MUMBAI: Continuing with our series on what leading Indian media and entertainment figures have to say about the Indian television and media scene ahead of next month‘s television trade event Mipcom in Cannes, France we present NDTV Media CEO Raj Nayak‘s views. He holds forth on addressability, ad spend, collaboration among other issues.
Relationship between Indian media and the rest of the world: "The Indian Media is far more closer to the rest of the World now in more ways than one than ever before. International alliances / International Funding. Soon this will translate to International Best Practices across all operations."
Ad Spend: "Accountability and ROI will be the next wave in Media investments and collective action as this Industry comes to the fore.
"The transition to ad spend being 1 per cent of GDP doesn‘t seem too far... with more and more fragmentation and the case for survival, the price points will get pushed up. There is no other alternative."
Collaboration and outsourcing: "Online has done it and now other media are following. It‘s all about synergies of scale. No individual company can manage 25-30 per cent growth year on year for the next 10 years. People will collaborate, efficiencies will improve, more and more processes will be outsourced. Individual processes will come out and shine. Ad sales and distribution outsourcing will take centre stage."
Talent Crunch: "People will be an issue and the talent crunch to manage this growth will be immense. Investments in people will continue. Good stock of people will enter the market getting best practices from other industries."
No more free lunches for TV viewers: "Addressability will mean no more free lunches for even audiences. Pay for what you want to see. Better investments will follow."
The regional boom: "The retail wave will ensure shopping behaviours are altered and hence local promotions will be most critical heralding the arrival of the new wave regional channels."
More niche content: "More and more niche content will come into India. There is no reason why an Aviation channel cannot come to India. After all there are more people in the Indian Air Force than all aviation enthusiasts in whole of the UK. And at Rs 5/- a month for even 10 million HH‘s (estimated DTH penetration by 2010), this by itself translates to Rs 600 million revenues in a year, thus challenging all previous business models."
