 So hello and welcome to the fifth and final edition of our series of webinars on news is undervalued brought to you in association with AVP news. In last four weeks we spoke to several senior industry people experts who unanimously agreed that news is the genre that gained maximum viewership during COVID-19. Falled fear or anxiety but each one of us have remained hooked to news more than ever in last eight nine weeks. However now that the lockdown is becoming the new normal and things have started to open up I would be today have another expert Mr. Ajay Gupta CEO Wavemaker India from whom we would want to understand if news will be able to continue to hold to its popularity post COVID era as well. Welcome to the show Mr. Gupta. Hi Nazia. Hi thanks for having me. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Same here same here. There's so much to learn and understand from you. So sir as you're aware of our discussion point today is news genre and what we all have seen the Bach numbers it has seen a 200% hike in viewership. However what we have tried to you know discuss in all our webinars is that is it is it is the genre able to translate it into the revenue group in the sense are they getting the price they deserve? Yeah yeah. No so undoubtedly news has certainly done extremely well in terms of viewership and I think that is that is fairly well documented. I just want to you know set up a little bit of context to it. So with with people being at home you know obviously there is going to be a circuit of I mean there's going to be a extra push towards media and digital and television both have gained in this situation. We know that digital has gained by more 15% but television in general has gained about 30% more viewership which is basically three and a half hours a day of television consumption has gone up to four and a half hours a day. Three and a half hours a day already was very high. We were known for being a very strong television market because of that but that is now at four and a half hours a day which is normal. So you know which are the genres which really gained like you said news has doubled viewership on news has doubled. It was I mean I think the first two weeks of April was even more one and a half 200% but if you look at the average since the lockdown it's at about the other genre which has definitely benefited is cinema movies which is about 20-25% over the normal time. GEC has remained flat. It went down for a bit and then the gods came and saved us which is Ravayanan Mabharat and therefore the GEC channels came back on track but they have remained kind of flat. So in general definitely definitely without a doubt news has been the beneficiary. Now looking at whether it translated into you know into revenues for the channel. So April like we all know saw a lot of advertisers taking back spends you know it was a dramatic drop and there was about a 22% advertising second age drop in the month across all the genres compared to the pre-COVID times. I'm talking about Jan February and then the last year but you know in the news channels the drop was only about 10% in terms of second age and GECs dropped basically about 30% drop. In terms of revenues though there has been a around a 50% drop for GECs around the 20-25% drop for cinema and news channels have only dropped by about 10%. So in a sense of the lot that were impacted news actually managed to get away a little better than the others and it was quite bad. Another thing that we've been discussing this for the last four weeks but now before we conclude another thing that we want to understand is that how can they continue with this kind of leadership in long term and you know what measures can they do to I mean this is of course unprecedented and you know absolutely watching this same hike is not possible but what kind of measures can news take to ensure that you know it is it becomes one of the front runners for most marketers and people don't just invest in news when PM is making a speech or there's some breaking story or something. That was something else right. Yeah but consistently because news is not priced as much as GEC or other a lot of other channels would be. So where is it lacking and what measures can it take to you know kind of sustain this kind of a lead? So you know in normal times news channels accounted for about 8% of the total viewership across 8%. Now with this growth it's about 16-16 odd percent growth. So that is phenomenal obviously and what are the few things that accounted for this growth? One is non-prime time viewership came up so like I said about 20-30% growth in TV viewership. 50% growth was in non-prime time so on prime time definitely took the ceiling up so that's one way it went up. The second thing that happened was women viewership came into news. I think it's a function of single TV households and also the general concern of everybody in the house with what is happening outside which also caused you know larger women viewership. So both put together has caused this 100% jump in total TV ads. Now what are the things that are in control and not in control? So one is favorable which is not in control is that news will continue to remain important because there's so much happening across the world right? There's the global scene is hotting up, the Indian scene is hotting up. Something or the other is constantly happening and those kind of peaks and we've been seeing those peaks happening and those peaks are as good as any normal GEC good you know program and so those will keep happening and that will be a favorable impact which you have no control over which is just something which is beneficial to the to the industry to the news industry and there's something which is not in your control is the prime time non-prime time these right because once people start going back to offices the non-prime time viewership is bound to fall and we've seen that in the green zone so we were observing green zones was orange zones was red zones and we can clearly see that there is a taper off in TRPs in the non-prime time in the green zones and and so we know for a fact that you cannot it is not sustainable in a non-prime time viewership is definitely not sustainable there is something else too which which is possibly in control is is the kind of programming is there a programming that they could news channels could look at to widen their base and now you've got the base with you in this COVID time and it'll be there for about a month or two or more to go but is there programming where you can get the people who have who are not usual news suspects to come on board so we said widen their base which is like like like women possibly so if you have a show which is about celebrities possibly you know something something educational which is which is good for kids you know across the day in some point of time you may be able to start retaining the the female viewer and and that could be a possible way to get more audiences and also maybe the youngsters by targeting you know by by getting a little bit of content about you know bollywood or sports or something like that they have been coming up with programs you know there is entertainment zone there are programs that they've been trying to you have that sauce or something on a news channel they have been trying to do all of these things but somehow is it is it that fragmentation you know you use this opportunity when people are already with you to reinvent to reinvent and and get them to get used to some kind of programming which is on the show i think typical case study of what happened in 2000 right when star bounced with kbc they use the kbc platform to you know do kuki kahaani ghar ghar ki i remember you know it just everything just went through the roof using kbc so i'm saying use similar use this opportunity similarly the co-ed opportunity to expand your base so now that you have have some a large chunk of years back you know who were perhaps earlier watching you lost interest and now that they're back you must hold on to them that's why coming up give them some kind of content that encourages them to come back in normal times i think that could be a possible solution so we're live on facebook we're live on youtube twitter and we invite questions from all of you we already have i also have many more questions to us but you already have a question from muna jen who wants to ask you why agencies are not able to sell to advertisers the merit of presence on news for their campaign and hence have dominant presence and also not able to convince them to give fair price for the gvm grp delivered and like you said that the genre added new audiences so to be to be fair you know like i said in normal times news accounts for about eight percent of the total viewership and has gone up to about 16 percent we're also looking at the general addicts numbers so in terms of general addicts news gets about 10 to 12 percent of the total addicts so 12 as against eight is definitely a favorable situation and even in the covert times currently news accounts for about 20 percent give or take a couple of numbers here and there as against the 16 percent viewership share that i was talking about so yes certainly news is getting you know a slightly but a favorable slightly favorable you know benefit of the addicts but yeah i mean if if you were to say that there is a value in news so i certainly respect the value that news is bringing to the table you know it's it's why is it only slightly why isn't it more yeah so finally you know you're competing for what you're delivering eventually is i mean the way the market has been set up is that the currency is trps and cprp and that's what you're competing for so eventually it will all plateau out at a certain level you cannot go beyond that when if you go beyond that then you know the marketing equilibrium is affected so finally what a marketer is looking for is is viewers is consumers and he's willing to pay a price for those consumers right and you are in the market test you're fighting against all the other journals and all the other channels and eventually the channel that gives more viewers will benefit and already there is a slight benefit to news and expecting more than that i think is unreal because eventually eventually this is a this is a market of you know people looking to buy eyeballs by viewers so also isn't it important that this was news was the only domain which was giving you fresh content in these times of you know because everyone else was just repeating old shows etc but the only fresh content was coming to the viewers was through news so that did that also help them certainly certainly and like i was saying you know hats off to them because they were they were directly in the line of fire of covid people like us were hiding you know in the in the houses and and you know you had reporters on the road going around and so so really a big thing on their part and certainly because of that fresh viewership no fresh content and new content that they were creating the consumer moved towards them no it's double double it is not a joke and triple like we said in the beginning of of the period so certainly the viewer has moved towards them advertisers move with the viewers and and they have also moved so like we said is 22% so in that sense yes they have the the efforts put in by the news channels in getting content out there has certainly helped them i think the other thing they did very well was very smartly was the L bands and stuff that they did when when prime minister Modi was talking was addressing the nations i think that was a smart thing to do they made a lot of money you know using those bands also it was it was of value to the to the advertisers who got unprecedented TRP this was like the olden days of Luldarshan that's the kind of TRPs that that program got so they have done that they've also done a lot of you know sponsored shows with with advertisers and i think that has also helped them get a little bit more revenue so they have been they to give them credit a lot of hard work they've also been a little innovative possibly in trying and getting you know other advertising options coming on board and they've been perhaps the only people who have been going to office throughout the lockdown so don't you think they deserve they did not deserve a premium they certainly deserve a premium but we are in a we are in a situation where you know everything is evaluated and evaluated even the all the more now given covid times where really everyone is struggling with money the media is suffering the advertisers are suffering we as agencies also so money is definitely at a premium and and hence you know that that's just as much as can be done there's another question from mona for you aji isn't news the impact option for today's time and advertisers do pay premium for the same why is that news is not able to get the benefit of the same and also why are advertisers not really using the platform to engage with consumers through content integration with relevant communication that's a good point we all are at office okay that's she's just yeah you want i lost you nazia hello can you hear me now yeah i can hear you now i can hear you know something uh you want me to read that question again yes please aji isn't news the impact option for today's time and advertisers do pay premium for the same why is that news is not able to get the benefit of the same and also why are advertisers not really using the platform to engage with consumers through content integration with relevant communication no i think it's being used so one is impact so impact was certainly the prime minister's speech that was certainly very very high impact and and that got the advertisers lined up and queued up to buy inventory on on this on the on the speech on the address apart from that i have personally seen a lot of and been involved in a lot of like i was talking about sponsorships and special programs that advertisers have started doing on news because they're seeing the value there there are my our advertisers itself wave maker advertisers itself i have a couple of shows going on news channels and i think it the way the the understanding is there that this is this is an opportunity and we're moving in that direction yes it it takes time for everyone to come on board and you know start using the channel that way and also for the channel to start you know making such offerings such create such products which we can sell so i guess in time it will happen we i already see signs of one is impact programming getting its view and the second is in terms of these non-fct advertising monies are certainly going on the news channel's way muni shatre wants to know news is right now at 15 percent share that used to be approximately seven percent similar to what the numbers that you said since many new viewers have sampled news and they have been watching news for last two months where do you think news genre will settle now and what rate hike should be good for news so very interesting question so difficult to predict however i mean we can make some very basic predictions like i said the 15 percent is on the back of three main things right which is the the non prime time is is the is the women viewership and the third is the general interest increase in news so general interest increase in news will certainly i think remain for a while and the non prime time will certainly go away so the eight percent that we were used to should certainly go higher and it will not be at the 15 percent but i'm guessing it should be at about 10 at least and depending on how well programming is adjusted to allow for a wider net of audience to come in you can you can up it so roughly a three three four percent gain yeah it's possible yes yes and and and you don't want to comment on the rate hike so rate hike like i said is is dependent on you know is dependent on the for a three to four percent hike in certainly so so if you look at our current times also like i was saying this eight percent used to account for about 10 percent of addicts and the 15 percent is accounting for about you know 20 percent of addicts so uh you know it's uh similarly there would be an increase in in the value so if you're talking about a 10 12 percent you're talking about a 20 uh you know 18 percent uh addict share so that will happen but you know these are market forces and and and that really is is not the we can only give estimations we can't be sure of final numbers so uh saga bugle car wants to know since gc are flattened in grp's news have seen super high but the rates for agencies are quoting are lesser than pre-ovid period isn't agencies are trying to be opportunists opportunists no uh so uh see these are realities of of the time right we know that uh advertising um in general uh about 50 percent of the market has been wiped out uh because of these times now given given this situation and given those advertisers who are actually investing money uh they are also going through a tough time right now right it's it's not easy for them uh sales are definitely down uh uh and you know even in spite of that if advertising money is coming then uh commensurate reduction in rate is is required this is one part of it the other part of it is market forces like i said if demand is half right now certainly the uh this the corresponding rates will will get definitely impacted so uh i think these are market realities uh and really uh it's not about wanting to squeeze anyone uh or wanting to be opportunistic and make some uh you know get take undue advantage of the situation we are all sensitive to it but i think everyone is is trying to make the most of what is what is possible see another uh subject that has come up in discussion every time i've had the seminar webinar on news is that fragmentation is a very big problem with news channels would you also want to talk about that so uh there are uh you know uh there are about 150 odd news channels across the country i i watch english news uh and i i i you know go in and out between about 10 channels myself depending on the noise levels in the channel so uh but uh even so if i mean mathematically a simple arithmetic suggests that in the 10 channels that i view if there were only five channels uh each channel would be double the share that they are currently uh so obviously i mean it is a lot of fragmentation and that is impacting so uh when we are talking about a 15 percent share of total viewership if there are 150 channels it's divided amongst them right then if you've got a fewer channel uh based obviously arithmetically it will be better off uh but i guess uh you know there is and there are some advantages of of having news channels launching news channels like uh and uh which is why there are so many of them there uh but but but as as as somebody who's uh into you know media planning what do you suggest what is better to have so many channels or have one good or maybe two good channels i mean so what would you advise to your clients to my clients uh whether i should go uh see actually clients are not affected because clients will uh will pay uh cprp's depending on the viewership and will if there are uh if there are 500 channels 200 of them are doing well they will buy on the 200 channels and get their viewership so honestly i don't think clients are affected it's the channel uh channels who are affected so if i were advising the the bigger channels i would say have fewer uh fewer channels because then you will get a larger share but obviously the smaller channel will come in and say list i want a part of that share so so really it's i mean from the channel's perspective from the media perspective uh it's it's difficult to uh to really control how this and like i said clients are not affected clients clients will get viewers wherever they are no but what i actually meant was that what would what is what is better for the industry also to have too many channels or is it better to have a few strong channels you know with better credibility because credibility is again a problem with news these days so you know when you have bigger networks you know they are more credible and fragmentation of course affects the bigger networks also because you know the smaller ones do walk away with some part of their share so what is better for the industry as a whole i think again this is perspective depending on where your perspective on it my perspective on it honestly uh uh you know as a professional really uh like i said for me i i need to get the best for my for my clients and i will get that irrespective of number of channels uh as a person as an individual as as on a personal level uh yes i would prefer a few fewer a bunch of channels uh because of what you said credibility is important uh uh you know there's so much news going around there's so much whatsapp you know it is not important when they're advertising i mean advertisers they they don't look look to advertise on platforms or on channels that have more higher credibility value no so certainly certainly and and you know that's where the 200 out of the 500 as i just gave a number that's where uh you will always go in a brand safe environment you'll always go in an environment which is safe for your brand and for the consumer so uh and and you know these are rules that we know from digital and they apply on television also so if there is a if there are channels which are not doing what is honest and truthful we will certainly not be recommending them to our to our clients we we have three minutes and we have one question uh by mr nishant gandhi when there are so many free platforms to consume the same news and shorter attention span of viewers how do advertisers ensure genuine eyeballs and conversions of their spends uh so uh yes there are there are a massive number of uh you know there is massive amount of news running around so i know i know for a fact you know just the youtube news feed which is highly um which has very little credibility is also available so uh in that sense uh there is a lot of news footing but for for the for the television channels we have our currency which is trps which is being done you know by by bark uh and giving us ratings so we that's the currency we follow and we're looking at that uh to to look at the channels where we should invest our money uh yes i'm i'm sure it's getting affected a little bit because people finally are are spending time on another screen and looking at other kinds of news which is not which is not favorable possibly and which is not which is not appropriate but but then from from our point of view we have a we have a credible system of ratings which we look at uh and and that's the way we uh we invest our money also see uh even if if things start getting normal from let's say june or july onwards it will take some time for geces to start producing fresh content right so uh where in news is already on i mean they did not take any break yes so how long do you think that this this hike will continue for news uh so uh the hike we we see that uh you know uh june most of june i think will still remain in a similar situation and july onwards we are all hoping that things will open uh and you also said that uh adage is getting better by every month so that 10-person gap also they'll cover news to cover the 10-person loss that no so yeah yeah it should uh so their viewership is is is certainly uh is certainly you know up there there might be a little bit of drop in the viewership like i said because of you know non-prime time going off the radar and as and we've observed this in all the green zone so that has come down but yeah inventory as demand goes up again the rates will start going up it's a it's market forces so definitely the gap might might start reducing will likely start reducing as as we go ahead with with demand increasing gradually it is going to happen does it answer your question yeah but but i was actually trying to also understand that last few months april was really bad i mean there was no adage although they had high viewership but then they were not able to convert it because of very low adage now that adage has started to improve marginally and viewership is not going down in the similar i mean is adage and viewership ratio same or is it somewhere they'll gain i mean finally now they will be able to gain as the adage picks up so uh uh yes i think adage like we said you know may is better than april june looks better than may uh so certainly demand is going up from that perspective they should be able to command a better price uh and viewers will will remain for a while uh it will pitter down a bit uh but it will still remain high there so yes it looks like they should have a better uh so coming few months will be better than last few months should should should who should be better for everybody actually hopefully but like gec and other maybe for news and movies gc still will have to wait yeah gc still they still can't come back on yeah it's it's unfortunate but till they don't get content back in place it will be a little bit of a struggle because the the viewers will not come on board on that so hopefully our next webinar should be on news is uh valued now because next few uh months are going to be even better than the months that have just gone by so uh on that note i think we should uh we have already uh exceeded the time limit we we were supposed to close it by five it's already five or two and what i have understood from aje today is that news can definitely continue to be uh you know on on the top of the charts if it uh handles it uh it's programming a little more carefully and continue to engage the new base that it has been able to get hold off during this covid period and uh also uh they're uh they should expect a three to four percent hike in there uh i mean going forward in there what what is the technical term that that you used in their total base they'll be an increase of three to four percent right yes so on and and the coming next few months are going to be better uh than the few months that uh just went by so on that positive note we are going to conclude this we still have more questions but i think uh we'll keep them for the next time and on that on this positive note we're going to conclude this webinar on news and news is definitely going to be uh in news throughout 2020 so thanks aje for joining us it's always pleasure speaking to you thank you very much for all of those who have shared questions with us we couldn't take all the questions because we only got aje's half an hour today maybe we'll come again next time thank you so much for your time and your effort thank you for having me now yeah thanks everyone