Friday, January 26, 2007
Dasari bogey
AP has become lab of media experimentation nowadays. Start a channel or a newspaper become a star. The people, who have got black money out of real estate boom or from a ministerial deal, are developed itching towards media clout. NTV choudary, Tanla Udaykumar and so on. Here is a old man with new game of things-Dasari Narayana Rao is planning a channel. He has already opened his newspaper shop with pitiable Patanjali garu. Nothing was done to advance the newspaper business. But he is talking more about channel. The pity is that, no body is believing him, except Patanjaligaru. Somebody is saying that he is only opened this bogey to safeguard the land, which was alloted by the Govt. So he wants to make journalists once again bakhras. Can there be bakhras again?
Friday, January 19, 2007
Demand is there, but journalists are choosy
People in the media are facing a peculiar situation. There are plenty of opportunities. NTV is shortly going to break the ground. Same is with SURYA daily. By next October, launching of another big daily is on the cards. There is a murmur in the industry that Andhra Jyothi is also planning to launch It is estimated that, in the coming months media industry needs nearly 650 journalists. Of them, more than fifty percent only experienced people needed. Today there is a big gap between demand and supply. Eventhough industry offering a good salary,
They are very cautious about the people who lead the teams. NTV is offering big cakes. But the problem is its survival and success. The people who are at the helm in the channel are not have history of success. Ramanujam may be a old war horse, but he was defeated at newsstalls and at drawing room dolls. In his penwardship Newstime suffered and failed miserably. None of the TV channels, he launched are successful. Kommineni Srinivas Rao cannot be a Raviprakash of NTV. Satyanarayana has mixed history of hits an failures. After three years of its launching TV9 is still struggling for profits, though it has showed its brilliance. 'How can we believe the people with this history and sacrifice the carrier. OK. KSR has three year guarantee what about me. Can he?'-that is the echo people raising nowadays.
Surya's agony is much more. The people, who are looking after the recruitment, calling the people and offering big salary packs. The question is bounced back-'How many months you pay?'. Shall we depend upon the people, who have no good track record at all? That is the dilemma, people have. Offers are plenty, takers are few.
Nowadays, journalists are choosy. They are not in hurry. They are bargaining. They are looking for a good pack and also secured one. Good days are yet to come.
They are very cautious about the people who lead the teams. NTV is offering big cakes. But the problem is its survival and success. The people who are at the helm in the channel are not have history of success. Ramanujam may be a old war horse, but he was defeated at newsstalls and at drawing room dolls. In his penwardship Newstime suffered and failed miserably. None of the TV channels, he launched are successful. Kommineni Srinivas Rao cannot be a Raviprakash of NTV. Satyanarayana has mixed history of hits an failures. After three years of its launching TV9 is still struggling for profits, though it has showed its brilliance. 'How can we believe the people with this history and sacrifice the carrier. OK. KSR has three year guarantee what about me. Can he?'-that is the echo people raising nowadays.
Surya's agony is much more. The people, who are looking after the recruitment, calling the people and offering big salary packs. The question is bounced back-'How many months you pay?'. Shall we depend upon the people, who have no good track record at all? That is the dilemma, people have. Offers are plenty, takers are few.
Nowadays, journalists are choosy. They are not in hurry. They are bargaining. They are looking for a good pack and also secured one. Good days are yet to come.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Go getter
When you want to get away, find a hole to show. When you are at weak wicket, be offensive and begin a ruthless campaign. This the way some people behave like. Kommineni Srinivas Rao's exit from Andhra Jyothi created some flutter in the media. Why this was happened? What drove Kommineni out? Many says it is that big salary he was offered was main reason. It is only visible reason There are many questions unanswered? KSR has to say about why he met YSR on the next day of his resignation? He is not a reporter for that day. His channel is yet to see the light. Even it has no licence. Once bitter critic of YSR, KSR has become the darling of the same. Earlier he said he has no complaints to quit, but for better salary. Now that he began to say that he was not given 'that', he was not paid 'this' and he was ignored. Few weeks before his quittal, he has visited china. It is learnt that unmindful of contractors package support, AJ paid one lakh rupees for his shopping and entertainment. If it is true, what will KSR say?
Battles ahead
As market leaders consolidate and expand into new territories, we are likely to see escalating price wars this year.
THE issue of the Times of India on the first day of the new year displayed this group's usual flamboyance: the full page advertisement in which the paper was wrapped, and its lead story and other stories scattered across the paper, were all about itself. Specifically, about its new campaign called India Poised, which Amitabh Bachchan was helping to kick off. But for the trade, the real point of interest was the very small print on the masthead, the paper's price, which it put like this: "Rs. 3.75 along with the Economic Times or Rs. 4.50 along with Navbharat Times."
2007 heralds an era of even bigger price wars than have been seen so far in India's metro cities. Two newspapers for the price of one, made possible by the fact that they are all flooded with advertising. The Hindustan Times is about to launch a business daily in Delhi and Mumbai this month. Both market leaders, HT and TOI are offering one newspaper virtually free along with their flagship edition, in the case of the former, its new business paper. In doing so they are also taking pre-emptive action against another new entrant into this market. India Today, the country's leading magazine publisher, is also poised to launch a morning daily in Delhi this month. Last year, TOI and HT jointly announced a collaborative new daily for Delhi to send a signal to likely contenders. And in Mumbai, Bennet Coleman and Co. launched an afternoon edition of Mumbai Mirror to extend the group's dominance to the afternoon paper market.
New markets
In December 2006, the country's market leader, Dainik Jagran, launched a new paper in Lucknow and Kanpur, a bilingual daily called Inext. The Rajasthan Patrika meanwhile launched a Hindi daily called Daily News, aimed at a similar market. Earlier in the year it had launched an evening daily called News Today in Rajasthan, and later in the year in Indore. The Bhaskar group added a financial newspaper to its stable, DNA Money. The year 2007 will further what is as yet an incipient trend: of media consolidation through expansion.
The Times of India had decided when it closed Hindi belt editions of Navbharat Times in the 1990s that it would focus on the English market. But its acquisition of Vijay Karnataka in 2006 demonstrated a change of mind, and signalled that it was now eyeing opportunities in the regional language press.
Last year also saw Prabhat Khabar, the Ranchi newspaper that has been winning attention in the last few years for standing up to competition through the quality of its journalism, become a possible target for acquisition. Its owners set out to seek a private equity placement to raise finance for sustained expansion and ended up discovering that the paper had a market valuation that they had not dreamt of. So then they began to look at selling the paper and those who came forward were the Hindi market leaders — Dainik Jagran, Hindustan and Amar Ujala. As the new year dawns this paper's fate remains undecided and its journalists are restive. If Jagran or Hindustan buy it, it will represent consolidation of the Jharkhand newspaper market.
Another feature of the media consolidation witnessed in 2006 was the way the bidding for FM licenses went. Leading TV and newspaper groups bid for them, acquiring licenses in places across the country, away from their traditional territories. The Times of India, Dainik Jagran, Rajasthan Patrika and Sun TV have all acquired a handful or more of radio licenses each. Cross media empires are growing. Big business is entering the media in DTH, the Tatas are already there, R-ADAG and Sunil Mittal of Bharti have announced their DTH ventures. And when a very big player comes in, the scale of his entry itself represents consolidation. Though its radio venture did not exist in July last year, Adlabs, whose majority owner is Anil Ambani, now has radio stations in nine cities. The draft Broadcasting Bill was partly aimed at containing cross media expansion, but it hasn't been heard of in a while.
Similar trends
The magazine market is seeing expansion by existing leaders such Outlook and India Today because advertising is booming. The Outlook group launched Outlook Business and Marie Claire, and both market leaders spawned new lifestyle adjuncts to the main magazine, bursting with advertising, plastic-encased freebies which are a pain to extricate, but which make money for their owners. Business Today added a new monthly magazine. Meanwhile, for a few years now, glossy supplements in Hindi newspapers have already dampened the magazine market in that language.
Consolidation is increased by the multi-edition spread of existing leaders, and not surprisingly, many added editions in the course of 2006, notably Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala and Hindustan among Hindi newspapers. India Today launched a Bengali edition. When market leaders expand, the competition spends more to stay where it is. And those on the margin, particularly small regional papers with local markets, fight for survival.
SEVANTI NINAN
THE issue of the Times of India on the first day of the new year displayed this group's usual flamboyance: the full page advertisement in which the paper was wrapped, and its lead story and other stories scattered across the paper, were all about itself. Specifically, about its new campaign called India Poised, which Amitabh Bachchan was helping to kick off. But for the trade, the real point of interest was the very small print on the masthead, the paper's price, which it put like this: "Rs. 3.75 along with the Economic Times or Rs. 4.50 along with Navbharat Times."
2007 heralds an era of even bigger price wars than have been seen so far in India's metro cities. Two newspapers for the price of one, made possible by the fact that they are all flooded with advertising. The Hindustan Times is about to launch a business daily in Delhi and Mumbai this month. Both market leaders, HT and TOI are offering one newspaper virtually free along with their flagship edition, in the case of the former, its new business paper. In doing so they are also taking pre-emptive action against another new entrant into this market. India Today, the country's leading magazine publisher, is also poised to launch a morning daily in Delhi this month. Last year, TOI and HT jointly announced a collaborative new daily for Delhi to send a signal to likely contenders. And in Mumbai, Bennet Coleman and Co. launched an afternoon edition of Mumbai Mirror to extend the group's dominance to the afternoon paper market.
New markets
In December 2006, the country's market leader, Dainik Jagran, launched a new paper in Lucknow and Kanpur, a bilingual daily called Inext. The Rajasthan Patrika meanwhile launched a Hindi daily called Daily News, aimed at a similar market. Earlier in the year it had launched an evening daily called News Today in Rajasthan, and later in the year in Indore. The Bhaskar group added a financial newspaper to its stable, DNA Money. The year 2007 will further what is as yet an incipient trend: of media consolidation through expansion.
The Times of India had decided when it closed Hindi belt editions of Navbharat Times in the 1990s that it would focus on the English market. But its acquisition of Vijay Karnataka in 2006 demonstrated a change of mind, and signalled that it was now eyeing opportunities in the regional language press.
Last year also saw Prabhat Khabar, the Ranchi newspaper that has been winning attention in the last few years for standing up to competition through the quality of its journalism, become a possible target for acquisition. Its owners set out to seek a private equity placement to raise finance for sustained expansion and ended up discovering that the paper had a market valuation that they had not dreamt of. So then they began to look at selling the paper and those who came forward were the Hindi market leaders — Dainik Jagran, Hindustan and Amar Ujala. As the new year dawns this paper's fate remains undecided and its journalists are restive. If Jagran or Hindustan buy it, it will represent consolidation of the Jharkhand newspaper market.
Another feature of the media consolidation witnessed in 2006 was the way the bidding for FM licenses went. Leading TV and newspaper groups bid for them, acquiring licenses in places across the country, away from their traditional territories. The Times of India, Dainik Jagran, Rajasthan Patrika and Sun TV have all acquired a handful or more of radio licenses each. Cross media empires are growing. Big business is entering the media in DTH, the Tatas are already there, R-ADAG and Sunil Mittal of Bharti have announced their DTH ventures. And when a very big player comes in, the scale of his entry itself represents consolidation. Though its radio venture did not exist in July last year, Adlabs, whose majority owner is Anil Ambani, now has radio stations in nine cities. The draft Broadcasting Bill was partly aimed at containing cross media expansion, but it hasn't been heard of in a while.
Similar trends
The magazine market is seeing expansion by existing leaders such Outlook and India Today because advertising is booming. The Outlook group launched Outlook Business and Marie Claire, and both market leaders spawned new lifestyle adjuncts to the main magazine, bursting with advertising, plastic-encased freebies which are a pain to extricate, but which make money for their owners. Business Today added a new monthly magazine. Meanwhile, for a few years now, glossy supplements in Hindi newspapers have already dampened the magazine market in that language.
Consolidation is increased by the multi-edition spread of existing leaders, and not surprisingly, many added editions in the course of 2006, notably Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar, Amar Ujala and Hindustan among Hindi newspapers. India Today launched a Bengali edition. When market leaders expand, the competition spends more to stay where it is. And those on the margin, particularly small regional papers with local markets, fight for survival.
SEVANTI NINAN
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