News Broadcasting
We are in the advertising business: BCCL MD Vineet Jain
MUMBAI: Bennett, Coleman & Company Ltd. (BCCL), which owns The Times of India Group of newspapers, is a dominant player in the media business in India because it is very advertisement savvy.
“We are not in the newspaper business, we are in the advertising business,” Vineet Jain, the managing director of BCCL, is quoted as saying by The New Yorker, while dwelling on the dominance of his company in the media business in India.
The argument of BCCL is that with newspapers sold so cheaply and generating little circulation revenue, newspapers depend more on ad revenue. “If ninety per cent of your revenues come from advertising, you‘re in the advertising business,” Jain says. His elder brother Samir Jain is the vice-chairman of BCCL.
These comments by Jain appear as part of a feature by The New Yorker, a US magazine published since 1925, on the dominant media conglomerate which appeared on 8 October.
“Both of us think out of the box. We don‘t go by the traditional way of doing business,” Vineet Jain said.
The New Yorker notes that the Times group flagship The Times of India‘s innovations begin in its eight-page second section, which is titled the Bombay Times. The section brims with color pictures of seductive women and muscular men, along with stories of Bollywood stars, handsome cricket pros, and international celebrities.
The day The New Yorker‘s Ken Auletta met Vineet Jain, the lead story in Bombay Times had described how aspiring actors, including a sultry Saiyami Kher, “are keen to start their innings in Bollywood.”
Jain explained to Auletta that, like the surrounding stories, it (the lead story) was written by members of the reporting staff and paid for by the celebrities or their publicists.
The feature said an internal company report in June lauded the strategy as “so important that today nearly all Bollywood movie releases pay for promotional coverage ahead of movie releases, and actors/actresses pay to develop their brand through coverage in the paper.”
Jain got the idea after reading an interview with Richard Branson, the owner of the UK‘s Virgin Group, in which Branson remarked that the reason he parachutes from airplanes and performs similar stunts is that, with this free publicity, he annually saves his company tens of millions of dollars in advertising.
“When I read it, I said, ‘Oh, my God, eureka—I‘m stupid!‘ ” Vineet Jain said. “Why these guys are not advertising in my paper is because I‘m giving them free P.R.”
News Broadcasting
Mihir Bhatt appointed as chief content officer at News18 Studios
The media veteran brings two decades of experience across television, digital and radio to one of India’s biggest broadcast networks, Disney+ Hotstar, Discovery+
NEW DELHI: Network18 has a new strategist in the building. Mihir Bhatt, one of Indian media’s more versatile operators, has joined News18 Studios as chief content officer, stepping into a role that will see him shape content strategy, build multi-platform properties and drive brand partnerships across the network.
Bhatt brings more than two decades of experience spanning television, digital and radio, with a track record of doing something rare in Indian media: combining editorial ambition with hard commercial results. At Times Network, where he served as managing editor and chief business officer of Times Influence, he built one of the industry’s more respected content studios, launching marquee properties such as the India Economic Conclave, the Times Now Summit and Leaders of Tomorrow. He also pushed the network into premium OTT territory through tie-ups with Disney+ Hotstar and Discovery+.
His resume stretches well beyond the studio. Bhatt has led Global Investor Summits for multiple state governments, worked alongside the World Economic Forum and played a pivotal role in launching the Indian Pickleball League. Earlier, as editor of Zee Business, he pioneered investor education initiatives that are still cited as industry benchmarks.
At News18 Studios, Bhatt will report to chief executive S Shivakumar and will oversee the studios execution vertical alongside revenue verticals covering emerging markets and campaigns. Sidharth Saini, Hemanth Kumar and Nimar Sarkaria will work under him.
Rahul Joshi, managing director and editor-in-chief of Network18 Group, made the announcement in an internal communication. “Mihir’s ability to build enduring brands, foster strategic partnerships and navigate a rapidly evolving media landscape will be instrumental as we continue to strengthen our position and explore new avenues of growth in the Studios business,” Joshi said.
In a media industry lurching between disruption and reinvention, Network18 has bet on a man who has spent two decades thriving in exactly that chaos. Whether he can do it again, at greater scale, is the question worth watching.
