'We may have a mobile TV set-up'

Q&A: Sanjay Trehan

Sanjay Trehan is keen to add spice to the screens of six million mobile Internet users in India. The CEO of NDTV Convergence is not only in a hurry to load the mobile screens with news, music, astrology, sports but also exclusive video content and mobile TV. He tells Priyanka Joshi how NDTV intends to warm up to the audiences in 2008 and make profits too.

How is NDTV Active different from the rest of the news aggregators on mobile web?

We have great television content from NDTV channels, but to harness the same on to the mobile screens we needed a platform that would do justice and yet be a personal gateway for the user. Active is just that.

We deliver all the news that is shown on NDTV channels to our mobile platform in a video format, at almost the same time it is broadcast on TV. So, we have taken care of file sizes and weight of content for quick consumption on the mobile.

We are also close to finalising partnerships with GSM telecom operators and third party content providers who can add to the portal. We have got licensing deals that will allow us to use content across mobile, PC and television platforms. Such cross-platform content deals will ensure that mobile web viewers do not miss out on any timely news stories.

Going forward, we are not ruling out the possibility of including content from other news and entertainment channels to enrich the mobile platform.

So, we would have content from other TV channels too, besides NDTV's, on Active?

Yes, but in 2008. We have already included music, entertainment, astrology and sports, besides news. We expect cricket, Bollywood to be the money-spinners for us. We are not ruling out the possibility of having a mobile TV set-up that would broadcast live shows straight to the handsets but that also depends on how soon 3G would roll out in the country.

With all this, we expect to close in around half a million subscribers in the next 6 months which is a very moderate estimate.

Hasn't it been a slow market for mobile web players, even though we add close to 6 million subscribers every month?

The primary reason why mobile web has been slow in taking off is that we haven't had enough content for people to spend time on. Besides email and usual search tools, mobile web has been fairly restrictive.

Even though the number of Indians accessing Internet through their mobile phones is over three times than those using the PC to connect to the web, not many players can claim to have struck gold in the market?

We definitely intend to make money in this venture. Marketers have shown interest and want to leverage the advantage of mobile media buying opportunities. In other words, buying interactive ads within ad supported mobile content is a great way to earn money.

We continue to develop content and campaign management technologies for mobile media (similar to those developed for the Internet), and continue to grow campaign capabilities like click-to-call, premium content, sponsored downloads and similar exclusive marketing opportunities. All of these, we expect, will contribute to the growing desire to advertise using the wireless web.