 Good evening everyone. Thank you for being part of this panel discussion on a Monday evening. I mean if it was a typical work day we would all be in offices attending meetings with our bosses. Rajiv has been to his office and he just managed to get back to his work from home mode in time to be part of this webinar. As you know we have a discussion lined up about the free to air channels ecosystem during the next one hour or so. Before I start I'll just do a brief introduction of all our panelists. My name is Nava Lahuja. I'm one of the founders of Exchange for Media. On the panel today with us are Hema Malik. She's the CEO of Loadstar Media. Hema has been part of Loadstar for many years and over her career spanning 22 years she has handled many clients across categories the likes of Koch, Montecard, Berlfield, HCL, MetLife. So she brings the perspective of a large media agency ecosystem to the table. Thank you Hema for being part of this. Jay Lalala as many of you know has done many of the hours in his professional career. Last year was with Gopam for a long period of time and he's now been part of publicity for about two years now Jay and obviously COVID has kind of grounded him. He spends a lot of time between Delhi and Bombay. Right now he's with family in Bombay and working harder from home as he says than he was ever in his life. So thank you Jay. Mohi Joshi the perennial sunset chaser is being chased by the sun at home now. He's as we all know the MD of Avers Media Group and has many years of experience across strategic planning, AOR management and buying functions under his belt. He's worked on again market clients, the likes of Pepsi, Dabar, Girohanda, Nestle, Rekindan Kaiser and Hyundai. Thank you. Good to see you Mohit again and hope to meet you in person very very soon. Rajiv as I said has just managed to make it home. Some of you might have read Dabar has started manufacturing across all their plants from 4th of May and Rajiv 8th of May. So that's very good news for people who keep asking when is economic activity going to start? It's not a black and white answer. It'll gradually start coming back online but Dabar which is one of the largest FMCG Indian born, largest FMCG companies in India having started production across all their plants is you know certainly fantastic and encouraging news for all of us. So thank you Rajiv for coming back home early for us today. K. Srinivas Rao national director of buying media comm is also with us part of the WPP group as you all know. Again has worked across a large number of brands across industries has over 25 years of experience. Thank you Srinivas for being part of this and last but not the least Sandeep Gupta the CEO of broadcast business from Shimaru. Sandeep has been instrumental in Shimaru's entry into the broadcast business and before joining Shimaru Sandeep has been the India CFO and CEO of before you television network. Thank you Sandeep. So good to have you guys on this. So what we'll do is we will you know over the course of the next one hour we will try and channel this conversation into two larger two large buckets. So the first bucket obviously is questions that everybody wants answers today to as to what is happening you know when it comes to the advertising media ecosystem or marketing budgets going to come back how soon are we going to see them coming back what is going to be the severity of you know the impact of COVID on marketing advertising budgets which industries will get impacted more which will get impacted less and the second part of our conversation will revolve around what happens to the FTA ecosystem in light of partly what's happening with COVID and otherwise the larger broader trends in the media and the advertising sector. So my first question and this question I'm sure you've been asked multiple times I start with Hema. Hema I'm sure you've been talking to many clients across the width of industries that load star manages. What's your sense if you could give us three crisp points of you know what is the thinking of your clients we are now two months into actually two months into the lockdown in this entire COVID thing. So what's the sense you get in terms of where things are headed what shall we expect over the say next 40 45 years. So Naval I think can you hear me? Yes very much. Yeah so I think I think for any question that you asked today I think the first answer is going to be very very uncertain because we actually don't know how long will this last when we'll get things back to normal what is the new normal so we all are making estimates from the trends that we have seen our own recent past as well as what is happening in other markets and who are overcoming this who are in a stage which is ahead of us or in a stage which is behind us and therefore you know are the trends similar. So it's very difficult to say but yeah every client every category we work across different categories whether it is auto whether it is financial categories or consumer factory exports. So every category has its own nuances and they have now started to you know work and action towards that. So econ conversations are I think the primary conversations that are happening across many of our clients especially durables you know what is expected is a lot of consumer durables while we say that sentiment is going to be low but household goods because people have spent a lot of time at home and they have realized the importance of you know having the comfort of the home so from kitchen appliances to you know television screens because that is becoming pretty much the world for them for so many times and you know they're just preparing themselves for all the uncertainties that they will see in the coming future. So that is something which we expect to boom and that's where our clients like Samsung or world pool are talking e-com tie-ups in a big way. If you look at categories like auto and after like a historical April where not even a single car was sold in the country. BMW for example I mean they're in a campaign where they encourage a contactless online car sales and that's becoming the new normal for them. So that's a different thing if you look at other categories which are online payment or online education they have a different way of I mean that's that's those are the categories which are positively impacted. So they are working things are working in their favor this is the time for them to make money and this is the time for them to establish brand establish their own credentials while a lot of them are new players in the category. So every category has its own nuances and its own way of dealing with the situation. So it's tough to say when things will come back to normal but we all know that it is temporary however what is what lies ahead of us is not what we have left behind it is going to be a new normal that we will set across different categories. But Mohit what are your three takeaways if you can please tell us. So as Emma said completely uncertain times no client currently knows when things will get back to normal but when I talk to clients there are essentially two kind of friends that I see there are one set of people who are you know raring to go who are saying that yes the moment there is some relaxation some markets start opening up we are ready with our campaign. What kind of categories would those scenarios be? So I'll be you know I'll be honest even a Hyundai and a Kia are ready to go because they're saying that you know for us specific brands are there in the market and there is a there is a very big possibility of the demand picking up. At the same time you have a lot of other clients who fall in the cautious domain because see historically whatever what has happened is whenever there has been an impact and and slump the advertising slump is always much larger than the marketing slump right or the economic slump so we have already gone into a slump and which is where while on one hand there is a need to advertise and every marketer currently feels that there is a need to advertise on the other hand from a PNL all the PNL holders who are sitting over here will know that there is a huge pressure on costs as well and the first cost that goes out whenever there is a pressure is the advertising and research costs so one has to manage these two extreme ends very very carefully to advertise at the same time be be very clear of how you manage costs so you know it's going to be interesting going forward but as I said I would say about 40% of the clients seem to be in the in the raring to go domain about 60% of the cost is done. Okay that's I think that's a well quantifiable kind to share so good let's now go to Srinni Srinni what about media come what are your clients saying? So again I equal thoughts of Hema and Mojo in terms of uncertainty being the keyword but at the same time there are certain categories that looking at this as an opportunity as well like for example handset and all the tech brands like Dell and Vivo who have a pent up demand and they have their entire e-commerce delivery piece sorted for them it's a good opportunity and they might just start off advertising right away in fact while we speak there is a campaign which they are anyway planning to do so obviously on one side is these brands which are looking at as an opportunity at the same time on the other hand you have other brands and categories which are being a little cautious as well and for them again the way to look at it is building scenarios as to how exactly the way it's going to pan out going forward once the lockdown gets over. So tell me have a large number of clients Rajiv perhaps you can answer the question we are sitting in the end of May almost in the end of May and two months of this financial year is over and you know looks like this quarter we can keep aside if we were to look at say three quarters Q2 Q3 and Q4 have you guys sat down already and said okay for this year if I had spent 100 rupees last year this is roughly my allocation for this year whether that's 80 bucks or 90 bucks or whatever whatever that is have you done those conversations already or you are still figuring out how long will the lockdown last and then we'll sit down and you know figure out those conversations. So you know hi everyone. Actually you know it works in a very different way in companies like ours you know so I think the only one thing we are planning or say companies like ours we are planning is how to sustain ourselves in these plans and stay afloat and how to manage costs how to manage sales how to manage business how to ensure that there's no loss of livelihood for people. So these are the first priorities you know as far as spending money is concerned this is like really not the priority right now on the top right here right now. So what is the most important thing right now going on in our minds is how to protect business how to ensure that you know we can stay afloat in these times. So the only one thing is there that you know you are doing everything so you're looking at each day at the time and every day is different every day things are changing very quickly and so that's how it's going. So one is really looking at the next three quarters including the current quarter hoping that things improve in the next one month and things come back to normal and we stay afloat so that's what what it's trying to do and then you know as far as spending etc that's like really secondary right now it's not really on our forefront. First thing is to protect business protect livelihood of people protect your turf and stuff like that. And FMCG companies are you know the category is perhaps expected to be lesser impacted as compared to an auto or some of the other industries because some of the things that you make are kind of quasi essential one can say. That's right so as compared to automobiles definitely I mean imagine a scenario like you know month of April not a single car sold to something like our business where you know we had factories running but not 200% capacity last month so we did have some sales last month as compared to that these companies are like they are better than them but so in this scenario also the companies which are food companies like Nestay and stuff I'll say companies like records who have products like it all and all they have done a very phenomenal but within FMCG also there are some essential like there's some not so essential work products essential parts like book based and products like like Maggie I'll say sanitation products these products have done very well they'll continue to do well in next whole of the year but some of the products which are like here tell us you know or say these kind of products have really not done that. And it's also a function of all the distribution disruption and logistics even if you have the products if people want to buy it there's no way you can reach the products to the consumer because yeah so supply chain was very severely affected in the month of March and April started coming back gradually and now things are getting back to not I would say normal because you know lots of states still have a very strict lockdown like state of Maharashtra and especially cities of Bombay, Pune, Ahmedabad but in other cities things are likely to come back to normal very soon in this lockdown 4.0 so I think as the supply chain eases out as the factories become operational as things become normal I think the first priority will be to get the business on track and then you know one can talk about spending money in the next quarters. Correct absolutely so Jay what's your take what's the conversations you had with you know some of your clients because you manage a very wide portfolio of brands. So now I echo quite a lot of thoughts which everybody on the panel has been discussing it's a challenging time for a lot of clients but if I were to break it down it's largely I could put it into two buckets there are certain set of clients which like Rajeev was speaking are the essentialists they are having a different kind of challenge how do they meet up to the demand so like things like Maggi, Parle G, Coffee they are in a space where the demand is 200 and the production capacity is around 50 so they are trying to see how can they meet up at least up to 70, 80 or something like that that is one part of the story and they believe that this is going to continue even after the lockdown so this is not a temporary phase they believe that it is going to be a habit change people are going to consume more of these products and therefore they are in a situation where they are saying that how do we plan for this excess demand and therefore match it up with excess marketing that's one set of clients the other set of clients are clients which are facing a big challenge like say hero alcohol clients like beam they are seeing situation like the alcohol category seeing a situation where they are saying they are approximately three years behind and it's not going to like you know really ramp up so first of all it's not one size fits all there are certain clients there is a different solution there is a certain clients there's a different solution also in terms of forecasting the way we try to look at it is it's short, medium and long term I think industry at large believes that from September onwards things will be back to normal as in we'll be at you know 100% of what we were at last year if there is growth might be a challenge but you might come back to 100 or at least 90% of levels the challenge is for the medium and the short term immediate and what is going to happen in the next two to three months how agile we are you know because you need to think on your feet how can you do something which is which is extremely quick and and fast and I think that's the order of the day I think everybody is just trying to say but what I could have done in one week can I do it in one day and and that's what is actually keeping all of us busy so can we keep coming up with solutions for clients you know where where we could help them either it is a category A client or a category B client can we give them some sort of a solution which can help them manage their expectations so it's it's it is an ambiguous situation but that's what I think good points so net net what you're saying is there are categories where business actually stayed stable or you know grown and those companies are you know the chances of them starting to spend advertising dollars the moment you know things start opening up are significantly higher obviously there are other categories like alcohol which are significantly impacted but we know there again the moment it opens up you know consumption will come back so it's not like a you know a very long drawn slow process of consumption coming back obviously how soon do marketing advertising budget comes come back on which the livelihood of advertising agencies and media companies is dependent will determine how we go because you know as you as we have all seen the disruption that is caused at the client's end has impacted the advertising and the media ecosystem significantly I'll come to you Sandeep now because you know you you are on the you know media side of the business and you know at a time when revenues add revenues have dried up significantly and as I was mentioning just around the time this conversation we started having this conversation some of the fth channels I've actually pulled out from dd-free because they're not in a position to pay their minimum guarantees and you know there's no ad revenue to support that you guys have launched at a time like this one can understand that you know you have to look at a business model for three years and not go quarter by quarter but how do you you know sustain at a time like this and what kind of forecasting do you do I mean when because costs are a reality costs are a kind of in some way permanent I mean your your bills will have to be paid every month there might not be any revenues true true novel times over time that we were planning and the time that we are in right now has significantly changed when we launched marathi things were different and just because before we thought that okay it's good time to ask the advertisers that you will get good good share of your ship covid started happening gc is something that we had contemplated we were working so you will sincerely on it and we had to launch we had nothing else than to launch because we thought that this is the best time when we can immediately catch the eyeballs right because everybody was at home so that the spending that one may have to do to catch the eyeballs may get reduced because at this point of time the new normal how to even even for even for marketing like even for marketing how do we reach out to the customers to be being discovered was a different phenomenon right now means what we might have thought how we would get discovered two months back and what we plan now is absolutely different right so we we were on the piece of planning quite some for quite some time and the difficult aspect of it was putting everything together to launch within the period of covid that really was very difficult because the first priority was to ensure that the human resources protected we're at this at this time ensuring that content is made ready uploaded it was already all very very difficult budgets as we are concerned yes we had different revenue revenue budgets and the spendings everything had to be had to be restructured means when I when I speak to a lot of my possible possible clients and people every I know for a fact that everybody these two questions everybody is trying to conserve cash right now and not trying to spend on marketing so we are also reducing our spends in whatever whatever way we can right and we are trying to ensure that we just coexist and a little bit optimistic optimism is there and that's the reason we are trying to give a good content and possibly we get decent GRPs it would be a good start obviously it is understandable right now you know nobody has very clear answers to how things will pan out but if you were to let's look at a you know let's step back a little I mean I want to come to the reason why we've all gathered here today is to have a conversation about what is happening in the FTE ecosystem and FTE ecosystem as we all know you know rides a lot on the DD free dish you know platform I have some data which was given to me and I'll just quickly go through data so right now the number of FTAs on DD is 104 out of which there are nine entertainment channels and after the last round of expansion that happened around the same time and Shimaru also launched we've had 11 new channels that have got added I'm guessing some have switched off from DD free dish during COVID because they've not been in a position to pay monies I'm also told that you know since the news channels have been kind of lobbying with the government to provide a waiver the government has given them I think three month deferred payment option with interest so it might not add to help too much beyond the point it's like bank telling us you can pay my money later but you know pay with compound interest to in place of three MIs now you pay me five so it really depends upon how deep anybody's pockets are let's look at one the larger you know fact of what is happening in the FTA space now the FTA space of course has been very vibrant what has happened from January 2019 it has fundamentally altered primarily because the large networks the large networks the stars and Z's of the world pulled out from the DD free free dish ecosystem and hence independent players are now basically running the entertainment television channels on FTA as we all know the primary advertiser on FTA channels have been the FMCG players my question to all of you and I'm sure Dabur has also advertised on FTAs as much as any other FMCG player has my question to all of you is that given how the situation is currently and a large number of advertisers are in value seeking mode right Dabur might not be advertising right now but I'm told other FMCG companies some of them are advertising some categories and they're all in value right if a large number of companies are in value seeking mode does that put FTAs at a advantage as compared to the regular pay television channels give and take you know content as we all know there is no fresh production of content happening so everybody is running similar content so is anybody willing to say that FTA would benefit from this situation at least in the short run will it create more adoption for FTA for advertisers that's my question if we can start with Rajiv why don't you take it up yeah so first of all you know we are advertising you know we didn't go off here for a single day we have in fact been advertising the entire month of April we advertise month of May very good for us and doing lots of advertising and as everything is as as you would have noticed that there was a time that when the school classes started the TV viewership went up by about 40% the overall TV viewers have ever 40% Dudarshan added to this viewership by airing Ramayana and Mahabharata on really Bharti so that that kind of changed the entire ecosystem so whatever little money which could have gone to these channels these FTA channels went to the original FTA of the country which is Dudarshan so Dudarshan was also an FTA channel right so all the FTA money in a way went to Dudarshan and continues to do so so after the the first show got over they started with Shree Krishna is also done very well then Vishnu Puran on Dury Bharti so all this money has been going to these programs which are performing very very well then you look at Dengal for example Dengal all the top four or top five programs which are there on right now they are performing extremely well right now right so that's so that is one part of the ecosystem which is Dudarshan plus Dengal plus ad sub-tree to it so this is one one part of the ecosystem then second part of the ecosystem is the news the free-to-air news channels which are which are there so so those also have performed very well so I'm sure I mean so a lot of money has moved to these options first then you know then Staplers came and started with the telecast of of Ramayana then we had their own old the new version of Mahabharata running so these two will also garner something but you know largely what has happened is that because of this shift in viewership to Dudarshan you know a lot of viewers and hence the money went to these owners and the donors which are not performing which are not giving any viewership have basically not been able to garner as much viewership so I will I'm not including the the movie genre into this because movie genre has its own pluses and minuses just looking at the GC for example GC this is what has happened and then if you come to movie channels then you know the top four five movie channels they had a massive growth and the rest of them didn't have as much growth so so it's been a it's not a single I mean it's not a one-line answer which we can use for this there's been a shift of viewership and let's face it the shift of viewership has been in the base in favor of Dudarshan and that's right so in fact I just want to add to what he was said this is purely from a point of view of viewership right the entire piece of viewership which has increased on DDE and the perception that FTA normally runs reruns and repeats right so somewhere down the line what the viewership of Ramayana and Mahabharata has shown is that in case there is any content which is available even on FTA or for that matter any other channel which has not been exposed to it will work the viewership will come so I guess that's the biggest learning for me specifically if you ask me apart from that when it comes to advertising from client's point of view when you're looking at FTAs so I guess the starting point is the markets which are in consideration right primarily FTA viewership comes from whatever said and done gurals right and someone who's looking at urban specifically the viewership from urban markets of these FTAs go down a bit I guess somewhere down the line that's a bit of an hindrance for the FTA channels yes absolutely so in fact when you look at for obvious reasons if you look at the viewership of FTAs on the you know versus pay TV right paid channels their their viewership on pay platforms obviously is much lesser primarily because people have so many other options especially the ones who subscribe to what's your take on this is you think FTA adoption because you know people are seeing FTA in a new light Rajiv is right Durdarshan has made a comeback but we all know you know they can't keep running Mahabharat and Ramayana you know reruns forever it's done once and it's over and the other FTAs might be in a position to then take their position and fill in the holes and the point here is that a lot of audience as well as the advertisers have I've got this you know idea in their head that hey you know reruns and content that has been exposed earlier does work with the audience as long as it is good content so now I think my sort of answer to this is that it's a combination of what Rajiv and Sriniv are talking about so yes this whole Ramayana Mahabharat on Durdarshan and all the old shows are working great but it's a different scenario we are in a scenario where there is lot of time at hand and we are with family lockdown so yes people are also watching whole lot of Netflix and you know a whole lot of TV which is one to one and then there is family viewing and that's where Mahabharat Ramayana played a very big role that you could sit together and watch it and you could watch it with your grandparents parents everything in the normal circumstances when there is original content on the pay TV back will we see this kind of viewership I have my doubts on that the second part is coming to the FTAs see the reason one of the primary reason why FTAs has worked is that there is access to distribution you know there is a guaranteed access to distribution into certain markets so which is the biggest challenge when it comes to lot of pay TV because that is where they fight you know when you need viewers you need great content and great distribution FTA the distribution is in place you know once you are on a free dish you will reach out to the markets that's right and probably the biggest learning at this point of time is that if you invest in great content you know up till now it has been that you know on FTAs the content perception for market users that is it is not original it is not great it is reruns and all that but if they can change that perception you know and say that no we are all we are FTA but we also provide quality content I think that will be the game changer for them so I think that's a very good point I mean if you apart from delivering the numbers that you do on free dish if you can also change the perception to being a provider of quality content you have a you know good winner on hands sorry I just I with you you complete okay okay so I just wanted to add most of the points have already been said the way Rajiv categorized the FTA I think was very interesting so you you know the the Durdarshan the rest of FTAs and the news I mean my view I agree with Jay that these are very uncertain very different times and we should not make any benchmarks from what is happening at this point in time because we are in absolutely unnatural conditions in my view the very fact that Raman Mahabharat also did well is because we are all in that state of you know depression and and and you know Bhagwan Yad at the end and that's obvious I mean Indian mentality I am not too sure whether they would have seen the same kind of even if we were at home right but since we were at home with the fear of death that's why probably might was did a very good thing at this point in time and for right reason in and if you were to look at going forward I think news there's never going to be any death of content content is going to be created on an ongoing basis I'm not too worried about that but DD I'm not too sure whether they'll be able to sustain this kind of viewership unless they try delivering new content because right now obviously all these shows that were you know I would say the gold standards of the yester years came out and everybody appreciated but what now now they have to have a very clear strong content strategy going forward and the rest of FTAs again unless the content is something which is at least compare if not comparable at least in the same league as that of the TV in the long run you would not be able to put that dollar on you know when finally what will happen is that one rupee will have to be put behind that channel which give you the best return on investment right and that's where the ROI will come into play that's where the ratings will come into play that's where the cost per rating point and cost per each will come into play so you know if you were to look at it short term yes we have seen a very different environment but going forward it's going to be content that will decide whether FTA will be able to gain a significant pie of this this marketing or advertising spend going forward in fact I you know I have a slide which I want to put up I don't know whether I will be able to let me just try if I can Priyanka can you switch on my screen sharing while I do that yeah so I have a slide which basically shows how FTAs have kind of managed to keep their viewership share intact despite COVID you know there is of course as we all know a change in GRPs of you know all the channels over the last three four months we COVID post COVID so there's a comparison we did for you know January versus April for page channels versus FTAs and you know FTAs as you can see are doing pretty well I'll try and put that slide up once my screen sharing is switched on let me ask another question which is kind of partly related to this we all know that you know for the next six eight months there is going to be very bit challenged in terms of organizing sports events right and naturally so and sports has been a very large river of you know platform for brands to ride on let me ask you Hema since you manage a lot of categories that advertise on sports you see some of that money you know channelizing itself towards entertainment television and if so how do you think this equation between free and FTA channels will play out again given the fact that this year is an unusual year a lot of clients are going to be into the value seeking mode significant value seeking mode so just to sort of address your first point which is an FTO I agree with all the points that were made by my friends here I definitely see this as a as a very temporary scenario it's a it's a matter of time it could be a month it could be three months please understand whether it's the increased worship it's all a scarcity of you know going out and lack of any other entertainment option that we have in our lives that's what leading to increased time on television and as rightly said I think mythos are in any case all-time favorite classics and classics never go out of fashion so definitely people are watching and it's one of the safest content to watch with the entire family together we've seen as much increase in OTT consumption which is most of the times there's not a content that you will watch with whether your kids or with your senior people so so that's what you know I somehow relate Ramayana and Mathew the comeback to Ludo I mean Ludo has also come back you know so a lot of nostalgia and the emotional you know journey that we all have gone through if we I've seen a lot of people talking about the old times whether it's the tier environment whatever so people are connecting it with the old times and that's when I think the mythos came back and replayed their roles in our lives that's how Ludo is coming back and playing roles in their lives but it is all temporary come back to the you know the moment the the private producers or the private broadcasters will be in a situation to bring fresh content and we are back in the same situation I think life will come back to normal but what clearly this proves is that content is the king irrespective of the platform so this surely is an opportunity right now because FTA if you will get the right content on the FTA platform I think it makes a lot of business sense for broadcasters so that's something which I think is something to think about for all broadcasters and if DD could win that battery dude I've done it long back I don't think so DD can play the content battle so that's my point of view on your first point and coming to sports I think that money is gone to the bottom line for all clients I don't think so so that money is coming back and this year you know whether I talk about large clients I mean as I said you know whether it's coke or it's Samsung or it's other auto clients we all had provision for two last voting events in the country it was IPL of course and IPL we have seen with a double digit inflation from an investment standpoint and also World Cup so those two large investments yes Olympic see from a media standpoint in India I won't say Olympic is a very big thing I don't think so any advertisers there will be very few advertisers who will think of a very you know a big investment they may explore and as we increase but I think the investments are never going to be big to impact the overall budgets but the investment that we make behind cricket okay which runs in hundreds of crores so that's that money surely is gone and that money will not come back for a couple of reasons why in any case there is going to be a drop in investment on the overall budgets that all clients will go through because there is going to be whether if they're global clients there is going to be global dictate and how the business gets impacted that will play a large role and secondly you know what what sports especially cricket in India the premium added charges or commands rather and the investment added commands I don't think so any kind of content has ever commanded that and can justify that so even if you come back with any content which is fresh format whatever it will never justify the investments that cricket had so this there's no way that you will get that money back in this year right that's my point of view and so the moment we are out of this we are back into our GRPs game we are back into a bit of impact and a bit of regular GRPs game and yes clients will seek value definitely whether it's from a pricing standpoint looking at the market scenario or whether they're looking at you know optimizing their plans from an efficiency standpoint and there if of course FDA plays a big role and you know whether I think she knew was making a point in whether it's rural India or it's urban India we were in fact making a plan for Samsung and the client wanted us to explore Ramayana and Mahabharat so it's all about what the clients are watching it's not about what about my consumer is watching if my consumer is happily watching a Mahabharat and Ramayana they're okay they're very comfortable taking that so it's going to be all about we are ships and we will chase we are ships and that by default means that we will be chasing efficiencies in the coming times that's right so I think that's what I that's what I was saying now well yeah a good content will work me it's in free opinion good content will work it's not about the everybody in the forum is correct that Mahabharat and Ramayana is working right now because of the family viewing but if your content is good even in the change scenario right and if the content has that pull it will work definitely Mahabharat Ramayana cannot work again the way it has worked right now in the covid set scenario but if it's good it has to you were asking me something novel novel sorry yes universe why don't you yeah so I just want to talk about the the question on sports right as to how exactly things are going to pan out now that any sporting event is not happening so when it comes to advertising there are two kinds of clients who advertise on sports who one who is wanting to do an association with it taking high ground the other one was only chasing viewership like he was talking about right so if someone is talking about viewership is chasing viewership obviously he will park those monies on other genres use that money and get the viewership by parking it on other genres but someone who is wanting to change his association wanting to take high ground on it obviously you take out the money he'll put it as saving and maybe use part of it as money which he would want to get viewership as well along with it because that's something which comes along with it as soon as you talk about association right so Sandeep the point I want you want to pick up with you on is that one of the things that the panel has been saying is that FTA channels depend a lot on reruns right yeah quality content is not invested into hence you know there's a certain scale a certain base at which FTAs operate and obviously it's a vicious cycle you don't invest more you don't earn more unless you earn you don't invest and you know that goes on and on and especially now that you know the environment the larger advertising environment has turned so tough you know environment like this how do you invest into you know fresh good quality content and sit back and say okay I will not you know look at a break even for say next 18 months and allow it to play out like that it's very tough call for a broadcaster and you know eventually everybody is as you know we've seen on free dish everybody is down to running reruns or content that we played earlier so now well I think the premise is that you have to have good content right yeah even if it is rerun right any any broadcaster is not running a content just for the sake of showing it to the viewers right definitely there has to be an ROI so the content that anybody picks up is with the perspective that this content even if it is rerun content will have adequate eyeballs to give the required viewership right so in even if even if even in our planning in maru tv that we had done we had picked up content not with the perspective that covid will come the content was picked up with a mix which will be adequately required for the free dish audience and also the audience base which which would need to switch actually is happy to see the second rank of gc so as far as your question is concerned towards is the rerun content a content to save on cost no it is a cost it is a cost where what how should I phrase it it is a it is based on the ROI that one can justify definitely if I if I if I invest in a very heavy content and my distribution is not commensurate to that kind of that kind of content because discoverability is also a challenge right so all the fta channels who are currently in fridges fta doesn't just specifically mean the means the fridges fridges channels only fta channels are non-pay channels right so the non-pay channels have a limited advantage or have a restriction of being put not on the premium lcns right since you're not on the premium lcns your discoverability is seriously affected so since your sustainability is severely affected either you have to market your product right which again is a significant cost other than the content cost so we have to balance the cost of content so that the ROI is justified whatever we are claiming for that what you are saying correctly saying that okay the investment and the return in the in the er is accordingly different from what the pay channels are so right right and one thing that I think in the initial discussion we were saying that 54 channels are there in the mpeg 4 104 is the total number of frequency so in the mpeg 4 the auctions are 53 channels which had come not 104 that's I just wanted to correct and the existing petition by all the channels to the Prasad Bharti is that you reduce the fees that we had auction for because that auction was not thought of with or were perceived that a covid situation will come and the entire revenue will dry off so if that happens a lot of the channels which had to withdraw will may not have to withdraw so so now that's right Rajiv there is a lighter question online I'll just read it for you what was the idea behind bringing old tbc back for Hajmola I think Dhudarshan started with the nostalgia trip you know and they got the old series back and people started talking about good old days of 1980s and and stuff so we not only Hajmola in fact we're running Hajmola and old town prasads these three films we are running currently in fact our client Amul is also running all old films on I showed it to my kids that day you know the Amul girl you know it's Amul doot pita hai India is like the 90s commercial Rajiv I don't know whether I can ask you this question or whether you are you know publicly comfortable sharing this so if we were to index it to last year say April you know if you had spent last year in April what would be the hit for a company like you know Dabur in terms of how much you've invested in advertising spend so you know April was a very different month you know like right so like so everybody was hit in a big way so and and things are not normal I mean the supply the production everything was very abnormal so similarly the spend was also abnormally low not zero like one tends to think but you know we just pretty low but you know we moved a lot of monies to the news genre because that's what we felt middle of March we felt that you know a lot of people are going to watch news and the data came in that favor so so if we look at news genre abnormally high okay if you look at DCs abnormally low because the viewership all vanished we'll go through the shin abnormally high there's not it's not a once simple answer because a lot of viewership vanished although there was a 40% increase in viewership but all this viewership was in favor of the news channels the do the shin and and say movie channels so so that's how so that's the index you know I mean kind of copied may would be better I mean if you were to look at me would you be would you be say at 50% of mail last year in this month all combined I would say I would say be more than that so that's good I know that Amul is spending a lot I I'm privy to some conversations and I know that you know they've they've not let it slip so at least there are some clients across categories who continue to spend and we are hoping that the other also comes back to spending the earlier amounts very soon this is the screen I was you know trying to put up I don't know whether you can see this this is this is some data is it visible to you yeah right so this is some viewership data of FTA channels in comparison to the top GCs and this data is across pay and free platforms both and as you can see the GRPs for the pay channels are stacked on one side and there are the FTA channels we have taken two in this case entertainment DD is not part of this because in Jan DD numbers would have been significantly lower because they did not have these reruns there was no lockdown so if you look at the private FTAs as well as the private entertainment channels the FTAs compare very very favorably the I think the the the issue other issue that this brings me to is that what happens to you know advertising rates on FTAs since many of you are regular users of you know FTA as advertising platforms our audience is not equal obviously the assumption here is DD free this audience is not similar in terms of paying capability as you say a Tata Sky audiences but if you were to look at things as they stand today is there a you know massive difference is that something that gets you to pay significant amount of premium for a Tata Sky audience or significant lesser to the FTAs that that are on FreeDish. Rajiv, why don't you? So since the beginning if you remember when these free-dware channels came on FreeDish you know the construct of selling was such that you know it started coming cheap and they started selling it on the basis of CPRP and because the viewership was not very consistent the programs or repeat programs so obviously the original program has a different rate to it and the repeat program has a different rate to it so in terms of so that was I think the equation which basically went on you know and if you look at if you just look at eyeball to eyeball I think in terms of GRPs in terms of numbers they would be giving the same numbers but you know yes rates wise there was always been a difference right from the beginning but you know if you if you do the same mathematics on say news genre you know yes some of the news genre and if you if you compare at FTA news channel versus the non-FTA news channel that difference is not so significant you know so this is something which the GCs have done to themselves and the movie FTA movies have done to by pulling out primarily they pulled out by by being not not very consistent not showing the same programming consistently not showing original programming to the FTA audiences so you know in a way I would don't want to sound too harsh but you know if the the TV networks themselves have treated their FTA channels as their stepchild not as a as somebody who can you know earn the bed for themselves you know so they are also at fault the way they're treated do you share that sentiment Hema yeah I agree with Rajeev I think all large broadcasters private broadcasters who happily vacated that space when they had to pay extra to to get the license last year they pulled out and I think in open nobody has admitted any regrets but surely I think it's a big big revenue loss to most of them because for that kind of a distribution fee that's the eyeballs you garner and but they have definitely treated because you know and that's where you know you you established I mean a lot of the time as a buyer I will tell broadcasters that you dig your own grave you said benchmarks and unfortunately we start to follow that and that becomes market norms so that what happened with the FTA is because the content is not fresh okay they they sold it at a certain price and if CPRP becomes a norm for those with increased viewership there is a price hike which which you know which in a way is legitimate because you you you were doing a CPRP deep but obviously there is a market push not to give increase in rates so that's a fight because the gap between the operating CPRPs of the regular pay chape channels versus these channels have been so so you know fast it's it's I mean it's tough to bridge that gap actually and that is what has led to current situation but now your question was I think on the current pricing on with this so see largely if I see there are two key contributors of the growth that one has seen is FTA one is of course DD and the other is news okay so at least I personally DD I mean DD comes with a rate card and DD so there is I mean you cannot compare DD with anything I mean it's it's there that didn't happen you was so happy somebody and doesn't go back and forth I mean I personally many times I just say that I wish market operates on rate card you have in our lives would be so much sorted and well I think the media broadcasts will be very happy if we all operated on absolutely absolutely absolutely some of us won't have jobs maybe we'll have better jobs yeah yeah so so DD of course and on news channels at least I have not seen that you know there was any kind of a rate hike that they've asked for because of this but yes what the softness that you see in the market in other genres is much more than what you see in news see what you have to understand that market is overall soft so while news channel may be gaining on worship there are lesser advertisers to advertise and as far as the categories which are advertising which are primarily FMC keys and package goods which are not one of the biggest drivers the biggest advertiser categories on news channels per se yes so their categories are technology auto vans client mobiles they were all zero practically zero from end of March to the whole of April so it's a perishable commodity so you know there is no way that they could think of a price hike even when the viewership was supporting them because there weren't enough takers in the market yes in fact you know if you see I have this another slide given to me by LB I mean this shows bloodbath so this is indexed to February 2020 the month before lockdown and look at March and April March still kind of was okay because the lockdown really hit us towards the third or fourth week so at April the bottom is just come off print down from 73 to 11 digital down from 111 to 82 the least hit so to say radio again 50 percent more than 50 percent down 105 down to 30 television 104 down to 56 and the the final picture in this is that this is only averages so obviously there are a lot of platforms a lot of media companies which are hit much harder than the average some of them have seen revenue shrinking by 80 percent and since almost all of that money flows through agencies agencies have taken a similar hit because you know all of the money is flowing through the media agencies let's hope that you know all of this picks up from June onwards and once the lockdown is eased we are in a better situation yeah go ahead I just I just want to check that the perception that FDA audience is that we are talking about FDA doesn't specifically mean DDP in the discussion it predominantly is appearing it's only DD free dish but it has FTH just predominantly not free dish FDA is the larger base yes where you are not a free DD free is just a free to a platform yes and FDA is a channel where you are not asking subscription from the subscribers and it is you are you are taking all is only ad revenues you want to add something I just want to add something to it you know so interestingly this FTF phenomena is only limited to the HSM market you know the moment you go to down south and very very HSM and very very rural you know the moment you look at only urban then you know the numbers then then then the game is very different and if you look at south the game is completely different then you know there is absolutely no FTA in that market so when you talk about FTA by definition is only HSM market and for the brands which are very very rural in fact you know brands like ours and most of the differences and like I mentioned in the slides there is obviously Dungal and Big Magic are two examples of FTA I think the Durdarshan conversation is right now relevant primarily because their viewership has really gone through the roof I don't think they would have seen such a jump in you know after maybe the original Mahabharata and Ramayan were here you know when some of you will remember they used to be they used to be getting 100 GRPs or you know all GRPs available because they were monopoly broadcaster and everybody was watching Durdarshan because that's that's how that's how that's how the FTA or the FTA channels are creating a differentiator maybe because if it was only Friedesh which is a forced viewing platform because they have very limited access to content right there you like right now we are forced to see Ramayan Mahabharata as one of the best premium products right so every Friedesh operator has to create has to create content that's how Dungal has up the game they have started creating content not just because it's Diddy Friedesh it's is the other other platforms as well and so so is any other launches that's what we have also done so I was just confused that FTMA sub S&E everybody not should think it's only Diddy Friedesh that's right I think there's another question I want to ask a question yeah go ahead Raji you know so it's been about 20 years that you know one never saw a rating of 13, 14, 15 for a show after Kyokis Aas and KBC. Do Durdarshan imagine for one full month they've got a rating of about 10 plus ratings for the show can you imagine this kind of scenario if the show like Ramayan Mahabharata was on say any other channel it would have got this kind of rating I don't think so I mean it was the sheer numbers because Durdarshan is presenting 100% of the households whereas other channels are not present 100% the households you know they are like just about 30, 40, 50 maybe 60% households so this kind of rating I mean was unimaginable what you've got true so the vision the opportunity to see for Durdarshan was already there and it was very well very well informed that to the every audience that it is it is available at that this frequency a lot of a lot of people in the initial days just wanted to know where is Durdarshan available and what frequency in Dara sky or what frequency in this distributor as soon as they come to know they just switch into it so that's the advantage ask one last question or FTA do you think in the current environment say over the next three four quarters is the FTA ecosystem pricing going to put a lot of pressure on the on the mainline GECs? Naval what you're trying to say is that is what FTA will price their product accordingly the other networks will come down is it going to put pressure on the other networks FTA pricing especially for you know categories like FMCG? No definitely I think like we have seen with the advent of Dungal so with Dungal coming and it's it's garnering certain amount of views also it'll also depend on which categories we are talking about within the FMCG brands which are which are more rural centric and trying to focus on those areas definitely FTA can play a big role my the what what and I think Sandeep has been trying to put that point across that FTA is not only free edition FTA is actually a La Durdarshan it's it's basically if they can sort of garner that viewership on the pay TV homes okay they have a killing to make the problem is that the moment you split the viewership and you look at the the FTA channels in the pay TV homes that's where the difference starts coming in and we know that the pay TV guys are the guys who consume everything so the pressure will build if they can get a share out of the pay TV homes so if I put a cut across that and under the pay TV if the FTA and I'm not talking about the news I'm generally talking about the GEC channel if they can do that it'll make a huge difference that's where the real game will start happening I guess that's where the larger networks are at least the players who have deeper pockets will come into the play yes so obviously the important important thing is Sandeep you guys have launched an FTA and I'm sure that's on your radar to not just have audience on the you know DD FreeDish platform but also on you know pay platforms because if you can crash that content strategies very much novel the content strategies device like that it can't be just focused on DD FreeDish we have to ensure that we we capture the larger the larger pie of HSM if you only if you only look for DD FreeDish it was a much simpler game to play with fantastic okay so before we wrap this up it's our time as I'm told there's another question for Raji which is very relevant to actually a lot of other advertisers which is that you know summers have been a little cooler this time right partly maybe there's lesser pollution vehicular you know commercial air conditioning and so on how does it impact your beverage category Rajiv and what happens to all of us if kind of people are not drinking more soft drinks and cola and juices and so beverage category is definitely been hit badly this summer for multiple reasons you know so one is that modern rate is deeply affected because of yes this person so that's that's one of the reasons but I mean beverages as such I mean I can tell you that there's a huge stress in that segment right now I hope that it it covers up in the coming months but whatever has been lost is lost you know last few weeks last two or five weeks fantastic so what is the final message I mean there are lots of people who are right now anxious you know as Rajiv started this discussion rightly by saying Dabar's current priority is to save livelihood livelihoods and you know a lot of people in the advertising ecosystem a lot of people in the media ecosystem are you know naturally very worried and concerned about what happens to their you know incomes and their jobs and you know their careers over the next 12 18 24 months so what is one message of hope in front of you wants to give to people who are you know watching this conversation Sandeep you can start with you so I think India is an economy which is at least 80% of our consumption is at home right so as soon as things get started I'm pretty sure by as I think a lot of us are aware that also accepting that by September we should be reviving back the economy and things should get start getting normal by November kind I think so am I am I am I correct Rajiv Mohit is that too much of an optimism I think I think you know one has to take one day at a time you know absolutely if this crisis extends for a long period I mean one has to talk first how about we are expecting good monsoon is just that we just have to get away with COVID fast that's it yeah so I think I think one thing which is which is going to get affected or is getting affected is is travel tourism and services you know there those those services are going to get affected a lot that's right yes what's in any other categories you know so you know I think some categories will see a very quick revival some categories might see a very real real revival but you know but I mean I hope that everything comes back to normal and you know everybody that's good good business and laughs this way to the bank eventually you know so so that's that's what one wants but you know things are going to be very different one has to be prepared for the new scenario one has to look at new opportunities because in this kind of this kind of distress there's a lot of opportunities coming up one has to look at opportunities within this distress and and go ahead yeah so I personally feel this is not a year of growth it's a year of survival right as Jack Ma said and I think we all agree with it if you have survived this year as at a personal level at a professional level at a business level that itself would mean that you have made huge profits in the long term so as as as business owners as clients you know partners we should ensure that we survive this year and and and ensure our our businesses are kept afloat because I don't want to predict that Q3 is going to Q4 is going to be good because things can change if things could change in three days time you know it can change in another three days time you know you never know god forbid if if the cases go up suddenly and there might be a second lockdown that happens you don't know what's going to happen and how things are going to change so it's all about staying afloat surviving and and and and planning for next year so we are already planning for 2021 yes jay I'm pretty optimistic so yes these are these are tough times and these are these are very challenging period and we need to be really agile but at the same time I think if if like by June if we see the lockdown easing out I think we should be back to normal by September uh yes there will be certain categories like travel and all that which will get affected uh quite a lot travel leisure and all that uh but there will be other categories which will bounce in in this period because in every crisis there is an opportunity for someone and you you might see like say the insurance categories and and the essentials and all that might have a good one point which I want to tell you all and which I want to say that you heard it here first is that sports is going to be back so uh I won't be surprised if in September you see an IPL and you see an India series in the month of October especially if say a vaccine or some drug is found sometime soon then obviously students even even without the vaccine now I think bcci is is is very opportunistic and given that uh there are there are there are certain challenges where a lot of entertainment networks are not going to invest on impact shows this is a very big opportunity for bcci with the world cup getting postponed I won't be surprised if they even play on empty stadiums they get the Indian players to play they might do or two or two one or two countries or something and you'll you'll see cricket coming back so there are there are things which are going to like you know like the way I was saying that you know depression therefore led to rama and mawada viewing going up uh sports might bring back that optimism you know you see IPL and all that happening you'll see a bit of optimism also coming back so I I have already seen that in football yeah yeah I mean there was a report on bbc yesterday germany is starting soccer behind uh without fans in the stadium so yes at least there'll be advertisers on tv if not fans in the stadium so I think what bcci will have to gauge just to respond to jay's point I agree bcci is very optimistic what they will have to ensure to gauge the market sentiment and the advertiser readiness to invest in the market because it's a big investment and if there are no takers then to put in such an event may also be a risk thing for them so yes if they sense that there is an opportunity in the market and there are enough takers uh that's that's a way forward probably that's right would Sreeni last word uh so I guess we need to be cautiously optimistic I mean what I would personally think is that we've already seen the lowest right it can't get worse than this so the only way up for is going up so I mean that's the way I look at it there would be opportunities we just need to be agile like jay said at the same time there could be opportunities from a couple of categories where we currently are thinking that they might just they might not come back anytime soon so it's all about thinking on thinking on your toes and be agile I think we'll go up pretty soon that's the way to look at it from my side fantastic I I for one on recovery it might sound more hopeful than most people but I think as you all mentioned a lot of categories will pick up pick up very fast and the harsh or the hard reality is unfortunately this is a disease we'll have to live with for some time take adequate precautions uh you know while the disease spread happens some parts of the economy will open up like it has already happened in some parts of north india start happening in other parts of the country and you know things will we'll have to learn to live with it for some time with that thank you so much we are very past our closing time so thank you so much for joining this panel thank you first of all to the Shimaru team for you know being part of this thank you Sandeep and all the best to you guys for your new FDA thank you so much thank you so much everyone free to air channel thank you Mohit for joining this panel I hope we meet in person sometime soon you're able to take your next flight very very very soon jay thank you I hope you're back in Delhi shortly Rajiv thank you for very good insights I hope the the sales pick up pretty well next month and some sucker some more sucker comes the way of the advertising and the media ecosystem thank you Srinig thank you Hemma thank you for being part of this conversation until next time thank you all of you goodbye