-vis building a brand on another channel? Say it's not news per se. Suppose your Zeke Music company wants to build on Zeke Music or they want to build on news. What kind of differentiation do they have? So Pradeep will come on to that but you mentioned Prime Minister Modi that not doing press conferences and going on social media first. We recently had a situation where his interview on Zee News brought in unprecedented television viewership in the history of Bach. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the biggest brand ambassador for TV news as of today. For social. So I think every time he's on TV news and viewership grows and there's of course a reason for people to watch. So I don't think that's going anywhere, TV news and that's anyways a different debate and we've had enough of that in the last session. So coming on to the point when you're saying that why would someone come to news? I think there are many reasons. One would come perhaps unfortunately because this is relatively cheaper. So I'm sure our friends on my left when they are making their spend pie, they realize that every day the news media still comes relatively cheaper to other mediums perhaps because of reach numbers etc. But I think the bigger reason for coming on to news for brand building is serious news viewing. The keenness of the viewer is so deep when he's watching news. Stickiness today is so low. So if an individual was viewing television for an hour or a year before, he would be viewing it for a few minutes. So what about the stickiness? So the attention is definitely a problem on all mediums. Somewhere deeper, somewhere smaller. Attention on digital perhaps attention is even bigger problem. There are so many brand communications that don't even register when we are on the web or on our mobile. So that is definitely a challenge. Definitely perhaps easier on TV if you were to talk only about TV. But news media as such definitely offers a great absorption opportunity for a brand before a consumer. And then of course there are so many other things. Every brand these days is trying to build causes. They're trying to associate with causes. They just don't want to know whether it's a soft drink brand or a clothing brand. I just have a counter question. Again the point of PM coming on social media to make big announcements. But as an advertiser, I cannot advertise there. Exactly. I can advertise only on news channels. It's the issue. If I'm not advertising, I can put my... So it's the issue that there's no credible ratings. Like you have a box for the news channels. So you do not have any institutional mechanism when you as an advertiser look at digital. Rajeev, you could come in there. What's the problem? Why are you preferring news? Why not on this? Why not on say digital giving you a million views, two million views reaching to every corner of the country. Why this differentiated mindset of looking at a bigger screen from another point of view? I'll give you one very bad example. So there is a... US examples are usually bad for this country. That's something bad. Because if you look at the targeting done by say some popular US stores and how many... At what frequency do they operate? To make one brand move into a consideration set of a person. In typical FMCG format, you would try to expose one person in a given point of time about five times. So that catches attention. You know how many times does it need to be shown in digital format? By a big store. The average is between 33 to 50 times. Same thing if I show 33 times, then it becomes relevant for me. That's why it's not so relevant today for us. I think the attention debate is back. So I'm just coming to the attention debate. So first of all, it's not news channels versus other channels. The topic says... The topic is like... We don't look at like that. We don't have... New channel is there. It doesn't work like that. First of all, what you look at this is the forum. These are all the target audience. And these people I'm going to target. So I'll go and target these people. I will not say that these two people talking in the corner, I want to target these people only. No, I want to target everybody. Everybody is a target audience. And I'll go and look at each and everybody. So then you filter down further and then you see that... Then there is, you know, there's one part which is expensive part of reaching out to certain people. And there's one cheaper part. A frequency part. Then you get to that part and then you try to build frequency. The problem happens is when you try to do just reach through one medium. Okay? Suppose you say that, I want to build my reach through Sadhana channel. That's not going to happen. Please, I mean, it's a good channel. Religious. You have to take top channels, you have to take news channels, you have to take regional channels, you have to take digital and you have to take Jai Jai's channels. So the integrated strategy is what you are suggesting here. So let me take this conversation to a bit. So let's, we've agreed on a point here where we're saying that fine, still television news is a very significant proportion where individuals use for brand building. I want to take the second part of the conversation to futuristic. So let's imagine that this panel is happening in 2022, say 2023. What are the changes that you believe would take place with respect to brand building and news, say five years down the line, beginning with you Saith Singh and then Maharaj can step in. So I think one big step, if you look at the current scenario, what is happening is that the small elephant in the room, the big elephant in the room, sorry, the mobile and television, for the first time they are coming face to face. If you look at, you know, most of the people who consume television or watch news or watch any piece of content, most of the time they have mobile in their hands. So that's a phenomena these days. So if you're watching TV, you have a mobile in your hand. So it means there's a second screen phenomenon happening. So, and what happens when there is an interesting piece of content that is coming on TV, be it news, be it ad, be it any gossip or anything that's happening, you start searching on it. You instantly start searching on it. So what's happening is because of the second screen phenomenon, people are watching the television at the same time searching. So clearly there are two mediums talking to each other and there are a lot of, in fact we have used technologies to try and bridge the gap between these two mediums. So there are technologies like Silver Push, where you can put audio beacon in your ad and you have SDKs on your mobile and the moment your ad runs on TV, the mobile will usually catch that signal and you can serve ads on that network. So what I'm trying to say is the futuristic view on this is about how can we bridge the gap between two mediums? How can I as a marketer start investing in technologies which provides Omni presence, Omni as a brand, which provides a complete scenario where someone is watching television, watching my ad and coming to mobile and also looking at my communication. So that's a complete seamless experience. So that's where in 2022 we're sitting, a person consuming on mobile and then going on TV. So all this, the entire line will be blurred by then. Mehraj, what's your viewpoint on this? I think you can't do it without news. So coming back to your question about news, like I said, the serious viewing opportunity a vis-a-vis consumer is there and if you want your brand to engage better with your consumers, especially when you're building a brand, so all the more necessary. So if it's a new brand, the news is carrying a sort of a newness and new brands actually might click. Of course, like I said, because of prices, it brings in opportunities of better frequencies on news networks in the same budget for a market year. So there are a lot of opportunities. But other than that, going forward, like you're asking in future, there will be many more opportunities, more than just placing an ad in a news network. It's going to be more of context-synced ads and that's something that every marketer is now, that's what we all have learned from digital. We are more better targeted now. So I think that's very important where you can get more context-synced advertising opportunities because of news media. Because news media is something which is giving you a dynamic content. Day after day, there's something new, there's something changing. So Dengue is happening, so there is an opportunity for Audomars. Something like Diwali is happening, so there is an opportunity for Coca-Cola. And then integration. So many advertisers on our network are asking for integrations. So I'm not saying that there will be a day where news anchor is sitting with a Coca-Cola on his desk, nothing like that, not going to happen. But let's say Vistara advertised on our anchor's chair because their whole campaign was about the comfort in their aircraft's chairs. So there's more and more content. That's something, because an entertainment channel wouldn't have perhaps easily provided them. So there are ample opportunities. The only thing is we'll have to see all brand-building professionals have to look at news in a dynamic way, the way news is. So you also agree with the integrated screen part which Sai is mentioning that futuristic brand-building even from a news point of view will not just be television-centric but it would be more distributed. Rajeev, what are your viewpoints on this because you have products which go on to the rural areas very significantly. So in an environment where multilingual regional content is the biggest driver of growth for content-generating platforms, how do you see in a futuristic context this aspect of brand-building vis-a-vis news? Let's say 5 years down the line because say 5 years before nobody was talking about putting money on Facebook, every news channel in West heavy amount of advertising budget on Facebook which is a media platform not necessarily news but let's say 5 years down the line how do you see building and reaching to say geographies which are more regional, rural-centric where you try to not do it through on-time advertising. How do you see the future in this context? So I'll just say something we are already working on this thing which in our own terminology we call it micro-marketing. So we are trying to look at where the sales are happening where the quantum of sales are happening in terms of down to the distributor level down to the stalkers level and try to track where all the poking is happening to that level and then look at what is available in terms of media because your national channels are available everywhere your then the regional channels are available everywhere but there is something more to it suppose there is a sorry shop in say Indore for example how does he become a big brand how does he become a 100 crore brand he must have done something right nobody has gone to tell him something he has his own ways how does he do that it starts locally he starts advertising on local newsreapers starts advertising on local cable channels starts advertising on local news channels so that's the future more local it becomes bigger your business pie will be you have to understand your consumers and understand what they are watching so BART presents a certain kind of picture which is quite national so AI is making everything very personalized if you see it is disrupting like New York Times it's all heavy text, newspapers, heavy business they've got an AI room where they know each of their viewers advertisers in US are reaching in a very personalized format so if I as a viewer advertiser knows what the viewer consumes and advertising is also moving towards a very personalized direction in the United States do you believe that even in India advertiser will not look at investing a lot of money in a general news channel vis-a-vis a platform which is more personalized in nature where you can know there's more convertibility of your viewer so personalized what New York Times is doing is more I think it's very very micro level and going to a certain kind of people in our kind of business we want to reach out to as many people as possible too much of micro targeting going to two specific target audience that has one side effect that's what is probably happening in digital to some extent and if you don't go mass you're probably losing out on a lot of potential people if I just target say for example 23 to 27 year old woman living in say city of Noida living in sector sector I'll reach out to say just a few hundred people you have to broad based your audiences you have to look out then only you'll be able to go to your potential people that's how our business is but the moment you look at other categories like maybe a car maybe a Mercedes s-class you might target only 100 people so it varies from category to category for our kind of categories we still would want to go to more number of people we may look at geographies we may look at specific geographies but we would still like to go to as many people as possible so before asking other questions I would just ask if there are any questions in the room if you could entertain I would like to entertain more and more questions if there any and then we could otherwise it would be just three people talking yeah for sure go at least if anyone can pass the mic to the gentlemen sitting there so I was just going through few of the pages of various news channels and media house and social media and what I observed was there are 20 posts or article being post in a day and out of that content going on social media 50% or 40% of the content was a branded content related to brands as I come from a social media background you are also handling various brands so I wanted to know is this practice where brands are moving from two posts in a day to one post in 15 days we have live examples like Durex and Zomato they are doing fantastically well on social media do you think news brands or news channels who are following these practices of posting 20 articles in a day is it worth investing in these brands because I see Apple am I investing all these brands coming up so do you think in future you like to invest in a brand which posts 20 articles in a day because it's totally spamming the audience you are compromising on your Meharaj would you like to answer that question actually it's about it's targeted at news media you really want me to answer so I think like Raji mentioned micro targeting versus mass based approach you know if a website is updating with 20 or 20 plus items in a day the numbers tell you a lot I mean targeted the specific communities are reading specific news items on digital and that's pretty much clear who is reading what and so you can target your ads so I think in fact it's much easier than what you are seemingly sounding on the other hand I don't think 50% branded content I don't know what were you saying I don't think 50% of branded content is there anywhere the viewer would go away from the respect there's no value so it could be more context sync like I was saying in my last answer it is more about let's say if I am an international traveler and I go to a news website or a TV channel which is giving me more news about international travelling or international scenarios then that's what better targeted for a particular brand so that targeting applies much before digital came in this was largely done with news channels before it also depends on consumers are very smart they can clearly make out a difference between branded content and real content you might want to and as a marketer I will try and stay clear of branded content pushing my own agenda it also depends from how you want to spend the money you want to do branded content or you want to actually put your own message clear message out there according to me a slightly convoluted way of putting your brand message across and not the real essence of any communication comes out of that so it just depends on marketer to marketer any more questions we have questions there is a question there is a hand going up there good afternoon sir I am Jayaraj I am a first year student of generalism sir my question to you is 2 years down the line nobody knew Karni Sena but today everybody knows them thanks to media channels in promoting because which played a very important role in promoting them it played a very important role in promoting Padmavati also does media channels get paid for promoting a movie like that if I could talk about Karni Sena as a brand if Karni Sena can forgive me I could say they have built their brand through news media now everybody knows of course news media exists so that people can know things that they did not know earlier this question was how many people knew Arvind Kejriwal before you knew him so news media all of us are news consumers I am also one and we all go to news media to know what we don't know I could perhaps predict what an Akshay Kumar movie is going to be like but I cannot predict what a 9pm bulletin tonight is going to be like so that is what the newness like I was saying that is what we bring to a brand and the engagement and the seriousness and the keenness of movies as such I should rather answer because you are a journalism student so you better know about it actually they do place ads in news media and that is of course paid space so that is advertising for film industry or for a movie producer but no it has to be very categorically explained to you that just for running a film story we don't get paid for it so we use our editorial discretion to run a Padma Vati story or not to run one I am sure there was important news going on at that time but every news channel was covering this Padma Vati there were important issues going on at that time I think I will just I don't do this question so there are elections going on this is again in Tripura and it is like very big the pulse of Tripura and it is very ignored state in northeast so you don't see this context comes from the point that how you don't see a Tripura you do not see other relevant issues but you see a Padma Vati or you would see a Karni Sena driving the news agenda for days to come so how does the news channel decide on this context is that your question I would just it will be unfair to answer on behalf of all news channels here I think we had full debates a lot of seniors and editors were sitting in the last debate but what happens is when you when you are presenting a news channel you wanted to be a space where people can debate different views can be expressed and discussed I mean again coming on to Padma Vati I take that question what did you know about it and what did you not know about it you came to news channel to know and so it is as a content provider news channel's job to let you debate on that film whether this is right or that is right or this historian is right I mean there are so many historians suddenly become popular right that's because of news media they came up and they talked about it whether Padma Vati was there was actually a history book much before Jaisi who mentioned Padma Vati but that was news media telling me right so I think it is unfair to just say so many people are sick or so many people are having an accident and you are presenting Padma Vati that's territorial discretion and one is free to watch one channel and other channel so that's a completely consumer's decision thank you any last questions we will entertain if one more question if there is any with the floor to the panellists for closing comments no question fine so I will begin with you and if you could give your closing comments on this topic and the problem that you identify right now and with respect to brand building in news channel and the opportunity which lies ahead if you could keep these two things in mind while giving your closing comments so the biggest pain point as a marketer for me is every there is no dearth of news channels there is more news channels than I can even invest on them because pain point is the real availability of real data and who is watching what that is completely missing it's a complete black box for me as a marketer more perceptions that's what happens news have been chatting with you guys news have been bought on perception but thankfully what happens at our end is because we advertise and consumer come to my site and they leave a data point or leave an impression on my site I know where they are coming from, which channel they are coming from to that level so I can actually decide where they come from but the biggest pain point is the huge black box so there needs to be efforts made in terms of making the real data available one is that and I think going forward the point that I mentioned the convergence of mobile and television so I think a lot of people are not talking about it but this is going to become a reality soon I have even after advertising a lot on television I use music and don't consume TV that much but that's where it's moving so it's a convergence of television and mobile is the future Rajiv, closing comments he mentions about data and convergence my biggest challenge what I see is that there's too much of clutter what is that there is a clutter in terms of the total advertising time per hour which is done on news channels as a function of what kind of rates you can come out in the market and second is the clutter which happens while the news is on so that is one thing which really worries me as an advertiser because it's very difficult to have a visual relief on a channel you don't get any visual relief you get always getting something on your face and I think the only time when the news channels are calm and quiet is when some advertising is running so that's my challenge clutter is a big, big opportunity and opportunity is that the regional and local news channels which are propping up if they are sustainable on a long-term basis I think that becomes opportunity for us to go to our consumers on a local level and micro level and another opportunity is that trust and credibility news as such brings I'm not specifically talking about news channel or one news channel as such I'm talking about news as a content that's concerned Maharaj, problem and opportunity so you have data, you clutter you've integrated screens you have regional and hyperlocals two opportunities what do you feel but before that I must assure Raji that you must prize the media and we have a portfolio of news brands 14-odd channels advertising your own brand there is enough choice available for his targeting but I think news media let me rather say it this way every brand marketer wants to have a human face to his or her brand they want engaging receivers of the brand communication and the brand building and for that they must try news media you can't just pack it and leave it this is the newness and there are various opportunities that I talked about do exist with news media now of course the news media itself also would need to remain responsible like you said you need more data and more profiling of the viewer and I think they must work about we are running in fact a program to help our advertisers and we are sensitizing our content teams of the sensitivities of advertisers profiling of the viewer and who is watching what so yes that is definitely needed and I think as time goes there will be a lot of opportunities more homogeneity in certain segments of news channels that we see because there is enough of opportunity in terms of media let's say if I can't run a TV channel I could run it on internet there is print nothing is dead there is so much more to come I mean I think latest IRIS data if I am right is saying about 80% of Bihar still does not have TV am I right nearly that much 76% so that's a huge market waiting to be tapped I mean I would advise you guys to also go to the northeast and equally for news equally for you as well absolutely so I think integrated is the way forward is what is the take away from the panelists and exciting times ahead for news so that is something that concludes the panel thank you so much everybody for sparing your time out there thank you so much I would request you all to stay on stage and I would invite Mr. N. Ravi Kumar director