A few days ago, Star News completed three years of operation under a new regime after the divorce from its long-standing content partner, NDTV, which has gone ahead since then to launch its own news channels.
The man at the helm for two of those three years is Media Content & Communications Services India Pvt. LTD (manages the Hindi news channel Star News and the Bengali news channel --Star Ananda) CEO Uday Shankar, who is also credited with taking Star News to the position of strength it enjoys today from a rather weak number four that it was two years ago
Shankar, who was earlier news director of Aaj Tak, the country's most successful Hindi news channel in terms of market share, spoke to Indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra about the journey thus far and the challenges that lie ahead.
How do you view these years of Star News? At MCCS we also believe that the potential of non-Hindi --- and also in some niche segments of the Hindi market --- is enormous. Companies who ignore the regional market do it at their own peril. For example, the Bengali news segment was considered extremely sluggish, but in Star Ananda's short existence of eight months till now, we are seeing two new news channels already in this particular segment. In the Hindi news market, we have done pretty well with Star News as the first year was marked by regulatory uncertainties and fighting for a suitable place on cable networks that are choking with increasing number of channels on offer, squeezing the limited bandwidth available with cable operators. We have put all these behind us now and consider ourselves the strongest contender for the No. 1 slot in the Hindi news space. If the market leader Aaj Tak has been bested at all on occasions, it was done by Star News. This is certainly a reason for satisfaction. These three years have been eventful at MCCS, but we still have a long way to go before we can truly claim to have lived up to the impressive goals set by the two parents, ABP group and Star. |
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Is MCCS with its two channels, Star News and Star Ananda, making business sense to its two shareholders ? Today the unit value of (air time) on Star News is as lucrative for the company as it is competitive vis-a-vis other news channels. (Though Shankar was mum on vital statistics, information collated from industry sources indicate that Star News, for one, has shown 70-75 per cent growth in revenues, primarily coming from advertising, in FY 2006 as compared to the previous year. It is also being said that MCCS might clock a small operating profit when the financial books are formally closed for the fiscal ended 31 March 2006.) |
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When one watches Star News now, there seems to be a sea shift in content focus. Was this change necessitated out of business reasons? What is really satisfying as the editor of Star News is also that we have started setting the news agenda both in terms of nature of programming and selection of news and its presentation on a daily basis. |
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When did this realization dawn on MCCS that an earlier envisaged profile of Star News of catering to the non-political viewers was not doing the trick? I think with Star News also went through that evolutionary phase. At a time when many products were mushrooming all over, a certain niche profile was sought to be given to Star News. It was done to have a better differentiation. Star News started off (in its new avatar three years back) by positioning itself as a big city news channel catering primarily to viewers in the upper income bracket. That made sense also at that point of time in the Hindi news segment as the company was trying to leverage an earlier image of Star News, which was an English dominant news channel meant for the city slickers. After having said that, I must add every channel --- news or otherwise --- does content corrections mid-way on a dynamic basis. Star News is no exception to this general rule of broadcasting. Rather than dubbing the changes as 'realisation', I would term them as an evolutionary phase. When I came on board MCCS and Star News two years back (February 2004), I came with my own set of ideas as to what the Hindi news market is and what sort of viewers should be tapped through which type of programming. We tried out some of those theories and I must say quite a few have proved to be successful too. So, we are still trying out things. More so because the need of the viewer is also changing constantly and we have to keep pace with that. |
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Do you mean to say that to be successful with a Hindi news channel, you have to aggressively target the viewers in the smaller cities and towns, giving them their daily feed of local news? Today I can say that we have managed to connect with the people irrespective of the part of the country they lived in and as long as they understood Hindi. |
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Has this connection with the people resulted in good revenue growth or it's languishing in the low-end double digits? |
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Taking you on your face value that Star News has settled down now, what's the strategy to take it forward and drive up ad sales? The ad sales strategy of Star News cannot be divorced from the game plan of other news channels as we all operate in the same arena. Now that's a disappointing area because the ad sales strategy of news as a whole is disappointing, to say the least. |
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What makes you say so and cast a doubt on competition's strategy? With so many news products being launched, everybody seems to be in a hurry sans any content focus or an eye for other details. Most people do exactly the same kind of programming that others are doing and would do in future. I see a huge problem there because advertisers are able to play this factor against one another. More the number of news channel, sharper and deeper would be the fragmentation of the news market. As a result of that, I see many news companies responding desperately with less logic and strategy for the long term. This living-for-today approach of the news players is not doing the industry any good. Nobody is giving an iota of thought on other important issues like increasing the market share of news, which is still a minuscule five to six per cent of the total TV universe. |
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Since it's easier to preach, has MCCS done anything to address some of the broader concerns being raised by you? There has been no attempt by the news broadcasters in trying to alleviate content and other aspects of the business in the last few years. There has been no attempt to draw the best talent available to the editorial or business segments. I see some of these as matters of concern. However, Star News' strategy cannot be totally independent of the general industry norms. We are as much a culprit as a victim of the news market environment. The kind of scenario that prevails in the news business is not akin to that of the entertainment segment where Star Plus is the dominant player and can dictate terms up to an extent. Nor is the situation like in the print business where Times of India and some of the regional players are dominant. The television news business is in a peculiar situation where a collection of news channels are dominant instead of a clear numero uno that is miles ahead of its rivals. Star News, Aaj Tak and the TV18 and NDTV groups together form a formidable bunch. But it is also important for these players to get together in the Hindi and English news segments to formulate certain benchmarks in terms of editorial coverage and revenue generation, which should be followed by all of us. Irrespective of the fact whether such a collective move hurts some of us in the short term or not. However, that's not happening. In order to take television news to level two, a certain set of norms relating to manpower, for example, is needed. Because in the earlier phase the likes of Prannoy Roy, Raghav Behl and Aroon Purie were able to attract good talented people, their businesses have turned out to be successful. But now the same set of people is seen on a cyclical basis on various news channels. Where's the new talent? And, naturally, fresh ideas will also not come. I think, news broadcasters need to do sustained investment in training, apart from programming. The elder statesmen of the of the news business like Prannoy Roy, Aroon Purie and even Aveek Sarkar (of the ABP group) are seized of such issues. They too are worried, but what's worrying for me is that these concerns don't seem to get reflected at the operational levels. May be I am sounding impatient at this point of time, but as a part of the TV news business, which has the potential of growing, I am also worried that no concrete steps are being taken to address the concerns of the industry. |
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What innovative steps has MCCS taken towards doing business in the news space, since you are so critical of others? |
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How do you plan to take Star News, if not the whole industry, to the next level where the aim would be to expand the news universe? We'd also explore the unconventional genres of programming to attract those segments of viewers who are still not properly hooked to news viewing --- the youth, women, professionals. Star News was the first general news channel to put up a programming on personal finance, considered the prerogative of business news channels. But it has done well on Star News. As content providers and generators we'd also look at various forms of delivery. DTH is one such area that will help in expanding television viewership in this country. Poised to take off in India, DTH will also help MCCS formulate niche programming for niche audiences. |
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Why do you say DTH is poised to take off? Subhash Chandra's Dish TV is already here and expanding and why couldn't Star News take advantage of the medium so far? |
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Or, is it that Star News was waiting for the Tata Sky to start its DTH service and not give an advantage to a competing DTH platform? |
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Are you saying that Dish TV has not performed well? |
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What are MCCS' plans to make more regional forays? |
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You still haven't answered my question. What are your company's plans for regional forays? |
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So, would we see some new products from the Star News stable over the next one year? |
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Would MCCS make a South Indian foray or does it think existing players there are too strong to be taken on? |
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Though there are rumours of friction between the two shareholders, how confident are you of funding for growth? |