Size, the makers of Godzilla would vouch, definitely matters at the box-office. And Star India is getting bigger by the day. In terms of annual turnover (industry buzz says it should be between Rs 15-25 billion), manpower employment and activities, Rupert Murdoch's Indian operations have outstripped any other media company in the country after having invested in the business here for over a decade.

But big growth has also meant bigger problems. Anything that the company does --- or doesn't do --- is viewed through a magnifying glass. So much so that at the time of a controversy regarding foreign investment in TV news ventures a couple of years back, some of the big domestic media companies rallied together to form a group that could have been easily called the "anti-Star platform".

A DTH proposal, in which Star is a minority partner with 20 per cent stake, took over 18 months to get a green signal from the government just because of Star's involvement.

Still, Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea would like to say that it hasn't been a bad run for the company in India. Rather, it has been eventful with its ups and down. More ups than downs, as industry observers would say. No wonder, when asked on a lighter note whether it's better to be a regional satrap than being one of the many in the parent company News Corp, Mukerjea jocularly shot back; it's better being a regional satrap. More so when you're the satrap of a region that is a money spinning venture for News Corp in Asia.

In this wide-ranging interview with Indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra, Prathim Mukerjea, more popularly known as Peter Mukerjea, holds forth on a range of industry and Star related issues, including whether in recent times Star India's performance has been below par (an allegation that is not ours, but that of the competition).

Excerpts:

The National Readership Survey (NRS) data shows that Indian C&S homes now total 60 million. What's your take on the numbers?
The new numbers were long overdue as the old figure of 40-odd million C&S homes always puzzled me. On the one hand you had CETMA (apex body of electronics goods manufacturers) saying over 9 million colour TV sets had been sold last year and on the other side, you had the figure of 42-45 million C&S homes. Now India is not a market where old TV sets are tossed out. So, where were these TV sets going? Certainly these sets must be getting recycled into non-urban markets, while at the same time, many Indian homes are becoming multiple TV homes. Keeping all these figures in mind, the latest NRS data shows that the market is moving.

Would you say that the NRS data is a true reflection of the Indian market scenario?
I would say the 60 million figure is still conservative.

What makes you think that NRS may have missed out on some cable homes?
My belief is based on the feedback that we have been getting for Kaun Banega Crorepati's second run (KBC2 as the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is popularly known as) from the time we launched the promos.

There's a co-relation. There is a surge in calls (for participation) immediately after the promos of KBC go on air. Till now, we have received millions of calls and an analysis of the calls tells us that a large portion of them were being made from places that have cable TV, but have not got reflected in the NRS survey.

My estimate is that the number of cable homes is more towards 65 million. However, the growth is important as for the first time the number of cable homes have crossed the 50 per cent mark of the total TV homes in the country.

Do these figures have a lesson for the industry and Star India in particular?
Of course. The numbers, in fact, highlight quite a few issues. Foremost, it pitchforks the rampant under-declaration (of cable homes serviced by cable operators) into sharp relief. It indicates that broadcasters are not getting paid what is actually due to them.

At the moment in India, Star is getting paid for roughly one-sixth homes of the total number of cable homes. That also means that our distribution team has got some work to do.

From another point of view, the NRS figure is a vindication of our
belief that we are the market leaders and deserve a lot more credit than what was being given to us. More meaningful for us is the fact that we are at the top of the heap compared to the competition.

So are you debunking Sony's claims that Star's on a slide now as programme ratings skid?
I don't want to get into the naming game, but talk about ratings slipping, etc, is actually a misnomer. If Star, for example, even has 25 per cent of the 60 million market, the ball game becomes entirely different. Star is in a different league altogether and the latest NRS figures testify to that. To my mind, the boys have got separated from the men.

A quick thought. A sizeable market share of an expanding market certainly means more opportunities. Would that mean a hike in advertising rates is on the cards at Star?
I would think on those lines, but nothing has been finalized yet.

Look, the number of TV households is growing, so are the C&S homes. That means more people are watching television. It is but natural that the expanded universe gets reflected in the rate cards.

The growth opportunities will lead us to be more client and category focused. We'll have to see not only the affordability factor, but also ensure weaving strategies to suit the needs of brands. The exercise is not to only to get the clients' money, but see that they too get value that is tailored for their needs and products. From Star's point of view, we need to deliver the best value.

To me it seems that Star is setting out to wipe out competition altogether by trying to become a one-stop shop for all the needs of advertisers. Am I correct in assuming so?
At Star what we want to do is provide so much of varied value to the advertisers that it might amount to almost saying `there's no need for you to go anywhere else.' With so many channels mushrooming all over, it doesn't make sense, for example, for a media buying house to try being on all the channels.

Rather, the client can cherry-pick and use the vehicle that delivers the value plus results. And, at Star, we believe we have that. A channel suited for almost every type of product.

Star India has very recently effected a restructuring in its ad sales team. What is the rationale behind this initiative?
The ad sales restructuring is driven by our focus on client service and building growth category for our business.

How do you view the current scenario as far as Star India is concerned?
The way I see it is that the Hindi general entertainment space has been critical to our business and will remain so in future too. A bulk of Star India's revenues come from shows aired between Mondays and Thursdays. We'll have to see how we can expand this to include the weekends in our scheme of things.

People are watching us between Mondays and Thursdays, but how do we convince them to stick with us over the weekends too? KBC, airing on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, is an attempt at expanding the weekend viewership. The aim is not only to keep the viewer with Star through the week, but increase the viwership figures through compelling content on weekends.

Apart from the weekends, has Star identified other areas for sprucing?
Yes. We have identified certain areas with an aim to do better and it's an ongoing requirement of ours in our quest to get better growth. Growth that is in excess of the average market growth of between 10-15 per cent (all media).

In this regard, we have zeroed down on target client areas. Star will be focusing anew with renewed vigour on sectors like FMCG, soft drinks, auto, financial services and retail. These are high growth areas and Star would like to corner the maximum of their media spend.

Apart from advertising, what are the other areas being tapped by Star for fuelling growth?
Growth has to come from a combination of areas and revenue streams. Advertising revenue is certainly there, but we are now looking at substantially increasing our subscription revenue too. Then there is this emerging segment of mobile phones.

Latest figures indicate the number of mobile phone users in the country has swelled. We will have to find out ways to exploit this section of the population and see what we can do from the programming point of view to monetize cell users. Our sister concern Fox is already doing that by designing one-minute episodes of popular shows for cell users' benefit.

At Star, we'll have to explore how this 'mobisode' theme could be exploited for revenue. Probably, we'll make one-minute mobisodes of the most popular serial of Star Plus. Definitely there is an opportunity.

In-programme placement of products is another area that we are looking at aggressively. It has happened in movies in a big way, but on television, it is still treated quite casually.

However, there's no denying that lot of work needs to be done (by Star). The competitive forces are unique down South.

We haven't yet decided how to go about it, but there are some thoughts on the South side foray too that may take some time to crystallize.

The Hindi news channel segment is fragmented and that's why we have been witnessing so much churn there. In no other market are there so many channels operating in one language. Take any other developed market like the US or the UK or Australia and you would not find news channels in every nook and corner. For the first time, the C&S penetration has crossed the 50 per cent mark (compared to all TV homes) and that signifies growth and opportunities also for the news segment.

But it's also time for news broadcasters to stop poaching (of personnel). The business is expanding, but getting people from other (news) channels is increasing a company's cost too. The trend is not good for the industry.

Of course, we are looking at providing content to mobile users in a segment where the service is getting more feature oriented. We are in dialogue with some telecom companies for this to explore how we can develop a subscription model for content on mobile phones as there is a fair degree of optimism on the innovations that could be deployed.

The wireless division is there and has grown its business by about 200 per cent in 2005 compared to 2004, though I must admit the base is small.

However, I feel it's time the media sector too is treated in a way similar to other sectors like infotech and tourism where tax sops and liberal regulatory regime is a norm rather than an exception. A few years ago, people in India were talking about convergence, but now we are living in a converged era and media offers great opportunities through converged products.

From a broadcaster's point of view, Star would like to make its
offerings of channels available on all the DTH platforms in India. However, having said that, I must also point out that there are certain issues like piracy that Star would look at before making available its channels to a DTH platform operator.

I also think that at this point of time, it's better to look at agreements on an annual basis so that the economics (of DTH) could be ascertained by both the parties concerned. The issue of the subscriber base could, I think, be then addressed in a better fashion.

The other way of looking at things is that as the Indian operation grows, the need to manage it also grows. We have been growing over the years, but over the last few years the pace of growth has increased. In such a scenario, it's but natural to get help from our sister concerns around the globe. The power to leverage international expertise gives Star a competitive advantage vis-à-vis competition.

Tell me, how many of our competitors in India can get international inputs? They cannot because internationally they have nothing much to fall back upon. I would say that if any broadcaster has international links and backups, besides Star, up to an extent it's MTV in India.

As I said, with the business growing here, we are trying to leverage our manpower assets situated in other parts of the globe. Sony and Zee, for example, don't have anything to fall back upon. Just because we are bigger compared to others, everything that happens in our organization gets that much more amplified.

FDI norms should be further relaxed, some element of tax breaks also are needed as a concern for the media infrastructure is non-existent here. If you take the sops that are extended by Singapore, for instance, for setting up an uplink base there, you'd be amazed. India needs to take a leaf from such success stories.