News Broadcasting
7th Indian News Television Summit: Innovation for higher ad revenue
MUMBAI: ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’ is an age old adage. Operating in a cash crunch environment, this seems to be just what Indian news broadcasters will have to do if they want to continue to beam into homes.
The Indian TV news business has been grappling with several issues. Close to 400 channels account for a small per cent of ad spends. High carriage fees and cutthroat competition for the ad rupee have made the going really tough for those in the news business.
With this as the backdrop, comes leading Indian media service Indiantelevision.com’s Seventh News Television Summit entitled ‘Monetisation in Transformational Times” on 28 October at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It seeks to address how those in the news TV ecosystem can develop more robust or new business models, including new revenue streams such as digital online video, syndication, off the air ground activities, advertiser driven programming solutions, among many others.
The highlights of the half day premier news television industry confab are a keynote by News Broadcasters Association president and India TV chairman and editor in chief Rajat Sharma followed by a discussion on ‘Meeting the challenge for today’s TV news networks, a one-on-one with ITV Network MD Kartikeya Sharma and then a keynote from leading media agency Group M south Asia CEO CVL Srinivas. .
The session ‘Content monetisation through conventional and digital platforms of news channel’ will see a reveling discussion on how business heads are meeting the challenge of low ad rates and near zero subscription revenue with rising cost through alternative options such as syndication of news, events, digital etc. Included in this session are NDTV group CEO Vikram Chandra, TV Today Network CEO Ashish Bagga, IBN18 Network CEO Avinash Kaul, Doordarshan ADG News Mayank Agarwal and Focus News Network group CEO Neeraj Sanan.
‘Innovation in news selling’ will explore novel ideas for media agencies and brands to increase their ROI from their investments on news networks and what innovative methods can be drawn for both to achieve a win-win business model. Opening the session is Srinivas’ keynote followed by a discussion with IPG Mediabrands India CEO Shashi Sinha, CNN-IBN and IBN7 national revenue head Vishal Bhatnagar, India TV senior VP and country head – ad sales Sudipto Chowdhuri and Zee Sangam national sales head Harsha Vardhan Dwivedi. The sessions will be moderated by Provocateur Advisory principal Paritosh Joshi.
Editors of networks will discuss how far they will go to allow money to drive content in the session titled ‘Monetisation for editorial independence’. ITV Network editor in chief Deepak Chaurasia, former India TV editorial director and veteran journalist QW Naqvi, Mi Marathi consultant Nikhil Wagle and moderator Aaj Tak and Headlines Today editor at large Rahul Kanwal will take the stage. In a separate discussion, Amagi co-founder KA Srinivasan will discuss how it can offer solutions to advertisers and news networks to further ad revenue.
Says Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari: “So far the news television industry has not been able to harness substantial subscription revenues, even as carriage fees look set to rise with digitisation being delayed. Hence, it needs to look for solutions to hike revenues from the advertising inventory – the threat of the reduction of this has been staved off at least for now – they have, apart from working closely with advertisers and agencies to offer solutions that opens up the revenue pipeline for them further. The challenge is to increase their yields while increasing the ROI for advertisers. I believe the seventh news television summit will help give both advertisers and news channels some pointers as to how they could achieve this jointly.”
The presented by sponsor for the event is Jia News, silver partners are Akamai, India News, NewsX, Sakshi TV, TV9, growth partner is SureWaves, Amagi is lanyard partner, support partners are CNBC Awaaz and CNBC TV18, online media partners are radioandmusic.com and tellychakkar.com. The event is executed by ITV 2.0 Productions.
News Broadcasting
Rajesh Sundaram joins NDTV Profit as senior editor, assignment
The 32-year newsroom veteran has launched channels on three continents and covered everything from 9/11 to South African television
MUMBAI: NDTV Profit has bolstered its newsroom with a hire who has done rather more than most. Rajesh Sundaram, a journalist with over three decades of editorial, managerial and consultative experience across India and international markets, joins as senior editor, assignment, tasked with sharpening the network’s newsgathering and real-time response.
Sundaram’s career reads like a tour of Indian media’s most formative moments. He began at Businessworld in 1994, moved to Zee News as bureau chief across Mumbai and Chennai, then joined NDTV in 2002 as part of its political bureau during a particularly febrile period in Indian politics. A stint as India correspondent for Al Jazeera International followed, where he covered key geopolitical developments and got his first serious taste of the global newsroom.
What sets Sundaram apart, however, is his serial channel-launching habit. At NewsX, he helped get the operation off the ground. At Headlines Today, part of the India Today Group, he served as editor. At News Nation, he helped launch the Hindi news channel and its digital ecosystem. He then crossed continents to lead the launch of ANN7 in South Africa as editor-in-chief, overseeing both television and digital. Back in India, he launched Tamil news channels News7 Tamil and Cauvery News, and later served as principal consultant for the launch of Marathi channel Lokshahi. Most recently, he helped build and lead the Press Trust of India’s video service and content studio, before stints consulting for Business Today and The Himalayan Times.
Rahul Kanwal, chief executive and editor-in-chief of NDTV, left little doubt about what Sundaram is expected to deliver. “The assignment desk is where a newsroom’s intent becomes action,” he said. “Rajesh brings a rare combination of field experience and leadership in building news operations at scale.”
Sundaram has reported from across India and the world, covering elections, civil conflicts, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 US presidential election.
At NDTV Profit, he will lead the assignment desk, driving editorial coordination and real-time response across markets and breaking developments. For a business news network sharpening its focus on speed and multi-platform delivery, it has hired a man who has built newsrooms from scratch on three continents. The assignment desk is in good hands.
