‘U’BIQUITOUSLY ‘T’ELEVISING ‘V’ICTORY

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FROM THEIR MOVIES TO THEIR NEW CHANNELS, EVERYTHING SEEMS TO HAVE FALLEN IN THE RIGHT PLACE FOR RONNIE SCREWVALA’S PRODIGY UTV

In an alternate dimension, even if Pandora’s Box would have unleashed all the good for mankind, it would still be beyond the term ‘cornucopia’. The entertainment industry’s evolution into a full fledged industry has resulted in a spurt of specialised and general entertainment channels vying for viewer attention and almost nothing seems to be enough! And Ronnie Screwvala is the latest entrant into the lucrative club of broadcasters, even as he seeks to transform UTV from being just a production company to a 360 degree entertainment conglomerate. On his radar is not just traditional broadcasting, but Bollywood masala flicks too. More on his Bollywood ambitions later, but so far as his broadcasting line-up is concerned, it was natural progression for a production house. However, unlike others, UTV did not make a bee-line to launch another Hindi entertainment channel, instead focusing on a variety of channels catering to unique sets of audiences. According to Shantonu Aditya, CEO, UTV Entertainment Television, “We did not want to enter the market with a 12th GEC or any other mass market channel and hence we have launched differentiated channels.”

UTV World Movies, for one, is an international movie channel which screens movies from across the world. Even though the nascent channel faces stiff competition from conventional Hollywood channels like Star Movies, HBO, Sony PIX, et al, it has still managed to hook its selective set of patrons. What’s more, the channel has 45 advertisers on board and over 650 titles to its credit. The plan is to double the number of advertisers in the coming year. Apart from that UTV also launched its Hindi movie channel –UTV Movies–this year, which caught the attention of audiences thanks to its collection of movies. During the year, Screwvala also launched a sub-brand bindass for the youth and launched two channels with this brand name – Bindass and Bindass movies. Though trade pundits are not much impressed with these channels, the company maintains a positive outlook. English business news channel, UTVi, introduced in association with ABC, is also catching up on the popularity charts, and much sooner than expected.

And now for Screwvala’s Bollywood quotient. His movies have certainly caught attention. Ingeniously, even though there were a lot of movies released under the UTV banner, the bouquet presented a unique genre mix. All the movies had a relatively diverse budget range (ranging from Rs.2 crore to Rs.45 crore) and transcended typecasting. There were the stereotyped masala flicks like Race, epic sagas like Jodha Akbar, unconventional movies like Aamir and Wednesday, and even low budget fares like Welcome to Sajanpur. The bigger surprise was that almost all these movies fared convincingly at the box office. Riding the present movie marketing wave, a key reason for the success of Screwvala’s productions has been the accompanying slick promotional extravaganza. Great content sells, but long live marketing!

Surbhi Chawla

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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It really pays to Think Hatke!

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With a tagline that says ‘Think Hatke,’ Virgin Mobile had to live up to that image. Hence, it decided to be hatke from the rest of the service operators. For starters, rather than being a mass brand, it decided to concentrate just on the youth segment. All its services & offerings kept in mind the needs of the young Indians. Hence the concept of get paid for incoming and all calls @ 50 paise beyond the first three minutes is a huge hit. The marketing honchos at the Richard Branson-promoted telecom company has plans to develop innovative distribution legs for their offerings, especially targeting places frequented by youngsters, which could be as accessible as their college campus and other hangout joints.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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IIPM set to beat economic slowdown
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The content blackout on GECs is over, at least for now. But the after effects will remain. 4Ps B&M's Pallavi Srivastava finds out more...

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For the past one year General Entertainment Channels (GECs) have been the talk of the television town for some reason or the other. And last week the blackout of fresh content on GECs, owing to the scuffle between the TV producers and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), has given everyone a reason to burn midnight lamps to find out the action on the teletube. Although the 10-day long standoff had been called off even as the magazine was going for print, yet after effects may remain for some time...

Sample this: GECs lost an average 35-55% GRPs during the first three days of the content blackout (aMap, for November 10-13). The advertisers, on the other hand, stood by in solidarity with broadcasters. They did not pull out their ads as per a decision taken by the Advertising Agency Association of India. “Advertisers are supportive of our stand against increasing cost of content, which in turn leads to increase in ad rates,” says Keertan Adyanthaya, EVP & GM, Star Plus. Industry insiders however feel that the strike was called off just in time or advertisers would have started pressing the panic buttons. Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, believes that had the content blackout continued, "the advertising revenues of GECs would obviously have started falling because of stagnating viewership.” Take a look: During November 10-14, Star Plus’ GRPs have fallen by 52.9% to 107.19 points as against 227.9 during November 3-7. Similarly Zee TV has seen a fall of 49.53% (see table). Nayyar adds, “The advertisers may have pulled out some ads and negotiated rates for some.” Admits Tarun Mehra, Business Head, Zee TV, “Revenues would have been affected, but I can’t say how much.”

However, for channels at this juncture, more crucial than advertisers and their potential reactions are perhaps the viewers. After all, the soaring popularity of GECs is an out-and-out eyeball game. If viewers come back, advertisers will easily follow suit. But once migrated to other channels and genres, it becomes difficult to get audiences hooked back to programmes. As Naresh Gupta, EVP, Planning, Publicis India warns, “It is a dangerous scenario for many serials. Once the viewer gets out of the habit of watching daily dose of soaps and gets used to other programmes, it can lead to a long term change in habits.” And TV viewing is all about habits! But this does not literally means that the future of GECs is in peril. As Nayyar argues, “A week or two is too short a period to break TV watching habits," but get ready to see some huge advertising – billboards, in-TV placements etc – from broadcasters to entice every last viewer back and then some more.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Government policies were not made in a day

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Clearly, it’s a catch-22 situation. Along with their titanic losses, there is the pressing need to pay up on their bills urgently. In fact, sources say that after paying these outstanding bills, these airlines may not be able to drum up adequate support to fund the travel season ahead, which is a great opportunity to make money. There is perhaps merit in the argument that the terminally ill industry needs a bailout package. Without government support, they would obviously be forced to do whatever it takes to survive – form cartels, merge, layoff people and goodness knows what else is in store...

Although both Mallya and Goyal have categorically ruled out that their ‘alliance’ is a cartel, market watchers differ. “Cartelisation like this has not only affected airlines industry, but other industries too, but that remains mostly invisible. As a result, people who lose their jobs do not have the required skill set for being employed elsewhere. So recruitment agencies also face tough times,” explains C.K. Santhakumar, Director, TRITIUM Consulting, Bangalore.

The Indian aviation industry is expected to post losses of over $2 billion in the current financial year, of which Air India alone will estimatedly post 50%, while Kingfisher’s losses are expected to cross $500 million in FY09. Industry growth has dropped from 33% in 2007 to 7.5% in the first half of this year. To reduce losses, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has even called for reduction in excise duties and other fees.

When bureaucrats in MRTPC go around sniffing for competitive malpractice around Jet and Kingfisher headquarters, they will have to take into account the overall despondency in the air. The situation really looks so black and white and bleak that despite fears of a monopoly in Indian skies, one almost begins to sympathise with Goyal and Mallya. After all, kissing thy enemy is anytime preferable to total extinction, ain’t it?

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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We cannot replace one imperialism with another

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In an exclusive interaction with Shashank Tripathi, Shipra Tripathi, Director, CII, Africa Desk speaks about growing dominance of Indian & Chinese brands in Africa...

Is Africa fast becoming the testing ground for India Inc.’s ‘brand’ war with corporate China?
Africa is a relatively known territory for India historically. In the mind of Indian industry the space provided by Africa as a market place is large enough to house partnerships with India and China. In the minds of Africans it is no longer India or China. The relative advantage provided by the two Asian giants is required for the development of Africa – the technologies from India and the inflow of funds from China. There is a need to build Brand India but not in competition with Brand China, instead in its own right as a destination for adaptable and appropriate high quality technologies.

While China has till now adopted a largely heavy industries led investment approach in Africa, India’s approach is more entrepreneur and brand led. Which one do you think is a better approach?
The question here is not what is going to help India or China but what is going to help develop Africa. While I am not in a position to speak on the strategy being used by China, India has a long term perspective of engagement with Africa. The intention is to do business and to build capacities by ways of institutional links and skills development.

Is the time really ripe to enter the African market? Moreover, can private investors and entrepreneurs alone transform the continent?
Indian industry is private sector driven and this is what drives the economy. The private sector moves where it sees opportunity. The other aspect of Indian industry is that till a few years ago we were not prepared as organisations to take risks particularly in markets with low credit rating. If you look at the statistics now six of the fastest growing economies are in Africa and that provides opportunity for Indian industry to invest and get the results that are expected. The change in the perception of the world regarding Africa is also helpful such as the decisions taken at the Gleneagles where a majority of the G8 countries decided to give debt relief to a host of African countries giving them ready capital to invest in development related activities. So it is a combination of factors of private sector investments, government policies, & political will and institution building that will help transform Africa.

What, according to you, are reasons behind this renewed focus?
A lot of it is related to resources required by the growing industries in the two countries but in India a large amount of investments are going into no resource areas like infrastructure, power and water management, et al.

No doubt, African governments are welcoming investments by India and China, but Africa’s independent voices do not share this enthusiasm? What’s your take on this?
Africa has to stand on its own feet on its own terms. We certainly cannot replace one imperialism with another. Our inputs should support this process not go against it. Moreover, the challenges are largely from the lack of knowledge of the countries and the opportunities that it has for investment and resource allocation.

How do you think the West would react (rather is reacting) on the growing dominance of Indian and Chinese brands in Africa?
The West is looking keenly at the new and emerging influence of India and China. Think tanks are assessing and studying the growing presence in the region. Asian countries do not seem to be an immediate threat to traditional partners like UK and France.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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