 and good evening. Welcome to an exchange for media conclave e-webinar on a Thursday evening. Thank you for joining us and let me start by welcoming our fantastic set of panelists today for this conversation. To start with the lady on the panel, Nina Jaipuria, head of the Viacom business of colors and their kids channel the Hindi entertainment. Welcome Nina. Hi. It is Navneet Elvi from down south from Chennai, the CEO of one of India's most red and largest newspapers, the Hindu group. Hello Navneet. We have with us also Abhinav Kare, CEO of Asia news network and as you all know news has been the talk of the town for the last few months. Abhinav, good to have you join us. We also have another perspective from the news domain Rahul Sood managing director of BBC Global in India. Hello Rahul and new boss has joined in just a day back so he'd like to be excused early. So Rahul we'll throw a lot of questions at you up front. We also have a perspective from brand and advertisers. Sudhanshu Nagpal, associate director of marketing and marketing has joined us. Thank you Sudhanshu. Last but not least, M. Parthasarathy, maps as he's called CEO of Mindshare India based in Bangalore, India's largest media agency. Thank you Nina and the gentlemen for joining us. Let me start with you Nina. Let me just set the context before we start. Like we were discussing just before we went live. We are in the throes of six months of the pandemic and none of us foresaw the situation. This is really in many ways. What has happened in the media advertising marketing business is partly result of the long-term trends that were taking hold and part acceleration due to COVID induced changes. Viacom is a large entertainment company. You have a stake in almost all domains whether it is television, there is digital, there is entertainment, there's kids entertainment. We all know the kind of numbers that Bark has been giving out. The impact on media consumption that has happened. If you were to look out another six to 12 months, if you were having this conversation again sometime around next year, what are the two three trends do you think which will last post COVID in the entertainment space? So let me just start by saying thank you for having us here today. Good evening to all of you and wonderful gentlemen on this panel as well. You know the last five months have been totally unprecedented and there has been a certain pattern in which media has been consumed in the last five months and of course while television has continued to be the primary source and medium of entertainment and information, I think the big change that has happened of course is that there has been a whole lot of fragmentation of the consumer attention and I think people have been consuming media across platforms, medium screens and different distribution pipes and I think that has been a big major trend and a very big pattern that we've seen emerge over the last five months and this has led to a whole lot of fragmentation even from a perspective of how we are catering to that audience and primarily from a Viacom eating perspective I think you know essentially we are storytellers and we want to ensure that our stories reach out to our viewers via whichever distribution pipe medium or screen that they wish to consume us and therefore I think in the coming months we are going to see this continue as a trend where content and information and attain entertainment will be consumed through various pipes and various screens and various devices and so therefore that trend when you look at it from another perspective that trend really means that if you want to entice your consumer to come to your stories and your content then the role of content is that much higher the spend on content is that much higher it also means that one size doesn't fit all it means that you will have to spend more you'll have to possibly custom make for bucket size viewers because they are fragmented and their attention spans and viewing patterns are very very different but having said that I still think that television is here to stay it was going to be the primary source of entertainment for India for a while in the future and that's not going away but what is going to change that it is going to become TV and digital and OTT so we've really entered a and phase much faster than we had anticipated it I mean you know there was already a whole OTT digital storm that was happening but we've gone you know we kind of fast forwarded much more in the last five months and we have so there is definitely going to be a TV and digital and OTT is kind of a phase that we've entered so that's one big trend to my mind the second trend I think is that even within consumer you know demographics and geographies the trend of continuing to cater to certain audiences is going to continue so there are genres here that are here to stay and they will end and the custom made content that is being offered on those genres is here to stay as well so there is going to continue to be not just mass entertainment in GC that is of course the staple of any broadcaster and viewer but moving on from there there will be this need of having kids as a genre having regional as a genre because I see that as a big trend and that's going to continue in the future as well because regional has picked up in a big way and of course then there is OTT which is also delivering online TV to you it is delivering syndicated content to you and originals and of course now there's this whole other pattern of watching movies on OTT and on television and broadcast so that's another whole trend I think that will continue for a while for some time now because I think all of us are really scared to go back to a theater for sure in a while having said that therefore how do we entertain this Bollywood crazy nation is going to be through serving these movies on platforms that have been not traditionally movie premier platforms so these two my mind are trends that are going to continue from a perspective of viewer and broadcaster from an advertiser perspective also I think and as a marketer a lot of us have to pivot our plans to adapt to this new normal and therefore you see a lot of the the marketing that we've done has actually moved on from television being the main staple for two reasons one is of course that it has it delivers to you mass reach at very affordable value for money rates and to it has a very detailed measurement to it and therefore from both perspectives giving you mass reach and the measurement data will keep the television far more relevant but having said that I think digital media is here to stay as well as an engagement platform and as an ad platform that will create awareness for your brand and build your brand so all of us have had to pivot our brands and pivot our marketing and that's exactly what advertisers have done as well right very relevant points I'm going to pick you up on some of these ones come back I mean let me jump to you news is also a domain that has been very significantly kind of been doing a tango with digital right perhaps news television was impacted because of digital even before entertainment television started getting impacted news is television news is here to stay there's no doubt about that because of the impacted creates but do you believe that as we move forward and with increasing fragmentation of new sources that consumers are you know looking at what are the trends you see that that will shape up in the news domain over the next two years especially given that during COVID time news consumption has spiked up significantly we have seen people have glued on to news credible news brands reliable news brands even more what what do you think will happen in the next two years as we come out of COVID as unlock happens as the economy starts picking up again I'm going to answer your question in three parts number one I don't believe you know television is going to stay forever I mean nothing lasts forever the Kodak people Nokia people they also believe nothing is gonna change and things change it when it change it change right so however I I really don't see us into sort of you know into business of being a broadcast we are content producing companies we have our front-end which is the digital we have a back-end which is you know all those studios and broadcast companies we are preparing for the future where TV as we know will will change of course it remains the cash cow of course we are excited about it and of course it is still the preferred choice for the advertisers right now whether it's gonna be the same in five years you know it's everybody's guess second part about I mean I also want to just quickly go back to you know and Nina said that the television measurements are superior I sort of disagree I mean the digital measurements of our superior the amount of data that we collect the patterns about the demography in in TV yes there are some measurement companies coming but largely the entire industry we depend on you know the ratings which are released on Thursday so we always have to wait for a week before we I think the issue we had a panel yesterday also I think one issue a lot of people in the advertising and the marketing business keep raising with respect to measurement on digital is there's no third-party currency absolutely that's what I meant itself to enough bait to say you know a next platform comes and claims a certain amount of you know traction a wire platform so I think what the industry needs a third-party measurement platform but sorry com score is a is a is a is a recognized currency I mean I've not seen anyone from times internet to news 18.com to daily hunt to us to anyone reporting anything other than com score I mean yes three years back even we were constantly wondering we were checking with the colleagues with the friends with the seniors which is the currency I think now com score is an established one I mean everyone I mean we advertise a com score result I agree Google analytics a lot of configuration issue could be there and because of that you know data could be duplicated and so on but com score I think when you talk about digital you also talk about a Facebook YouTube and com score is not relevant for many of them you know news websites and other content but a lot of them in like OTT Facebook comscare is not relevant but anyways coming back to the topic you know two years I think first it's sort of a blessing in disguise I mean you know because of because of this a lot of traditional industry like ours we have been forced almost forced to you know get into the transformation mode start trusting our colleagues with you know the work from home options there is a prominent feeling within the media industry that the work from home actually has increased the the productivity the only missing part obviously is the team bonding you know the emotional health of the of our teammates otherwise now the trust is much much better in terms of you know our ability to trust that okay these guys even from home they're gonna work the customers I mean so all the time that they're saving through the commute it seems that they have just started investing in in you know on your phone or on your TV since in the entertainment sector was not producing a lot of content news industry definitely benefited on an average I was I was just on a phone call with a colleague I think on an average industry gained around 40% higher traffic within the last you know quarter or so for us as well the package in fact we were slightly more fortunate since we are targeting the vernacular market so we almost doubled our traffic compared to February I think more eventually in two years time I would expect the customers to get more mature so the content side people like us we'll have to you know pull up our socks is and try to produce slightly more intelligent content you know there is a time when sort of you can bring traffic using the entertainment and you know other things but now slowly the pattern has changed especially for news Rahul you BBC as a brand knows this better than anybody else you curated news content for many many years very credible news content a very specific question for you and it's a very interesting trend that is kind of got accentuated during COVID and that's kind of coming from personal experience as well as we go through a you know man made or you know a disaster like we have gone through COVID consumers tend to gravitate more and more towards credible news sources right you want which is truly verified but there's a very strange contradiction that because of the bombardment of news sources today I'm also continuing to consume news and perhaps also going to continue to believe in multiple new sources that are coming to me and what that does for a news brand is it kind of lays there all your plans of you know building a business monetizing through consumer revenues or advertising revenue so it's on one hand you're getting better traction on the other hand it's almost kind of running on a treadmill and you know watching so much fragmentation happening that you know things are getting out of your hand so as BBC which is a global brand how do you see this happening in India? I think you've raised very relevant points and I think comes back to brand credibility being I think the preeminent thing that viewers, agencies, clients, everybody ultimately gravitates towards especially when you have a story as big as what COVID has been I mean for the BBC the month of March April was all time record viewership across the world including India I mean both on television and on digital so I mean just to put things in perspective globally we are the most watched news service even on social media so largest Facebook subscribers largest number of insta followers largest on Twitter largest on YouTube and even on television we crossed the magical 500 million households across the world so if I take that number of say approximately four to five years per household we're looking at any given point approximately two to an a half billion people having access to BBC news in some form the other on some so I mean for us it was I think as I say there's nothing like a story like this yes it stretched our resources like nobody's business because obviously newsrooms have to work in a sanitized manner and you're still turning out 14 16 hours of live news content today across all platforms so I think the learning curve was that and many of our reporters ended up converting their living rooms to their bedrooms and attics into news many new studios and continue doing so so I think that way it was and the process continues still you know so if you enter the newsroom you probably just find the regular robotized cameras in the main studios and every and there's not a single human being inside the anchor come does a story the shift and out so coming back from a brand perspective I think as I said we've seen record viewership across all screens all platforms and we in fact even had some of our affiliates not just in India but many other parts of the world who reached out and asked that you know since BBC is the most credible you know news brand out there can we start carrying your service in the basic services because I think there was so much of misinformation and speculation around COVID I think there was all kinds of news being bombarded and I think WhatsApp led the way where there was a lot of unfair verified information circulating as gospel truth and I think that's when more and more people started gravitating towards trusted news brands so I think the biggest learning for us is that I think it's enhanced our visibility and our credibility even more and I mean just put things in perspective the most trusted news brand even in the US today after the local news stations actually BBC ahead of ABC NBC CNN Fox everybody put together so it's telling you that today viewers are more and more I think recognizing because of the bombardment of social media and all other kinds of dodgy news outlets that ultimately you will go back to brands that you know you who build themselves and have a hundred-year legacy of trust very relevant point I think and I'm I'm going to pick that up with Navneet he's also part of a company that runs a very trusted news brand Navneet my question to you is how do we get consumers to pay more we've seen what's happened in the US in New York Times their consumer subscription revenues have really gone through the roof they've done really well on that count they've continued to produce high quality content and on the back of increased subscription revenues they've managed to invest even more in producing better content how does one that do that in India given you know as Rahul said it's so much WhatsApp unverified news floating around on television news is almost free how do credible news brands earn more from consumers in a country like India any thought good question and I think the beginning is to make a start I think if if publishers or people in the content business don't value their own content you don't expect the world so the problem is not with the consumer the problem is with us and I think Indian media has given away too much for too little for too long so this is a problem we have created we are run our businesses on wrong business models with an over dependence of advertising this situation is only accelerated what was inevitable so clearly the future is in reporting the business to a reader revenue business not necessarily an advertiser and I think two three things one can do on the publishing business publishers can respect their cover prices and price it would reasonably high so that people see value in it and pay for it on the digital business I think it's important to get people to see value in what we do and get them to pay for it we have started the journey and and you ride on ride on similar values as others are talking you ride on trust you ride on credibility I think what what what the last five six months have taught us is to double down on a purpose to stay true to our vision to realize the importance of what we represent and what we do I think and I speak for many others not just for us what we bring to the table what we bring to democracy what we bring to the world is of great importance and if that is the purpose you can't find this purpose without profits and hence voting to subscription revenues becomes very important we are made that start and we realize that people are willing to pay for content we are had a decent journey and I think the publishing business also puts blinkers on our ambition your your ambition is contained by the markets you are able to physically serve while the opportunities for people in the language space are immense within India I think for people in the content business in English the the audience is truly global if we believe we produce world-class content if we believe we we have things to say about how the world should be if we believe that we truly solve for a better world bring bring equality in every sphere of life bring the values of democracy we do as good a job as many global brands my senses we haven't believed that we do a good job and we're limited in our own ambition and I think it's also a matter of going after the low-hanging truth first and that's what has happened over the last 20 years but perhaps there's there'll be no you know better time for the publishing business to get a push from the environment as covid is if it won't happen I'll never happen and by the way the complication also is as we as we all know there is a lot of fragmentation on the you know digital platform so monetizing digital news is tough but that's the holy grail if you believe in the content you produce if you believe in the platform you have this is the time to do it relevant point so don't you let me jump to you you bring in the advertiser perspective two three questions it is true that you know credible people gravitate more towards credible sources of news as well as entertainment but there's far too much fragmentation happening right the world upside and India is such a heterogeneous country the consumption is happening on digital on multiple OTT platforms regional for a company like Mondales you're also a global company and you have to adhere to certain standards in terms of where you're advertising what you're doing in this complex environment of consumption of content how do you choose the primary you know media platforms that you want to associate with and how much role does credibility of the platform play in your media mix because you know some global companies certainly put weight to that that might not be necessarily true in India how does Monday see that in India absolutely I think we are you know we are quite proud and passionate about our brands and I think brands are brands existence of is a consumer you know how do you build brand you need to be able to understand your consumer go where your consumers are and be able to engage and connect with them in a meaningful manner so in that spirit I think the way we choose our mediums I think you know it's very strongly driven conventionally it was driven through a multimedia reach model so you know our consumer and we understand you know which mediums gets us the reach in the most optimal manner I mean it's driven through a lot of analytics as well so we do market mix modeling to understand what's the ROI of each of the medium and hence what's the optimum makes and the way it's evolved for us globally as well as in India your TV has been the main whole medium to drive reach conventionally traditionally and it's continue to stay stronger we don't know what will look like 10 years down the line but where we exist in the near future I think TV is the main stick what has shifted is really the whole digital evolution I think it's been happening for last two three years globally in India as well it has picked up really fast I mean just to give you a sense for last three years you know as an organization as a brand like for you for instance the spend which goes into digital has moved from six percent of overall A&C spend last three years back to on the study 540 percent now and similarly brand which is more youth centric like silk where the consumer is actually the millennial in the sense is we're spending more time on digital you almost 50 percent of our spend goes on digital so I think it's more coming from where is consumer spending more time and where are they engaging with content and hence the brand needs to find a way to become part of that content in a meaningful manner to be able to engage consumer so TV and digital your digital becoming bigger and bigger especially now with this whole COVID I think one friend which we believe is happening while TV is going strong I think the whole digital space has further got accelerated the role of as we heard earlier Facebook social media we know people are spending more time similarly OTT is emerging another big channel which so far we have not been tapping into you know and we are not thinking hard on saying how do we bring that in the mix similarly within digital you know genres like your influencers you know is one big stream which has been there as a brand are we doing it in a meaningful strategic manner do we need to move so there's a lot of new opportunities which are emerging I think e-commerce for example I mean what we have realized especially in COVID is the potential and power of e-commerce now as the mobility will come back consumer will start moving out outlets are opening e-commerce will come back but clearly I mean that you know what has happened is it has accelerated the whole e-commerce journey and we believe e-commerce gonna be big for a CPG company like us as well in the future so the big ship we are making is how do we think about marketing you know which was always top of the funnel for us which is about awareness and reach versus shifting to end to end funnel you know how do we you know show that every dollar we spend on marketing helps us close the sale with the e-commerce partners at the same time every dollar we spend for e-commerce platform to close the sale also build brand equity so how do you look at overall digital in a holistic manner and bring e-commerce lens to it as well so that's how I think we are revolving you know what we believe is digital will be a important medium it will play a larger role in how we build brand and how do how we engage with our consumers and brand safety is very very important so I think very consciously we make a choice of not venturing into spaces where we don't have a conviction on whether our brand safety will be taken care of measure ability is another big area where we are I mean we spend huge money you know I'm not being able to you know with conviction say whether that money is giving returns is a big question mark and that's something which we struggle when it comes through quite a few of the digital mediums we invest on. Before you go Rahul I'm going to come to you Partha but Rahul has a hard stop at 4.30 so I'm going to ask him. I'll probably stay for another 15 minutes and there will be a recorded session so maybe I'll watch that a little later. Anyway let me ask you since I'm with you BBC is a brand built on television right and as we've seen a lot of news consumption entertainment consumption is moving towards digital. Three years out or five years out increasing consumption of news will happen on digital in an era like that how do you keep the relevance of a brand because you'll be competing with you know right now as you've said in America BBC is one of the top most credible news brands primarily because of the power of television right and as you move increasingly towards digital the fragmentation effect will start kind of impacting more and more. How do you make sure that your brand kind of retains the aura in a you know digital first world so to say. Actually I'd like to just correct you it's not just television for the BBC it's been digital first for the last I think seven eight years now so I mean the most consumed news content on Facebook watches BBC content YouTube we're right up there in maximum insta followers Twitter so the whole spectrum of digital news and I think we've seen that in the numbers we've also garnered you know from the start of COVID every month now I mean just to put things in perspective BBC Hindi which is our world service site is amongst the top five most consumed news video content on smartphones in India I mean this is as for Bob Nielsen data this is not our data this is Bob Nielsen just I think last week they had that whole industry 90 page presentation out there and BBC Hindi which is just a digital service so just to put things in perspective we've got 42 language services across the world off which large majority are just digital so you see BBC Hindi Urdu Punjabi Kannada Tamil Gujarati which are just purely digital services they're not on television yes we run certain segments of the half an hour bulletin or one hour bulletin on TV but these are digital first board services you can consume the content when you want and we're churning out all the same the key stories every day putting out 15 to 20 videos on those and my perspective is that today if linear TV the way we know it cable and satellite I think what is driving it today if it is not it is only live sports and live news rest all other genres are consumed on demand at least for the top 100 million in this country which I call India the guys who have a choice of consuming content on smartphones OTT Apple boxes Amazon fire sticks are consuming all other genres in that India one all video on demand yes the rest of Bharat in Hindustan which doesn't have a choice and you know we are still a wireless broadband country we are not a wired broadband country I think the day you get more wired broadband connectivity and more OTT content starts getting consumed on television I mean just to put again a number out there 65% of Netflix consumption in the US is on large TV screens but in India I mean probably it's down to a single digit number most of it is consumed on mobile devices so I think as soon as you start seeing that shift and come back to sports and uses what is going to keep cable and satellite going for a long while I mean unless you have some major sports and live news I mean actually just look at your own viewing habits I think you will switch on to tell you really to consume live news or live sports rest you can watch when you want how you want at your rooms and trance easier that's how it is as partly true as people say India is like a two track country television is growing while you know digital is also picking up and that is likely to print is growing in many parts of the country so it's not sunset for print yet coming to you you and you manage a very large portfolio of clients you work with you know advertisers brands across categories tell us two things what do we expect in the next six months when when it comes to advertising spends because I think people are very anxious about that second is from what you've seen happening over the last six months what's your sense of how spends over the next the trend of spends over the next two years will pan out okay so I think I would like to address this in a slightly different way I think marketers today are increasingly and so that you will be able to bear me out I think are increasingly looking for more accountability of advertising investment what the last few months have seen is that if you were to look at top of funnel to bottom of funnel kind of emphasis of expenditure it's even out more and more and more and more is going towards the bottom of the funnel in terms of trying to drive some kind of tangible end result right now that is in a way influenced expenditure obviously this is different for different categories right now globally what we are seeing this year is that probably television will be down in the low double digits you know and digital will hold its ground at a global level you know probably 0% 1% this way that way right globally of course things like print and all are in much more danger than they are in India so they are probably dropping in the 20 plus kind of percentage now in India what we are seeing is obviously digital is continuing to hold its ground television has has dropped more than the global drop but it will also recover more than the global recovery and that's the anticipation for as we move into 2021 what is definitely there and without it's an immutable fact is that there will be more money which will be spent towards things that drive performance you know whether it's television and therefore moving towards more and more addressable audiences the ability to hyper target the ability to you know really sharp target audiences the ability you know one of the things trends which I saw recently is that you know hyper localization has has been jump-started because of COVID I've had to look at Bangalore as an example one street has COVID the other street doesn't you know there are there grocery shops open in one in one section but not in the other right increasingly marketers are going to want to really really hyper target get more sharper go to audiences who are able to deliver them more results and so on so all media which moves in that direction is going to get more investment going forward and I think that's I know it's not a direct answer to your question novel but but I think that's how it's going to follow up questions since you advise brands you know digital is very performance oriented as you said and very lead generation oriented as you as you would understand television has been built around building a brand right and do you think a lot of brands today are missing the opportunity to build a long-term brand and forsaking that in favor of creating short-term leads you know doing performance generation because of which what what is happening today is any newbie brand can just walk in do better performance marketing you know spend very little money on brand building and suddenly you have you know you're competing against an upstart without realizing that you know you allowed your brand to dilute all these years so is there a is there opportunity being missed by marketers where too much of focus is going into you know performance you know I you're absolutely right you know there is a very big danger of being myopic in this whole thing so I think I think where I think the big change is now an hour is that this need for through the funnel thinking is very important because the problem even comes when it looks when you look at things like attribution right if people say it's the last click that got you your final result then you will keep investing band what got you that last click but the guy has seen your TV ad the guy has seen the newspaper ad the guy has then looked at his search to you the guy has then probably seen an ad of yours on Facebook and then clicked on something and then eventually made the purchase perhaps on an e-commerce platform right and this is not this is true across categories whether it's automotive whether it's BFSI whether it's FMCG it is important for us to look at the impact of each one of those marketing investments on the end outcome and and definitely that's why I say TV is here to stay you know print has a definite role to play there is a role for all of this all I'm trying to say is that eventually driving that accountability through the funnel is going to be important so every medium has to live up to it that's all I'm trying to say you know relevant points about marketing and I'm very happy to hear all of them actually that's right I'm sure you know what is undeniable is that wave of opinion shifting towards you know and lead generation and more and more likes to the answer said you know as opposed to six percent of spends of Oreo almost thirty five forty percent spends are going to digital and the hard reality is it is unlikely to shift back to 10 or 15 percent anytime soon not happening for the next two three years so that money that is gone to digital is lost my question to you is as a entertainment company which tables both in television and you know digital the winds of change will obviously sweep the entertainment sector consumers are going to spend more time on digital but the primary business is built on a certain revenue model around television right and you cannot curate alternate business model overnight in the digital space how do you think the transition will happen over the next three to five years that's a question people have been asking for many years now but I think this year is also in many ways an inflection year for OTT's right or digital content consumption digital entertainment content consumption what happens to the business model of for lack of better world let me use you know legacy or traditional media companies right how do you make the transition without you know kind of getting decimated so that's an interesting question but the way I'd like to answer this is to say that like I was telling you right up front when I started to say that I think this we have we've entered an and phenomena right so we are talking about being the M&E being part of TV and digital and OTT so that's here to stay and we have to coexist so I think there are two things that that we should be looking at from an entertainment company and I think what we're doing over the past few years as well and we started already last year itself with NTO and all of that is one is of course create a business model for traditional TV as a business and reduce our dependency on ad sales and ad revenue and slowly and steadily we are seeing that move as well we had very substantial growths in our subscription revenues last year and the new NTO actually was a win-win for all the stakeholders in this in the economy so so having said that of course we've not gone to the level of the West where ad sales and subscription revenue are at 50-50 but having said that we are going closer to that more and more and that actually gives us the ability of of course investing back into content which is therefore going to entice the fragmented consumer who's now viewing us so one is of course looking at that the revenue model and the television module per se of how we run the television business the other part of course is to say that how can we therefore create content and IPs where we can actually sweat the asset beyond one medium and that is what we've been doing and therefore you know one IP one platform doesn't justify the PNL and you know at all anymore and therefore you look at what we've done at Viacom 18 very successfully and you know we were anticipating and wanted to be future ready and therefore while we have all our you know brands which is right from colors to Nickelodeon to MTV we also have boot and boot kids which and in you know in turn ensure that our consumers are getting that same content on OTT and any other screen and device that they wish to but what you also saw was that the IP that we created for traditional media has actually even become even bigger on OTT and when you look at say for example Big Boss 13 which was a season last year it was the biggest season of Big Boss in the history of Big Boss you know and having said that it you know we actually made it a complete rating browser and revenue browser not just on colors but actually on boot as well and therefore the whole the pattern and trend will be therefore how do you create an IP and content where you can sweat the asset just not on one medium or one platform or once on one service but you sweat the asset across all the distribution pipes and that's what you know like we said you did this for Big Boss and advertisers gained as well like we were saying you know it's now it's about coexisting and therefore Big Boss was being watched and advertisers were you know coming on the colors as well as of course we had advertisers and great amount of takers on boot as well for engagement on digital similarly in the kids content for example all the local IPs that we've created over the years whether it's Motu Patlu Shiva Rudra all of that is now being housed on boot and boot kids and that is exactly the content that is trending on those on OTT as well right now so it's about creating a business model where subscription comes into lower the dependence and you create content and IPs which are which are being leveraged across distribution pipes screens and devices I think subscription is very relevant point something Navneet spoke about Navneet let me come to you I'll pick up again from where we left last about you know subscription revenues where do you think you know print has credibility we all know that these are you know brands which are more than 100 years old where do you think the print industry has kind of not managed the narrative well when it came to advertisers because I think there's a lot of value in you know as the panelists have also said a lot of value in terms of what print delivers both to the consumer as well as to the advertiser where is the lag in the narrative I wish I could answer that question but but I will I will try to I think importance of print hasn't gone down many advertisers realize the role of print to that extent I don't think the narrative has suffered the landscape has changed from a print and TV only the number of options have expanded and that is a stress one is seeing and the way to navigate that in my viewers and the same question you asked Nina about broadcasting applies to applies to publishing as well as you build revenues for the future how do you hold your current business that is a challenge and that's a two three year old journey to make I think I think my personal views the publishing business will stay healthy it is not going to it's not going to erode exponentially but it will be under challenge one needs to manage costs efficiently there use those to invest in whatever transition publishers are making towards a content mind-setting digital and and on that journey it's a good beginning for instance novel in our in our case our digital subscription revenues are 60% of our total digital revenues so there we seem to have got the begin the journey well and got the equation right on publishing also we are seeing in our case a higher percentage of revenue coming from from cover prices and a lower percentage of revenue coming from advertising not because of COVID so that's a transition that began a year ago so I think print print continues to be relevant the narrative if one way to say whereas the narrative suffered the narrative has suffered from taking an integrated multimedia solutions opposed to clients I think we could do a better job of that some of us are doing that and we are seeing the benefits of that right I think fair point where do you see this how do you see the advertising on print picking up say 12 months out it's been in a very hard I think print industry after OH has been hardest hit because of COVID and I also kind of slowly been going back but it's still far away from you know being back to the index of 100 you see you know things getting back on track by April because April this year anyway was bad right so do you see an index of 100 say 2019 April getting replicated in 2021 April yeah I think one of the things I have found easy to communicate from a leadership standpoint and I think it applies for all of us is to be vulnerable and be bold enough to say I don't know forget April none of us know what's going to happen 15 days 15 days down the line while we have plans there are no visibility what will happen most of our future plans are on hopes and optimism thinking things will turn around having said that from index point of view April all of us know was a single digit index of previous previous year April we have seen recovery month on month and August for us given the context was a good month we expect festival to be good reasonably good not better than last year the festival season we are expecting to be in the range of 85% to 90% of last year I think that's very good I mean if you my own senses decline in print for the full year and maps will have a better view of that my senses decline decline in print for the full year will be in the range of 30 to 40% language being closer to 30% in English being closer to 40% this is advertising advertising total revenues are a function of what your subscript revenues are what your digital revenues are that is in a far better place for us I wouldn't even start to venture and hazard what next year looks like simply because I don't know next month so fair enough I think very candid of you and of me thank you for that I've been up I see you smiling I do share the same view we don't know what happens next year yeah I mean yes I mean absolutely we are obviously we plan we plan for everything you know two scenarios three scenarios but at the end of the day it's with you know between God and us all we could do is just pray I mean we don't know when the economy is going to recover we're definitely expecting you know the things to improve from October onwards because that the second half is always better than the first half in traditionally in India and yeah like Nabi just said fortunately August has been a better month for us compared to you know the previous few months so September October will you know start to show the trends and but again you know we really don't know what we don't know fair enough before I take up some questions from the audience Partha last question you have a ring side you have a very good quality view of what clients are thinking you'll think ad spends are going to be back and track for growth next year this year as we all know is going to be a mixed bag for different media what's your sense next year I'm sure many clients are not yet you know planning for next year but some companies work Jan December what's your what's your take yeah I think Jan December 2021 may not reach 2019 levels you know but it'll definitely be a strong positive trend from where we are today yes for all practical purposes has been yeah so this year anyway might as well consign it to the rubbish bin and start from scratch but having said that I think I think it'll take a little longer than 2021 to get back to pre COVID levels but it'll definitely be very strongly in that because we can recall return this year as the base year you know that will ensure next five years you have fantastic growth you are starting 2020 and everything will look brilliant that's right so aren't you I have something to ask you you mentioned about Oreo spending significantly more money on digital you think as we as digital gets more traction from advertisers the questions that are being asked of the medium are going to become more pointed more accountability will be sought and as we also briefly discussed a lack of third party measurement is also kind of going to put off any advertisers who are increasingly investing more and more money but then realizing two things one it is very focused on you know performance marketing and two there is a risk of investing a lot of money in digital at the expense of not spending that money on building brand so I have a way we said now was a little different so we are not looking at digital more from performance marketing lens I think the the learning of the realization is you have the medium itself is becoming a lot more important I think there was a time when your brand used to think about brands and consumer they used to come up with some content and then your TV used to be one which you know used to carpet bomb your single message to everyone not today your medium has becoming more important I guess you know so consumer is spending more time on social media because of social media a brand is not important he's on medium because of the content he wants to engage in the way he behave on social media is very different the way he behave when he's on OTT or the way he behave when he's on you know TV or the way he behave when he's you're engaging in some apps so the touch points have expanded and the mediums have become a lot more important so I think the like the way we look at it is I mean we need to start you're thinking creative and content medium out so how is consumer behaving in medium and hence how does the content needs to be thought through based on platform or the medium so it's not as much the way we think about performance but it's about saying how do we get the right creative and the right content for the medium because you know if you put a tv ad on a facebook it's a it's the most stupid thing to do because we know it doesn't work you know beyond three five six seconds I mean audience lose interest and moves on so how do you think facebook how versus how do you you know so I think that's where the shift is happening it's a big challenge I mean our creative ecosystem is not you know developed or used to that so that's the one perspective but yeah I think it's a big piece I mean digital we know consumers are spending more time on digital various touchpoint various medians and there is big amount of money which is going in and some of those medians facebooking one google being so there is a constant endeavor to get sharper about what does that money delivering I mean let's to give you an example you know there was there was I would say was because there was a huge trend on tiktok I mean as a brand we couldn't and we didn't went to tiktok because of exactly the same reason we were not very sure whether tiktok has the means and mechanism readily available to give us conviction whether the brand safety will be taken care of whether you know ROIs can be measured and so we like to play safe when it comes to brand safety I think that's sacrosan so and the measurability is a big ask that's right I think this is a good task more over the next two years yeah before I take audience question one last round to all the panelists what do you think the government can do more to kind of revive the economy one and specifically help the media sector Nina we can start with you well I think first of all I think they should take away this uncertainty of regulations which are coming and going to begin with and I think that itself will clear a whole lot of planning for the future in terms of where the MNE should go particularly I'm talking about from a broadcast perspective and you know we're talking about NTO and then we talked about NTO 1 and then we are talking about NTO 2 and I think there's a whole lot of uncertainty on all of that so I think one of course is to get rid of all of those in terms of you know get there and tell us this is the one thing that we will do and stay with it and stay the course for the next you know two three years let it settle down let the system get you know everything needs to settle down it takes time you're a country like you said which is you know we're full of heterogeneity and we need to get things sorted on ground so let's not be in a hurry to you know get into different kinds of regulations so to me one is of course that in in terms of how do we regulate the regulations that you know are so uncertain today and we get hit by something new every two three months and there is a new regulation on distribution and there's a new regulation and legislation on all of that so I think one of course is is that part the other of course is to look at how the economy is talking about made in India and I think that's going to work a large part in in the favor of MNE as well where a lot of the anti-China stroke made in India will you know bring in a whole lot of more emphasis on India in terms of employment rates in terms of employment in terms of manufacturing and all of that so that in turn comes back to how you know our mediums are used from a brand building brand awareness perspective and brings back advertisers faster than they would have otherwise so I think these are the two things that government of course and of the other economic policies and of course all are the other parts yes Navneet what do you think yeah I think first we should fix what is in our control before before asking the government to fix what our issues are is my firm belief expectation of from government is largely in the regulatory space which is left best left to industry bodies that interact and we will save that for another day but I think what we should all work with the government is see we will see consumers coming back to streets we will see shops being open but what is missing is confidence in the future among the consuming classes so if all of us can work together with the government to get back a sense of security among people and some confidence that would serve everybody well not just media but also the not just industry but the country as well so that is one area I think all of us can do well to collaborate with the government so my overall extremely happy with the government policies but definitely would request clarity you know a long scale framework especially related to the digital FDIs currently there is it's extremely ambiguous you know is it 26% is it 49% is it gonna change in future and then you know this way especially the news media industry we'll find it hard to compete with let's say the technology companies so whatever I mean it's it's already a solved problem the telecom industry internet industry they already went through it I see no reason why digital news media should be treated any different than any technology company right Rahul actually just picking up from what Navneet and Nina just said I think from media perspective I think we've got this big challenge happening with the NTO and trying to again regulate pricing on the subscription side and you know I think that's really an area that led forbearance and market forces decide how channel should be priced up because I have a feeling if they're able to keep pushing that on the linear TV side you're going to see an impact happening on the digital side as well I think they will try if they get some success like they've had on the telecom space and trying to regulate pricing and what bundle Airtel can push and what BodaPhone can do and what Geo can do I think we are going through the same challenge on the television side that don't price your channels at 19 bucks prices at 12 this is the level of discount you can give so all of those areas and if that comes to on linear TV which what try is really trying to push and you know the case is currently being heard in the Bombay iCord and if they get success with that I can foresee problems happening on the digital regulation and pricing as well and you know if the price of petrol is dependent on market forces and the price of what apples and bananas we go and buy are determined by market forces why should you know content which takes a lot of money and produce quality content costs money why should that be regulated by the regulator in India so I think that's really my key takeaway and I think as any self-respecting economist is saying that we probably in India at an overall level just need to spend our way through this crisis I think we just need to get money out there and build confidence you know ultimately love or hate the western world but I think there's a circulation of money in the system is what keeps so many things going I think that seems to have tried up to a large extent so you are from a media perspective I'd say let the government come out and start spending more money on their campaigns advertising this that and finally whatever money is due to the advertisers they start being there fair shared fairly quickly and not delay those payments so that all media houses can function excuse me Bhanju Partha I have to ask you what's your expectation from media companies beyond lower pricing what mode would you expect from them next six eight months so then should you go first I think you know somewhere we touched upon the piece on saying and I think your Partha only mentioned to you it's a tough time you know businesses have taken ahead every spend dollar rupees getting questioned so how do we get more accountable and performance oriented and when I say performance I'm not talking about performance marketing but every dollar spend what is it getting us back I think there is a lot more rigor which we can expect and we will put in and hence the media companies also need to come to the party and bring that your conviction and value to the table I think that's that to me I think is a big one I think and the other piece you know brand safety I mean and measurability in some of those mediums is a question mark which how I don't know but eventually we'll have to get us all for I was also reading bark has also taken some steps today with regards to landing pages which I think has been a very simmering issue in the news broadcasting business you know would be seized of the matter so I think yeah I think the television industry is also moving in a direction where they are more seized of the you know the opportunities that they can give to marketers and also make sure that you know ROI is not just delivered but it is seen to be delivered and I think even on the Indian news media side I think when Saranchu and Partha both mentioned brand safety I think the same yardstick that we apply to social media companies on brand safety I think it needs to apply to 95% of the Indian news media out there I mean that's our honest opinion and you I think need to just step back and just watch some of the stuff that is out there it's just unreal why would any brand or agency want to put money about on the content that is being spewed out night after night and that's really I think a question we need to introspect that's an interesting point Rahul in fact I think nobody's going to build a cat and maybe he looks over their shoulder but I think forget blaming the rest of the world and social media, Google's and Facebook will you know they're being hauled up and they're being taken to town and task but I mean before we answer that question just like to look within the news fraternity in India I think it's just talking content that goes out there I'm going to take this up with Abhinav since you run a you know large news broadcasting company there's an audience question which says there is a remarkable dumping down of news content and format quite populist at times isn't credibility at stake while chasing viewership are media owners worried about that See in the free market finally you know the market share the ratings the revenue share they will determine whether this particular opinion of few is correct or not I mean all of us have subjective opinions but at the end of the day people who are running the businesses they know that they cannot mess around with the brand like Sudhanshu multiple times have said that he wants brand safety I'm pretty sure the news media companies are also extremely aware of you know their credibility so if you try to exploit it too much of course it could bring traffic or ratings for few weeks but it you cannot build a sustainable business you know like for example like Hindu for like asian and you know it you need to be consistent and credible for decades and decades before you could build that kind of brand so if someone believes that they are you know doing something wrong the market will correct itself yes I think that's a fair point the market is going to correct itself I have another question which says compared to the US India the mobile first country so for OTT how soon smart TV consumption will happen more on mobile Neena you you want to pick that up yeah I think in fact if you look at the OTT growth that has happened in the last five months there are a couple of things that have grown on the OTT side and I said that earlier as well one was of course online TV and the fact that you know people are watching TV on you know they're on on their geophones and on vote and wherever online TV is available and we are seeing a lot more of that happen on the mobile device that the individual owns and therefore outside of online TV like I said there was original series and then there is syndicated content that is actually showing the way up on OTT so to my mind whether you watch online TV and whether you watch it through the traditional broadcast pipe of DTH or cable or whether you watch it on you know on OTT for us it is about like I go back to keeping my point on leveraging the the content and sweating the asset across the pipe so yes of course you will see as a penetration of smartphones increase you will see a lot of viewership moving on to online TV through the through accessibility and the penetration of internet also of course right Arthur this is a question for you what is the kind of strategy being advised to advertisers to deal with the upcoming festive season spend more money I wanted to say that right up front I think it's a very interesting space right on one hand you have the biggest festival which is IPL then you have the other big festivals of you know Diwali and the Sarah and all that so I think I think it's very category-specific now to be honest I think I think it's different horses for different courses and depending it finally gets back to brand you know the job to be done for the brand you know am I am I trying to drive you know consumption or am I trying to drive awareness and therefore all we are saying like you said at the end of the day is please spend more money but having said that we definitely try and guide them on the on the right mechanism because right now there is a plethora of things which can be done in a very short time frame so I think some judicious decisions have to be made so now well I just like to add to that because I think this quarter of the festive quarter is also going to see a lot of us going beyond our usual to put up our best you know on screens to entice viewers and so you will see all these very non-fiction impact properties also driving viewership and revenue because not only are they you know revenue getters for the broadcasters and the media companies but they are also traditionally known to get non-viewers to a particular platform so I think all these whether it's IPL or whether it's Big Boss or whether it's KBC or any of these big ones that are going to come in the festive quarter will only make sure that you know your return and recovery from a viewership perspective as well as the revenue perspective will be enhanced yes and in fact we're already seeing the you know the early signs of recovery on television at least and from a via-com meeting perspective we are very happy because volumes are pretty much as much back to what they used to be pre-covid times so it's a happy sign and it's a great beginning to a festive quarter which to my mind and I was telling you the other day to me is the is the fifth quarter of the year that's right absolutely Navneet this is I think for you by Akanksha Karan Guttkar where will print fit in in the entire consumer consumption pattern now and in the future TV digital and OTT has been gaining a lot of momentum how and where does print fit in I think that the answer is very different for different countries like my upset for India print will continue to be important it will fit in with people are consuming it and we are seeing increased demand for printed products we haven't seen demand drop off but having said that the future for print is going to be a hybrid future so I think what what we and many others are doing is how do you transition from a publishing mindset to a content mindset and when you do that and our live work in broadcasting I worked in radio and I often get asked this question will be invest in those medias my answer is we need not be a broadcaster we need not be a radio station but if you have the skills to tell us to printed stories in compelling video formats and audio formats that will serve as well so print will continue to be important but how we transition and use our content and adapt to digital and tell us stories through video and audio become very important and I think one of the big big advantages legacy print companies have is for instance we are a 142 year old company and I don't say we have 142 years of history I say we are 142 years of context very few companies have that and what are we in the business of we are in the business of telling today's stories using the lens of yesterday which is context and tell our consumers what is the likely impact of the choices we make today on the world for tomorrow that is a story that can be compellingly told in digital so to summarize what I said I expect print to be violent from a consumption point of view print advertising could be challenging in terms of declining shares but what we do from a content point of view our content engineers are print business and that will that will be repurposed across various other mediums this question is for Sudhanshu it's about influencer marketing it's a very generic question the lady Zinnia Wadia asks is it always worth the investment let me add my bit to it what is the best way to utilize influencer marketing that's the question we are right now trying to answer honestly see what we are very clear sorry guys there's my kid who has just come in so she's don't mind that yeah that's the new normal yeah I think what we are very clear is that as the ecosystem is evolving as consumers are spending more time on digital I think they're relying on your input from influencers to make choices I think that's the reality and it's it's it's impacting different categories in a different manner I mean you see cosmetic it's a lot more you know in luxury it's a lot more prominent maybe in a typical our categories is not as much today but influencers are playing an important role in terms of how consumers are making choice now question is do we really know how to use them well the question is I mean who are the right influencers for the right brand depending of what the objective is similarly you know even the whole piece around your question whether the influencer and the followers is that how do you even measure it you know we don't know honestly speaking as a marketer we are also trying to dabble and understand that piece but it's a piece which we need to build muscle on I mean that's much we are on right now yeah I can just add a little bit now I think I think it's a this is one thing which has really transformed in the last four five months you know typically your big budget bollywood stars or big budget sports stars there's less talkability around them in the last four months because there are no new movie releases sports have been a little less and what has really come up is this upsurge of micro nano influencers who are actually experts in certain fields and they're getting really really you know followed so I think the way brands love to really look at their basket or their portfolio of influencers is really changing and more and more I think there are also accountable platforms which try and make it a little more meaningful and not just short in the dark are also coming in and I think that's that's the way forward it's become very big no very very very element point factor in fact my namesake so new suit probably is the biggest influencer in the last five months of the pandemic than any bollywood or cricket star in India so I think that says a lot in terms of the times we're living in and yeah I think the whole influencer market has gone through a radical shift as well you have lots of questions but you know naturally we don't have time we'll take one last question Rahul maybe you can take this up what goal do you see telcos and their own partnered platforms and apps play in the media consumption buying space for example mygeo savan myvodaphone etc okay I think the biggest animal in the room which is geo really I think they are I think the fact that they are now vertically integrating and getting all the content that they power can power I think tells you that obviously that will play a huge role as you get you know as you move forward ultimately when you do control the pipe or the spectrum you are able to then and you have the customer relationship on billing then you obviously able to bundle in a number of services with that so I think geo is a prime example of that and you know from our perspective and that's a trend worldwide I mean you've seen the big merger with the AT&T buying time model in the US you've got Comcast and the NBCUniversal Relationship in India you've seen I think geo obviously acquiring all the content assets initially TV18 then BiCom and now I think there's obviously the Sony aspect which was also being talked about so I think that's obviously going to play a huge part and ultimately being the gatekeepers of the content that is all being churned out here so I think it'll be interesting as we go forward well I think powers off at your end right on cue we're out of time so thank you Nina thank you gentlemen for joining us I still have more than 100 people there's another webinar that has started on the exchange for media platform so maybe some of them are booked out there thank you for joining us for a wide-ranging conversation we can go on for another hour but till next time please stay safe and look forward to seeing you all in person very soon hopefully the pandemic will be behind us in another two three months time and we'll get together we hope and thank you so much guys good connecting with everybody thank you thank you guys take care thank you