Week at a glance: DIGIXX winners; Women’s Day; FICCI Frames; Rathi Gangappa...

Winners of the second edition of DIGIXX Awards 2018 were revealed amid loud cheers on Friday night (March 9, 2018) at a pulsating ceremony held at the Leela Ambience, Gurugram. Winners were announced across four broad categories – Industry Sector Awards, Discipline Awards, Outstanding Awards and Special Awards. 

The world is celebrating International Women’s Day amid growing voices against the harassment women have been facing at homes, place of work and virtually everywhere. This Women’s Day, Adgully approached some remarkable women leaders in diverse fields like media, advertising, digital, marketing, women’s rights, to find out what today’s women aspire for. Though the responses are varied, the one common thread running through is that women are fighting for Equality, Respect and Recognition that is due to them – nothing less, nothing more. Read on and be inspired... 

Sexual harassment faced by women at their work place has been a serious issue. The Supreme Court had come out with the Vishaka Guidelines in the year 1997 that set the ground rules for protecting women from all kinds of harassment at the work place. It was replaced by the ‘Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act’ in the year 2013. Women leaders share with Adgully, what the Vishaka Guidelines and the Act following that means for working women as well as what measures different organisations have in place to tackle issues related to harassment of women at the work place. 

Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director, Star India, was very upbeat about India’s media and entertainment industry while delivering his industry address at the FICCI Frames 2018 on Sunday, March 4. According to him, there is no better time for this industry than now. He also highlighted the power of Digital and how it is unleashing the power of new screens. 

As per media reports, Prasar Bharti and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) have been at loggerheads over release of funds towards payment of salaries of the staff of Doordarshan and All India Radio. Now, SS Vempati, CEO, Prasar Bharti, has said that MIB had released funds amounting to Rs 208 crore towards payment of salaries. 

Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Smriti Irani, believes that the answer to the challenges faced by the India media and entertainment industry lies in digital India as well as personalisation of content for consumers. 

The Indian Media and Entertainment sector reached almost Rs 1.5 trillion (US$22.7 billion) in 2017, a growth of around 13 per cent over 2016. With its current trajectory, it is expect to cross Rs 2 trillion (US$31 billion) by 2020, at a CAGR of 11.6 per cent. Approximately 1.5 million consumers in India today are digital only and would not normally use traditional media. It is expected that this customer base will to grow to ~4 million by 2020 generating significant digital subscription revenues of approximately 20 billion. 

The primary question before content industry is whether TV is relevant to future consumers at all? Data suggests that LED screens, or their future versions, shall continue to hang in living rooms of people around the world. However, would households watch satellite TV on them or not, still remains to be answered. 

Delivering the keynote address at FICCI Frames 2018, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18, highlighted how the media & entertainment (M&E) industry in India as a force multiplier at the heart of the society. While stating that “we are in the business of story-telling”, Vats narrated a story from the Panchatantra where a colony of rats helped the mighty elephants to escape a terrible fate to stress on why the industry needs to rethink its obsession with size. 

The 21-year-old communications conglomerate Laqshya Media Group has announced the acquisition of Digitalabs, a prominent digital marketing agency, based out of Noida. This acquisition marks the acceleration of the Groups’ ambition to make its mark in the Digital marketing domain too. 

Mofam, a financial services company, is launching ‘Bfund’, a fund partner to consumer brands to convert their recurring expense for in-movie product placements into a returnable investment. To take this unique fund to the India advertising market, Bfund is collaborating with GroupM’s Mindshare. Through this alliance, Mindshare clients will get a first-mover advantage in access to product placement in theatrical releases at a lower cost. 

Consumers today see no significant divide between digital and traditional media, what they want is more flexibility, freedom and convenience in when and how they consume their preferred content. The new digital offerings have created a bigger, more diverse content universe, where digital has accelerated delivery across platforms. But are content producers and distributors equipped with the right tools to navigate these changing times? 

Discovery Communications, Inc. announced this week that the company has successfully completed its acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Moving forward, the combined company will be officially known as simply: Discovery, Inc. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to adjusted earnings per share and to free cash flow in the first year after closing, including significant cost synergies. 

BARC India has taken a big step towards using Return Path Data (RPD) for TV Viewership measurement. BARC India has tied up Airtel Digital TV, Airtel’s DTH arm, for including its subscriber homes into the BARC India RPD Panel. This partnership will provide fillip to BARC India’s plan of scaling up panel homes to multiples of the mandated 50,000. 

News Nation, the national Hindi news channel from News Nation Network, was launched in February 2013 with a basic premise of “ideal viewer connects”. In a quick chat with Adgully, Abhay K Ojha, President – Sales & Marketing, News Nation Network, traces News Nation’s five-year journey, competition in the Hindi News genre, TRPs & revenues and more. 

Whether global or local, whatever the niche or genre, OTT services have become the centre of attention in the entertainment space. However, it has to become sustainable business at some point. Further, the competition is fierce and stakeholders strive to stand out in a sector driven by so much choice. 

BARC ratings for Week 9 of 2018 (February 24-March 2) [HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 2+ Individuals] saw some upheavals in the Hindi GEC rankings. Sony Pal, backed by long-running crime fiction show ‘CID’, moved past Star Bharat and Zee Anmol to claim the No. 1 spot. Star Utsav, too, saw gains this week, climbing up to the fourth spot from the sixth spot last week. 

Coinciding with Women’s Day is the appointment of Rathi Gangappa as CEO of Starcom India. Gangappa’s last role was as COO at Mediacom, where she was in-charge of day to day operations and managing key client relationships across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Her earlier stints include Vodafone, Onmobile Global Ltd, Maxus and Lowe Lintas. 

Good stories require art & science, creativity & data, and a good sprinkle of magic, according to Atin Kulkarni, Global Head, Media & Content Innovation CoE, PepsiCo. In his keynote address – titled ‘The Science and Magic of Storytelling’ – on the opening day of ad:tech Delhi 2018, Kulkarni said that marketing is all about storytelling. “Good stories are always remembered and that requires art and science, creativity and data. Today, we have an enhanced power with so many emerging technologies which can definitely help us to combine data,” he added.

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Media