Heading the Viacom18 group, Sudhanshu Vats is a renowned thought leader in the media and entertainment industry. Here, on the sidelines of the 4th CII Big Picture Summit he talks to Subhayan Chakraborty about how the industry needs to be united in raising issues related to media policy and why changing tastes in television viewing are good. Excerpts:
The third phase of the digitisation program for television broadcasting is scheduled to be rolled out nationwide by December 31, 2015. Is the media and entertainment industry on track to meet that deadline?Yes, the industry is gearing up to reach the deadline. Such a massive project needs a lot of collaboration between a lot of stakeholders, but it is rolling out. This, as well as the December 31, 2016 deadline for Phase four, will both be reached.
Is the government helping the industry in this regard?
Government assistance becomes important in key areas. The hardest leg of the process is connecting rural areas. Infrastructure and other issues become important. Building transmission capabilities require most help, and I'm told the government has assisted quite a bit there.
Rural territories will be included in the BARC ratings data from next week. Will this change the pecking order of channels in terms of ratings? And is the industry looking at tailor-made content for the rural populace?
In television, the most popular shows enjoy acceptability across geographical areas. The intrinsic nature of good content is that it should be aspirational. Such content is liked in all areas.
On the basis of that, we can say existing channels are already popular across the country.
That apart, our programs are conceived keeping in mind a large cross section. Although in coming days, content will have to be reinvented keeping in mind newer segments of audience interest, as of now we feel there is no immediate need for solely the rural audience.
When can we expect mainstream entertainment media to seriously push quality, intelligent programming for young, urban male audiences?
This is a very old request. We are slowly getting there. A large part of our audiences are in that category and they are definitely on our agenda. Programs are slowly evolving and incorporating elements that such an audience appreciates. However, we will need to find monitization for this as well.
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The media and entertainment industry has been growing more than 10 per cent annually, but industry leaders have raised concerns that revenue generated from this is essentially operational in nature and not sufficient for further investment. Has investment stagnated both from inside as well as outside?
The point to be understood is that the industry needs a significant amount of investment. And that is not only for content; but more importantly for technology and infrastructure. It is true that we have been lacking in these areas, which has in turn hampered overall growth.
A number of major players have complained of the existing government policy framework on media, which they say need to be addressed immediately. Do you feel the industry has been a bit muted in raising such issues?
You have hit the nail on its head. I feel as an industry we need to learn to collaborate a bit more.
Media and entertainment is a very small industry relatively speaking and in that also there are different sub constituents which are very different in nature. Within the television business only, there are content producers, distributors and various others. We need to be able to speak in one voice, putting together a more concerted point of view.
What would be your views on over the top services, especially with Hotstar and others gaining ground fast?
Viacom is also engaged in over the top services. You will see an offering from us next year. We are fully committed to playing a digital role.
Which television segments would you say are performing best under Viacom?
Among sub genres, comedy is doing extremely well. Popularity for shows like Comedy nights with Kapil cut across demographic groups.
How are the different television channels in your group performing?
Channels under the Colours brand are performing very well. Colours Kannada is number one in its market. The Gujarati, Marathi properties are also doing very well. We need to focus more on the eastern region, though.
Is the nature of programming in Hindi converging slowly with those in other regional languages and is that a good thing?
My sense is regional should and will do justice to itself. While dubbing hindi programs does not work at all, regional audiences should be treated to programming which has its own unique format and appeal. This trend will continue.
The Boston Consulting Group-Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) report on the future growth of the media industry suggests India has been a bit late in jumping on to the digital bandwagon. Do you feel international entertainment and news outlets will prove a challenge to Indian ones?
The digital story for India will be unique and not follow any international model. Currently, digital segment performs as add-on for media establishments and they are growing swiftly.
Do you feel the industry is overly dependant on advertising revenue and not nearly enough on subscription?
As the industry develops, both the revenue streams of advertising and subscription will need to get much more balanced. Dependance on advertising will come down only when subscriptions become institutionalized and go up significantly across the board.