Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s maiden Union Budget has brought some cheer with the announcements about relaxing FDI norms for the media industry. 

The Budget focused on the vision of making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025, tax simplification and start-ups. It has set the ball rolling for launching a TV channel exclusively for the start-ups under the Doordarshan umbrella. 

However, in some cause for concern, the Finance Minister also announced a 10 per cent customs duty on newsprint. 
We spoke to media heads about what they thought about the Union Budget announcements. Read on to find out what they had to say:

Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP News Network

The proposal to ease FDI norms for the media industry has come at an opportune time. It will allow us to invest in digital assets, upgrade technology and human skill enhancement. The transponder based model of all media and definitely for news media is changing. We will no longer need to uplink our signals to satellites and then down link on the basis of a transponder, so the leasing of transponders and satellites will become history. Instead, we will have internet-based TV which means app-based TV. This has already started. It will enable TV channels to become global very quickly, by eliminating the cost of transponders. Satellite TV stations can become global by investing in hiring more people, having international bureaus and becoming international stations. All this needs vision and investors. 

This will help the Indian media and entertainment industry to move to the next level and even aspire to become a global content hub. From a news broadcaster's perspective, it is now possible to envision a scenario when an Indian player can go international like the CNN, the BBC and the CGTN.

Despite the controversy, investing in landing page is still a bona fide marketing activity for broadcasters and it is business as usual for them, say industry insiders.

While controversies around landing page are far from coming to a close, it is said broadcasters haven’t changed much of their business strategies around it. For many a broadcaster, investing in landing page is still a bona fide marketing activity and it is business as usual for them.

The unending debate around whether BARC decides to count landing page numbers or rationalise outliers in counting ratings haven’t changed industry trends a lot.

So, is it true that broadcasters are still investing in landing pages?

After a landslide victory in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, several newly elected MPs attended News Nation's prestigious Hamari Sansad Sammelan on June 21. From seasoned ministers such as Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Narendra Singh Tomar to first-time MPs Tejaswi Surya, Shankar Lalwani and Rajkumar Chahar, all the leaders stressed on the fact that the people's mandate is most important for them and they understand their sentiments and would work accordingly. The highlight of the event was giant-killer Union Minister Smriti Irani's grand finale session.

The Hamari Sansad Sammelan witnessed a fiery start with a debate between BJP's Shahnawaz Hussain and RJD's Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. From Bihar's Encephalitis deaths, the issue of black money to national security, the two engaged in a powerful discussion.

Another interesting session was that of the first-time MPs, where the BJP leaders revealed the roadmap for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya after the Supreme Court verdict. They reiterated the fact that they are committed to building the Ram Temple and stressed that there was no question of diluting or changing the party's stand.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, one of the key speakers at the Hamari Sansad Sammelan, said that no one can stop the construction of Ram Temple. Similarly, Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Ram is part of Indian culture and saying 'Jai Shri Ram' not communal.

MUMBAI: If reinvention is the key skill for surviving any business, 56-year-old company Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd (Shemaroo) has exemplified this art. The company, which embarked on a five-year transformation journey with an aim of 5x growth, reoriented existing talent and brought in people from diverse sectors to scale up the functioning.

At the recently concluded Indiantelevision.com’s first edition of Media HR Summit, Shemaroo  Entertainment Ltd.
 

One of the biggest challenges the industry is facing today is accommodating five different generations in the same company but Maroo seems confident. While building the first transformation more than a decade ago, the company has bridged the gap of bringing in the talent that is needed without disrespecting the talent that is there. He also added that leadership and HR have to play a key role in bringing that balance.

Maroo mentioned that the company has been reinventing itself to stay relevant in the changing times. That has been the biggest transformation. He pointed out that Shemaroo is media-agnostic serving just about every screen of consumption that exists.

The company founders made transformation a priority in the early decades of the company. “The ability to not look at where you have been but where your consumption is going and follow that, that ability and humility is something our founders practised for the last three decades but for the last two decades the founders have given a lot of leeways to the team and make the entire organisation do it,” he commented.

MUMBAI:  Services and personal healthcare saw a dip in TV ad volumes in the first quarter of 2019 as compared to Q1 2018. While they maintained their positions in the top five super categories, their ad volumes decreased with an indexed figure of 12 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

The topmost super category was food & beverages, with 19 per cent share in ad volumes. It climbed up a spot from the previous consecutive quarter with a 7 per cent indexed growth. It was followed by personal care & hygiene (19 per cent), services (11 per cent), household products (7 per cent), and personal healthcare (6 per cent).

The report also highlighted the top categories under these super categories based on their ad volumes on TV.

MUMBAI: The media and entertainment industry had high expectations from the first budget of Modi 2.0 government, announced by new finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 5 July. From reduced GST on smartphones and advertising to increased focus on the development of digital India, they had varied expectations from the budget.

While not all their wishes have come true, the industry is quite pleased with the budget and has been lauding initiatives like allowing FDI in the media sector, launching a channel for startups under the DD umbrella, and easing the environment for SMEs and startups.
ARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta says, “The budget directionally augurs well for boosting long-term economic growth by focus shown on infrastructure improvements, strengthening benefits to MSME sector and investments on improved skill sets of human recourses. Steps taken to attract investments by relaxing FDI, FPI and NRI norms, coupled with boosting public sector banks and NBFC, will trigger the much-desired credit boost.”

One of the key takeaways from Modi government’s budget was the opening up of FDI in various sectors including Media and Animation, Visual effects, Gaming and Comics.

Here are some of the reactions to the union budget from the Indian Media industry, whose opinions really matter.
Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India, said “This budget directionally augurs well for boosting long-term economic growth by focus shown on infrastructure improvements, strengthening benefits to MSME sector and investments on improved skill sets of human recourses. Steps taken to attract investments by relaxing FDI, FPI and NRI norms, coupled with boosting public sector banks and NBFC, will trigger the much-desired credit boost.
Ashish Bhasin, CEO Greater South, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman & CEO India, said,“The Budget is certainly more inclusive and is focused towards providing a better lifestyle to the common man. From providing better access to toilets, better connectivity by roads and digitally, to promoting the ease of living, this year the budget actually showcases a lot of good stuff. The government’s decision to examine the opening up of foreign direct investment (FDI) in media is beneficial for the sector. However, some of the actions of the government do seem contradictory and a let-down. The expectations from a government coming with such a majority was that they would undertake substantial reforms, stimulate growth and cut tax rates. However, they have missed the opportunity to do so and have acted contradictorily by implementing surcharge on HNI individuals. Despite everything I expect the next 10 years to be very bright for India.”

MUMBAI: Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) and ABP News Network have got the ministry of information and broadcasting’s (MIB) approval to launch Sony Marathi HD and ABP News HD.

The ministry has approved SPNI’s name change application to rename Ten Golf HD as Sony Marathi HD. Ten Golf HD is being shut down to make way for Sony Marathi HD.

Similarly, ABP News Network has got the approval to rename its licence under the name ABP Kannada to ABP News HD. This will be the first HD news channel from the news network. The first Hindi HD news channel Aaj Tak HD was launched by TV Today Network.

Altogether, the ministry has approved 21 name change applications. Many of the licences have been operationalised post the ministry approval.

Digital media has provided unmatched flexibility to the consumer to watch content, from movies to sports, on the go. According to reports, almost 36% of the 12+ populace actively uses the internet, and even rural India is seeing a great uptick of new users coming online.

With this increasing popularity of live streams and on-the-go content, the digital platforms are witnessing demand not only from consumers but also from the advertisers. This year, the digital platforms witnessed record-breaking viewership on the back of three marquee events—IPL 2019, World Cup 2019 and General Election 2019.

While it seemed like digital might have cannibalised into TV viewership but the viewership data indicated that instead of cannibalising, digital is offering an incremental viewership, especially to the news channels.

BestMediainfo.com spoke to marketers and industry experts on whether they think digital is giving incremental viewership to brands and if brands should cash in on these digital and live streaming apps. Majority of the marketers were of the opinion that digital is currently giving incremental viewership to TV and most of the growth is being derived not only from urban but also from non-metros cities.