 Gentlemen, marching ahead we have our speaker who is the managing director and CEO of Time's Network. In fact, with nearly three decades of experience in the M&E space, he's one of the most respected CEOs in the media industry. In fact, he has had a stellar professional career with some of the successful brands to show off as the glittering jewels in his crown. So ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to invite on stage Mr. M.K. Anand, managing director of Time's Network. So, yeah, I stand here not just as a media owner who sort of helps people with branded content, but also as somebody who survives, who earns his bread, who keeps his company up only by building brands, brands that differentiate us, brands that are modes that keep us, you know, good against, I would say, the most hyper-competitive marketing environment, hyper-competitive environment, business environment that one can find in, and which is the business of media and more so news media and even more so English news media in 2017. So I think, so I'll start with what I think works for brands and what is this whole thing about how media and brands actually cannot live without each other, not just as advertising, you know, revenue coming in, but even otherwise. A small example, I was at Siamri Airport about two years back, three years back, and I was sort of, the small airport, I was walking around, there were these, you know, busts of a king and there were some 11 of them. They all looked very nice and beautiful. These were replicas, they were actually heads, actual man size, life size. Only one of them had a little plaque under it with the name of the king and when this was done. And they were actually the same coming from the same factory and I was unsure whether I want to pick up one because it was heavy, it was made of stone and that was the only reason I was wondering whether I should pick up at all. But I found myself again and again going back to the one which had that plaque written there, and plaque there, with the story of when it was done, some 11th century King Jayavarman II and he had some kind of a, you know, war and then after that he did it. Of course, I didn't end up picking it, but then I, it set me thinking as to why was I going to that one of those 11 and that's when I sort of figured out that the human brain is attracted to a story and not just the artifact. The artifacts are the same, but the story on the artifact made that particular artifact a lot more valuable to me. Then I read, also I'm sure some of you all might have read, there is this story of this New York Times journalist who went on eBay, picked up, you know, old stuff of which there was, you know, amongst others was a specks which was one of the old German brands. He picked it up for, you know, a very small amount and then he went and wrote a story about how that specks frame, he got it. I mean, he obviously, you know, it was a fiction that he created about somebody who bought it and gifted it and that person was then taken into the concentration camp in whatever Auschwitz or whatever and that person survived there and came back and then blah, blah, blah. And he put it on the same platform eBay and he was able to sell it at 4500% profit. So what sold was the story and not the artifact and that is fundamentally the importance of stories for brands. Now when, you know, and I close a home in my own case, I think if I had not worked on brand and had Prasoon not helped me with such a brilliant line called Action Begins Here, we would not have been able to survive the, you know, going out and coming in of Arnab with Times Now. The only reason we were able to survive is that we were able to three years back, my whole brief to Prasoon's team at that time was, you know, please, you know, squeeze out what is the values that make Times Now, what is it that Times Now does so that that can become a guiding principle and not just a byline for the brand. And when Action Begins Here, these three words came out. For me, it was the brief that I would give to the next editor if and when Arnab decided to go. I never thought that he would. And so when Rahul came in, he first did not get it and I was only talking about Action Begins Here because for one and a half, two months that, you know, I was practically running editorial. I was running it only by that one dictum, Action Begins Here. Action Begins Here means that every conversation that happens from water coolers to the parliament house, we want to be those, we want to be the source of those debating points. And that's what happens. And most things that happen, we are, we are very happy that most things that happen in the political scene, we are the ones who start those topics and those topics get debated. And now with the mirror now again, we have started the same thing. Civic issues we pick up and the whole formula is the same. Action Begins Here. Again, what we are talking about stories is what makes the brand. Now, if stories is what makes the brand, every brand, every product, every manufacturer, every business is actually producing artifacts. But during the production of that artifact from anywhere to anywhere. I mean, I standing here can say, you know what? I had gone in the morning, in fact, I was talking to my wife. I had gone for an interview to a pharma company in 1987 for a job. And amongst the questions that that guy asked me was, who's the editor of Times of India? And I didn't know. And he told me, you don't even know the editor of Times of India, get out of here. So it's just, you know, I'm working for the Times of India group. So everybody has stories. Now, do you tell those stories effectively enough to create the legend cloud that is around you to create the so-called brand which becomes more valuable than the artifact and the other artifact? So brands are made of stories. So that is point number one. The second thing is media exists to inspire, inform, entertain, engage. Inspire is something that we add because at Times Network, we say that we exist to inspire and not just to entertain and inform. Entertain we do with our news channels, I'm sorry, in the night. And inform we do through the day. So media exists to inspire, entertain, etc. And how does it do it? It does it only through stories. Everything that media does, media is in the business of stories. It could be factual stories, fantasy stories, fictional stories, and nowadays a sinister thing called fake stories. The media is in the business of stories. Brands depend on stories. So media, I mean, you know, therefore there is a great partnership. Now if there was a pure utopian world where there was no objectives, there were no corporates and there was no corporate objectives, then obviously it is media who would be going behind stories. But obviously desire, economics, etc. Don't work that way. Corporate interests exist. And therefore media also, brands also, our stories also have to go after media. So actually, however, one needs to understand that it is a symbiotic relationship. Media needs stories, stories need media. Now having come here, what we need to sort of, as media owners, I'll come to the media owner part of it now, is that the first and foremost, and I've worked in the media business enough now for the last, I think 27 years, 28 years to, you know, have seen content people, media ownership management from even ad sales sites, you know, the, what is that called, the walls that were there, the mental blocks that were there, that anything that is branded content, any story which is coming from a company, from another corporation is not story, is something that is almost sort of gone and that is good. But the most important requirement, again, as I'm saying, maybe sort of not new to you, but is the first thing is that as a media owner, the media owner needs to accept and understand that story from any source is as good a story as any other story. So just because it's a motivated story does not make it a less of a story and therefore, a branded content, a media company which is, you know, you know, helping with branded content needs to first and foremost own up that story and stand by that story. For me, I think the best analogy would be of a author and a story owner. Now, a story owner could be a person who has gone through a particularly, you know, challenging experience which now becomes attractive. I mean, he could be a convict, he could be a mountaineer, he could be somebody who's gone through an accident and survived, or he could be, I don't know, somebody like me who sort of had to, you know, run these media channels. So the person who owns the story is the brand owner and the author has to come to with the motive of assisting this brand story, brand owner to the story owner to together make a book which is factual or whatever and successful and meets the combined objectives of both the story writer and the story owner. Of course, it is not the story owner's prerogative alone and that is something that brands are figuring out and understanding that there is a co-creation involved in branded content writing, branded content propagation. So the whole thing that I would say as a media owner, so you need to come with an author's mindset to be understanding that you know more about how to make this story work, which are those points that you need to highlight, which are those points that you should not highlight, which are the points that you need to sort of, what are the small parts which can be used to sort of, you know, initially propagate, etc. So that is your expertise. So that is what I think from a very simple point of view. I won't get into jargon. I'm not sort of getting into technicalities of media, but from a very simple intent point of view as a media owner, one is you need to understand that every story is as good as any other story just because this is a branded story. This does not become less of a story and therefore it's not like, okay, the ad sales department or some revenue department has got it and now I need to just produce it and get out of it. So point number one is you need to come with an honest intent and that intent cannot happen until and unless you know what you are. So which means the personality or the brand of the author himself. I mean, if you are an author of a certain type and genre, you're not going to pick up every and any story that comes your way. You will have to choose those stories that you're going to write about and those stories that you're going to be propagating and that means that you need to be very, very clear as to what you are as an author. Now, for instance, again, Times Network, you know, where I come from, you know, our main branded content platform areas would be our news channels and, you know, to some extent, Zoom is also a quasi-news channel when you look at the glamour news part of it. But yeah, news channels. So we stand for, I mean, we look at ourselves as addressing the top of the Indian audience pyramid, which means the top people of this country, anybody who, and that is a fact, anybody who heads any organization in this country speaks in the language that I'm speaking to you and any organization would even mean heads of families, heads of schools, heads of colleges, the media industry, glamour industry, bureaucracy, corporates, parliament, judiciary, any of these people, if you look at it, the top 7% of the people are conversing or, you know, using English media and amongst them, 50% of those audience, I mean, about 21 crore Indians are watching English, about 10.5 crores are watching our channels, of which about 4 crores or so are watching our news channels and therefore that becomes a very important piece for us to be able to do all sorts of branded content. But we do not espouse, we do not go after all sorts. Now, yes, of course, if this is a media partnership where you just go and put a camera out there that I wouldn't call that branded content that is reporting. We're talking about branded content. We would like to sort of be in the area of any, anything that is in the area of India development is in our area because when we look at our brands, what do we stand for? With times now, we are a highly hyper nationalist I would say channel, which puts India first. I mean, you tie up a man on a jeep and you parade him, we will still cite the guy who tied him and not the guy who got tied. That's because we put India first, the idea of India first and not Indians first. Complimentary to that, we put Indians first on mirror now where we say you first, where we talk about, you know, India is all right, you know, what is in it for me? And now with ET now, we talk about rise with India, the future of India. Now, with these three platforms, we are able to make a pitch for anybody who's wanting to look at branded content activity or content activity or story activity, which puts them right in the middle of national development, future of India, growth agenda. We believe we are absolutely perfectly happy to be of, you know, be partners to them because we are already talking that language and we would be easier for us. It would be easier for us to sort of amplify such stories when we sort of pick up, you know, branded content activities to sort of propagate. The other thing that I think people need to understand is and that is something that even sellers, you know, come back with and buyers, you know, look at it or even story owners look at it. There is this feeling that branded content typically is a, you know, major activity, an event or at best an episodic activity, which is a recurring activity over, you know, once a year or once in six months or whatever. Brand building and, you know, like for instance, we are now picked up a complete non-entity called Mirror Now and a non-entity person called Fede Azusa and over the last six months now started building that up. I believe that branded content is not an episodic activity. It is a continuous activity. When we see, you know, stories about Mirror Now or about the activities that we are doing on Mirror Now, we are doing that on a practically 15-day basis. And I think as my experience has been in today's day and age in our business and our business is a good barometer or an example from the brand point of view for any business today. I would say six to eight quarters, six to eight quarters of consistent work in the same zone in terms of storytelling, story writing and propagation as big and small. And, you know, it has to be that kind of an activity. I don't think, you know, doing one major event and then bringing that event back again next year with a 13-week, 13-episode activity. I'm talking of television, but even if it's print, I don't think doing something for, you know, as an event or an episode is something that's going to help at all. Branded content, just like any other story, has to be a continuous activity. Look at the Sunanda Tharoor case, for instance. I mean, it is still alive because over the last three years, it has been picked up, it has been done and then again it is picked up and again it's done. So, we need to, I mean, every story, any brand story or any story for that matter, if it has to be relevant, it has to be continuously talked about. Otherwise, you can have it going up and then completely disappearing. So, that is the other thing that I think is something that I'm not yet seeing that being picked up as a process, at least from the buying point of view, from the selling point of view. Obviously, I'm sure, you know, sellers would from an economic incentive point of view would try to do that, but I'm purely talking from the point of view of brand development as a brand manager. I think a six to eight quarter recurring activity is something that is required to make your brand stories, cluster of stories, you know, complement with each other and go along and sort of make a success of it. I think that's about it. I don't know how much time I have. I can take a bit of questions and yeah, yeah, sure. All right, so we do have seven minutes, eight minutes left. So, let's take some questions from the audience as well. And if you do have questions, please raise your hands. We'll have the mics passed on to you. Yes, sir. M.K. Hi. I have a, you know, bit of, you know, actually it's a simple question. You know, branded content in the entertainment space is understandable, easy to do, straightforward. How do you, you know, do the nuances when it comes to news, especially, you know, political news, mainline news? How do you do branded content on a mainline news channel? You know, because the content does not itself lend to, you know, brand stories. So, how do you sort of integrate branded content into a news plan? It depends upon, see, first of all, there are topics and there are agenda points that are always chosen out of a plethora of options available, right? So, in any case, that choice itself is a filter. So, if there is a particular kind of context that needs to be built, even that can be done without losing the integrity that one has to the viewership or to your own, you know, brand activity. So, I don't think there is a, I mean, it is a, in fact, I would say that entertainment is fantasy and fictional content and it is understood and therefore placing something is more of visibility in that context. It is factual entertainment, factual, you know, information, factual media, which is news media where branded content is the best suited for because what you are talking about and again, a story should not be taken for the word being a negative word because from a news and story are not against each other because news is made of stories. So, those stories which need to be talked about in a manner of, you know, adding to your brand, I think is something that, you know, can be effectively used. I can't really discuss the way it would be done because that will not be the right thing, but it can be done and it is done. Hi. So, when we talk about branded content in the new space, how does credibility of that news is taken like, you know, how do you take it on its face? As long as the story is honest. And space value like. Yeah, as far as the story is not fake. What is the problem with the credibility? No, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about like, I mean, when we talk about a news channel, it's supposed to be an unbiased platform. Yes. So, when a branded content is placed or plugged in, so how does credibility of that channel basically works like, you know, does it get affected? No, it won't. I mean, I'll give you an example of what we are currently trying to sort of develop and how something like that could be used. It's a hypothetical case. On E.T. now, we are sort of, we're completely redoing that platform from what it is currently as a stock markets and business news channel. We are taking it, we are practically dedicating it to becoming to the development agenda of India. So, we're looking at the next 5 to 10 years. India is poised to be breaking out from a 2.5 trillion dollar economy to a 5 trillion and probably even a 10 trillion economy in the next 10, 12 years. I mean, in fact, I was having some panel discussions internally with experts and one of them actually said that we will get to 10 trillion by the time people are thinking that we are 5 trillion, etc. Now, part of that is an index that we want to propagate called, I don't know what we're going to name it, but it's a rise with India index. Let us say it's an index which is biased towards Indian stocks. Okay, so it will be only those stocks which are, you know, India focused in terms of the market in terms of its investments, etc. Now, if that stock, that index as a property, we need to sort of propagate that index and the stories around that index and we get an ex-client who is also looking at the agenda, India agenda in a manner that is, you know, good for his business as against his competition. Like my business, Visa, VC and VC, I don't see any reason that it will sort of impact my credibility in any manner whatsoever. And if that is telling his story better, it sort of, it works for him. Well, we do have room for one more question. Anybody from the audience on that side? Do we have a question coming from there? Like, I think the best example that we just now did, I don't know the numbers, Hemant can help. What is that called, SIPs? SIPs is an important behavior change that we need to bring about in our kind of people because we are people who have been putting money in savings banks and keeping it there without even realizing what we are making out of it or we buy property by taking loans from, you know, from housing finance companies and that is how we look at our wealth. There is a crying need for India at a domestic level to change this, you know, almost idiotic behavior to stop, you know, sinking money into interest and also stop keeping parking money in low-yielding savings bank accounts. SIP as a concept, as a behavior changes something, we have picked it up and that is something that is in our area. Now, we have partnered with organizations which want this and we have been able to, you know, propagate a day called, what is it called? SIP day and the last, I think last month, two weeks back, we sort of had that event and it ended up with how many new 1.2 lakh new SIPs have happened because of that activity. Now, is that biased? Is that taking away from my credibility? No, it adds to my credibility. So that's what I'm saying. As an author, I need to figure out whether I'm a criminal story writer or I'm a women's issue story writer. If I do everything, then there is an issue that I'm sort of doing it from the point of view of making money. I think that sort of spoils my brand and I'm more interested in my brand actually at any point of time and therefore one needs to be cautious about what one is picking up. That's all. The light is truly very bad. I'm so sorry. All right, so we have room for one last question, if any. All right, then, so well on that note, we'll call it a wrap to the session, but I'm going to request you to please remain on the stage, sir. And if I may, please invite Mr. K.V. Sridhar, who is the founder and CCO of Hypercollective, to please come on stage to present a memento to Mr. M. Kianan. Can we have a huge round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, to thank Mr. Anand.