You kidding me?

For f***'s sake there are people dying in Naxal attacks, fighting militants and from sheer poverty and this takes up two columns in the national pages. So I guess the serious stuff goes to 'Crest' and the rest of the paper suffers. I don't know whats worse, silly stories about Twitter in news-magazines and supplements that have suddenly woken up or this. God help us!
So, I watched this to cheer up.

Monday Morning Madness

In times of doom and gloom, with newsprint prices headed north again but things looking slightly better on the lay-off front, there should be innovation in print advertising. However most innovation has been for publications to bend over and let advertisers hump their backsides. Alright, even that is, to an extent acceptable, after all, prostituting your bum when you have so many over-paid lazy children to feed might even pass the ‘moral decency’ test as thought up by Messrs Thackerey, Son & Nephew (even though the store front has split into two entrances now). But what really pisses me off are jacket adverts.
You know what I’m talking about, not the full front-page ads that like today in some papers, Yahoo India has taken out – note to yahoo India – If you are going to spend a bomb, spend money on a coked-out bimbette at least. I know ‘You’ means ordinariness, but I don’t wish to be reminded of that first thing in the morning. A half-dressed girl on the other hand, would have really brightened up a Monday morning.
OK, as usual, I digress, my issue is with those painful quarter page adverts. Not to say the full-page ones are by any means acceptable, and for this I will always hate Indya.com (they were the first to make ToI sell out the front page, and before you knew it every second day HT carried a picture of a beaming Ponytail and family) but at least with a full page advert you can hold the paper the way it is meant to be held. With the quarter-page ‘jacket’ advert, you can’t hold jackshit, the paper literally falls apart. You know what I’m talking about. A ‘jacket’ advert is like agreeing to have scat sex.
Seriously. And if you don’t know what scat sex is, please don’t look it up on Google Image Search (with SafeSearch Off) at work (no I won't link it), because as liberal as your office might be to you viewing porn at work, this won’t please anyone. Nor will seeing the fat aunties on India’s top ‘user-generated’ sex video site (no, I won't link to this either), I feel like puking when ‘hot chachis’ like that invade a computer screen (though, the site shows that UGC does work on the Indian web). The popularity of mobile phone video cameras is leading to insanity in Indian bedroom. Bad porn, that is my other problem with the world this Monday morning.
I think I should really see a shrink.
PS: I personally did not exactly fall in love with the first issue of ToI Crest (they have a epaper but not a separate website as yet), but the second issue was a marked improvement (more timely story I guess). My only problem is that the amount of time I have every weekend is finite, and there is far too much to read. I do believe that Crest is going to hammer sales of weekly newsmagazines that have over the years lost the plot (annual sex surveys usually filled with fiction, like that one that claimed that 1 in 3 men ‘did not mastrubate’). It seems that Crest has a pretty high print order right now (estimated at close to 3 lakhs) in only Delhi and Bombay (sorry, Mr.T, Mumbai), and with editions launching in Pune and Bangalore before the end of October, the newsmagazines should be really worried because if this weeks covers are any indication, ToI Crest has already won the battle. That is not to say that ToI Crest might not go wayward very soon.

Conversations

Yesterday, I spent some time with the publisher of a small-circulation newspaper and we were discussing the internet, distribution and content. Earlier, that day I had spent some time with a consultant talking of future media trends and we spent a long time talking of the Kindle ‘distribution’ model, and the aftermath of that in the light of Amazon’s draconian DRM policies (ironically with Orwell).
Anyway, even though there were some heated discussions with some other people in the room – particularly about journalism and bylines getting devalued, I argued that journalism and bylines got devalued the instant newspapers started to play the ‘price game’ and consumers fell for it. Now, they fall for free shoes and what not, even though newspapers are drastically cutting back on circulation. There is a feeling that the English language press, no make that, the English language media has seen its short golden age ~ 2006-2008.
So what is the new business model that we spoke about, that I also feel might just work? Low-circulation, but free. Sounds crazy, but guess what most lifestyle magazines do, exactly that. Fewer and fewer copies make it onto general stands other than the giant stands – in Delhi these would be in Khan Market, Connaught Place and Def Col. News-stand sales drop down even further as companies don’t want raddi. It also works from an advertising perspective – tell people that these are our 25,000 readers nationwide. New readers are occasionally added by a process of selection. Surrender the bulk of the market to ToI and differentiate. If magazines can pull it off, FHM India has an incredibly small print-run and I believe that Media Trans-Asia is trying to emulate that with Maxim and their other publications as well.
No matter how hard ToI tries, and they are trying, they will always be a mass-market middle-class product and the middle-classes can never be high-brow. Sorry, if this sounds snobbish, and believe me when I say that I read ToI first every morning but that is essentially trying to figure out what on earth is going on in the country and the city. The problem is that being mass has mass costs and increasingly, as mass papers are discovering in the West, those costs will become unsustainable. Especially since, the ‘cover price’ never did cover costs in India, and the ET Now ads are free right?
TV is free already, the problem with TV is slightly different, the only channel that has any sense of gravitas is Undie 24x7, even with the tear-jerking. I’m sorry that RajdeepTV doesn’t but with the wife on air, it never will. But UndieTV is in such financial turmoil, the accounts make for painful reading even for journalists and executives in other media companies. But, I still feel that ubiquitous camera-equipped personal devices coupled with 3G and Wireless Broadband is going to lead to utter chaos in television. Even though, I more skeptical of ‘citizen journalism’ than most.
Yet, while I feel all of this, and believe me this will all play out in my lifetime as a journalist, I still feel that the byline will have some value. I have no clue how much value, but it will still retain something. As The Admiral told me, not everyone can fly every major fighter jet, only air force officers and journalists can.
EDIT: Four years since I stalled the Statcounter code, I've crossed 500,000 page views, not bad. Should monetize but too lazy...

Internet Shinternet

Don’t get too excited about the internet in India. Looking at current numbers, and I think the 60 million ‘regular’ users figure is bunkum, there are only six million broadband connections in this country, of which I guess only a million or so are with connected ‘digital natives’ such as myself who shamelessly hog bandwidth. Yes, and I also consume a lot of my media needs online, but I still take a newspaper with me to the bog. I still manage (somehow) to read ET’s shameless flogging of their TV channel every morning.
And I still manage to read a few magazines every week. The only tragedy in my multimedia life is that I have really cut back on my book consumption, though I recently finished off Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Bad Girl and will reaffirm that Llosa is the best contemporary Latin American writer (if you haven’t read The War at the End of the World or The Feast of the Goat you are missing out on something). That is the tragedy of following cricket games with ball-by-ball online commentary, reading over 200 feeds everyday ranging from the innocuous to the humourous to the downright salacious. Hey, one has to follow the underbelly of the internet – and my god, Indians love posting videos of themselves having sex online, really bizarre some of the stuff you come across.
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is simple. In the west, the internet is killing the media. Well, not the internet per se, but the fact that the net has made it possible to read news not on dead trees but of a multitude of devices. News that can now technically geo-locate you (on your mobile) and deliver news customized to your exact location. Next time you’re stuck in a lift, you will get a news alert of being stuck on a lift thanks to your phone (the fact that GPS signals aren’t available on an elevator is a ‘minor’ technical issue which I will, like most journalists disregard). When it comes to TV, what better way than have a ‘Create Your Own Anchor’ sort of app, that will save us from phenomena such as Super-Anchor-Man on Times Now and Weepy Wonder Woman on UndieTV.
Technically all this is possible, but the connectivity numbers just do not add up. I am a big fan of social media and use it aggressively, but hearing some numbers make me wonder, Rs 75 crore industry, for christs sake. And some so-called evangelists talking stuff on how citizen journalism is the future. I am not a cynical journalist bemoaning the rise of the internet, far from it. This blog has been around for six years almost and in the four years since I installed Statcounter, it has over 500,000 views. Big deal! The thing is that a lot of online ‘citizen news’ sites in India tread dangerously on copyright laws, and are little more than rehashes of what is said in the Times of India. As for Twitter and 26/11, I was using it (Yes, I tweet too but not as K), and most of it were either ultra-nationalistic opinions by foreign desis or paraphrases of what was being said by Barkha or Arnab, along with a lot of bitching about Barkha.
The internet is still a medium of the elite in India, many people might have occasional access to it but unless and until the auctions for new spectrum happen, nothing is going to change. Even if that comes through, the government’s greed, rather its potential to spend will mean that the prices demanded at the auction will be so high so as to keep internet access a privilege of the rich. This might have some of us worried, but not all of us and might actually pose bigger problems for television rather than print. Some people are talking about e-readers being used in India – a $249 product to read news. You kidding me? An annual subscription to paper will not cross Rs 1000 in India. A bunch of premium news channels will set you back barely Rs 20 a month.
You get the news you pay for, and frankly we pay next to nothing for news in India. Raise prices and the busybodies who complain about quality get righteous. The last time the news magazines raised cover prices Rs 5, a mail went around accusing them of taking advantage of the reader (though I suspect this came from Ponytail’s magazine). And circulation dropped. If a news channel went from ‘free’ to ‘pay’ viewership drops. People have spoken about micropayments, and how they work in India, but you expect me to believe that someone will pay Rs 2 for a story even though he or she doesn’t care about spending that kind of money on every Vodafone spam message contest which the company kindly texts you five times a day. Nope.
That said, the newspaper ain’t dying anytime soon in India. Nor is the news channel, even though their profligate ways might mean that some die. The magazine on the other hand…


PS: If you folks have been wondering why the radio silence, I am not under gag orders (from either my dad, my step-dad, my boss, my big boss or my ex-boss), it has just been that my new boss has just piled me under with work. I guess idle thumbs make for an active blogger, and I can write this post only because I’ve got down time between my story and reading the proof while waiting to leave and go watch HP6, even though the NYT review wasn’t encouraging. I will also go watch the news Transformers movie, but that is because of Megan Fox and the FX.

PPS: A little birdie informs me that one big-time (ex maybe) journo on Twitter, an avowed Luddite dicates his Tweets to someone who Tweets them. Somehow that is just so cool…

Redesign

I liked the latest iteration of HT, this is the 'fourth' look of HT in the past decade but this new Guardian-esque redesign does seem to have a lot going for it. Still next to no business coverage and alarmingly little coverage on several other areas, but HT is the best looking paper in town. At least for the time being. The problem with any design, as layout artists will tell you is maintaining the design. And the problem there is that reporters, who have little clue of the english language to start with have next to no understanding of design. To work to a design (rather than a word-count) is a fact of life for many of us, it makes life rather unbearable when you have to juggle bits and pieces of your story around but a 'pretty' looking story might just get read in a mainstream publication rather than a dull one. So nice redesign, but why on earth do you still have the silly front-page 'shoulder' advert, and now to work on content.
A few friends often lament the death of long form (there is The Hindu, but extreme communism is no-one's cup of tea) in mainstream publications in India. Well, there never was a New Yorker or its ilk in India (Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic et al.) and that is tragic, but that just says more about the population at large (we are already an Idiotcracy if not very far from being one) than anything else. That said, ToI is still on-course to launch a 'thinking' paper soon. Given that the last launch from Bennett was ET Now which I feel is in danger of believing its own hype about its greatness - why did they go overboard on Nusli Wadia for crying out loud, and I will reserve my comments on the quality of the interview. Anyway, I'm not sure if I want long-form from the ToI, and even less sure if it will work, but maybe it will. Don't get enthusiastic and think that India needs a long-form magazine now, readers here are too cheap to pay, only grade-A morons like me end up spending a bomb on magazines and papers.
Now back to work and figuring out how to figure something out.

Opinions on ETNow

Frankly, I don'ty have one simply because I have not seen the channel as yet. Not because I don't want two, but simply because despite having THREE (read that THREE) different Direct-To-Home connections (DishTV, Tata-Sky and Airtel) at home I don't get ETNow. I believe that a ton of money has been spent on distribution, but with high-end colonies, presumably colonies with a high proportion of ET readers, having moved over to DTH - have you looked at the (Panchsheel, DefCol or even Bandra West skylines lately?) this is a slight issue. I really would like to watch ETNow, you know! I've seen far too many adverts and not the product as yet. I believe that something might happen before Pranab-babu's 'F*** the Monsoon Failed' Budget. I also know that TAM ratings don't consider DTH households - which make all TAM numbers for English news channels slightly, no make that terribly shambolic. But, I also think that ETNow will trash CNBC-TV18 in the ratings simply because of the amount of reporters that they have. And if ET can manage an 'integrated' newsroom, the demand that TimesNow does the same will only increase, and it should. I know a lot of people in ET read this blog, so please forward this post to someone in Ditribution. Because, if people (almost all my friends are DTH and/or IPTV) don't start seeing the channel soon, we will tend to lose interest.

Media Layoff Watch

The silent layoffs are over, the big boys have begun laying off employees. In the hundreds. Last night UndieTV laid off 114 people - mostly from the defunct MetroNation Delhi channel (that said, their tie-up with the Kasturi's for MetroNation Chennai goes on apace) but there were some lay-offs from 24x7 and India as well. At Times Of India, following the depressing 30 per cent pay cuts which has several employees rather pissed off (whenever I meet a Times reporter at a Presser all they can do is bitch out their employer - so much for employee satisfaction) they have also been layoffs - 87 people across the country have been let go. Of course, there are still lack of mad people at Times though, because according to this post they want to sell a stake in their Broadcast operation valuing at $200 million. Which is a lot more than the other, much larger networks, are worth. Just to see Arnab screaming and shouting and being put in his place by various Pakistani journalists.
This is the start of the high profile editorial lay-offs, hudreds of people in ad sales and marketing functions across channels have been laid off over the past few months as well. If you have any news about lay-offs or were laid-off yourself email me at presstalk (at) gmail (dot) com or just leave a comment. That said, I will not publish libellous or derogatory comments. If you feel treated unfairly, you are a journalist so you should be able to put it into words properly.

News from America and other stuff

And it doesn't look so good - any one of ten papers or even all ten could be shut down soon. But even in those that are surviving, the new brain trust (with Indian connections, mind you) in some cases is not getting through to the staff? Is the new Blackberry Storm really that good? I found it irritating very honestly, though I really do like the Curve 8900.
And if the BJP wants my vote, please, please tell Arti Mehra to take down her pictures that have been plastered on my morning commute. I've lived in India long enough to be able to tune out of most things, but somehow 'her' face still manages to give me daymares. And if she stands for New Delhi, I'm seriously going to vote for whoever the Congress puts up, most probably Ajay Maken. Heck, I might vote for Maken even if Vijay Goel stands. Plastering adverts and starting blogs won't make me blindly vote, if the BJP wants to be seen as the party of change it cannot be achieved by taking out ads for Advani on The Guardian's website (served up by Google to Indian IP's - though the irony is delicious) but by putting up candidates who truly signify change. Anyway, I know that it all comes down to the guys who put up the best 'Get Out The Vote' campaign fuelled by cheap country liquor on Election day and that casteism, despite everything still dominates our elections. But I'm impressed at the Times Of India's Lead India campaign this year, but lets see what the voting numbers are?
Happy Holi to everyone out there, have a blast and don't get too stoned on Bhang. I'll see you all soon enough though I might disappear for a day or two on work!

Blame the government

In the days before the model code of conduct comes into the picture and various ministries will be barred from putting up pictures of Sonia, Rahul and MMS in their adverts, the ads are roaring in. Today in a 32-page edition of the Times of India, Delhi there were 32x8 columns (the count being done as eight columns across the page). Now that works out to 256 columns of total space in the paper.
But today's ToI only had 84 columns of editorial material by my reckoning (yes, I counted). Even the Op-Ed page was sacrificed to the Power Ministry. That is an Ad-Edit ratio of 67-33 and almost totally government ads and even if you include the ads for 'Massage Services' in the classifieds, which are a regular feature, this is insane!
Here is the funny thing, newspapers are obliged to carry DAVP adverts and the UPA's gift to the newspaper propritors with a 15 per cent hike in DAVP rates means that on average DAVP ads are not going at 60-70 per cent discounts to rack rates but only around 40 per cent, similar discounts to what an Airtel or Nokia would get.
The Government then, or rather its publicity hungry ministers are keeping the flames alight at the newspapers and also the chartered airline business. But these guys are having a direct impact on the dissemination of news. Yesterday was particularly bad, after Slumdog and these ads just about ten per cent of the paper survived to become regular news.
But that said, I have to compliment ToI for highlighting the Aravali issue (nice story today), and I'm surprised that other media houses haven't picked it up. The rampant destruction of the Aravali's will lead to massive water depletion in Delhi and Gurgaon. I can understand that some papers don't have reporters intelligent enough to cover the issue but it is a story that is right ion front of you.
The rush for 'Exclusives' or 'Specials' to narrate the ills of Narendra Modi (and the BJP in general, and I must admit with characters like Muthalik around they do become easy prey) does not mean that papers should roll over and play dead when it comes to news in their backyard. News, that unlike Narendra Modi's actions almost a decade ago can actually impact their readers lives. But some people get gongs and RS seats, so well, who cares about a couple of hills being blasted away.

Paper, paper everywhere...

I don't know if The V reads this blog, but after reading Counterpoint this Sunday I have a sneaky suspicion that he does. I posted the link to the Time article but the piece was also in the print edition and I also made fun of the bailout. You know where our media bosses got a handout from the government.
Though, and really a three - five per cent excise isn't really that much, so the argument that the government will continue to tax the living daylights out of everything is relatively untrue - though I'm sure given a chance Chiddu would have imposed a service tax on journalism as well. The big announcement was the 15 per cent hike in DAVP rates.
With the real estate sector, the cornerstone of print media advertising (along with the Ponytail, a master of the hire then fire school of thought - makes the placements look good) in a tailspin (though the Ponytail obviously carries on undaunted), the papers needed new advertisers. After all the bills of the senior marketing chaps had to be paid.
With business journalists, the ones who brought in the adverts over the past decade being no good anymore, they rolled out the political bureaus. The 15 per cent rise in DAVP rates is also a great way for the 'Hand' to buy positive political coverage. But given that one proprietor is a sitting 'Hand' MP and another was just given a gong, coverage wouldn't have too bad any which way. Well, it will neutralise Jaitley's implants across the media - papers would be loathe to lose the little assured advertising that they have. After all even the herbal quacks who promised that they've cured Cancer/AIDS/Virginity have stopped advertising.
Did the newspaper industry need a bailout in the first place? Well, in a weird sort of way they are just reaping what they have sown. Think about it, there was no logical reason for papers to be priced at the levels they have been priced. Even before newsprint prices climbed through the roof, the advent of the 120-page daily spectacular (in Mumbai - Times of India + Mumbai Mirror + Bombay Times + Local Supplement + Sponsored Supplement + Classifieds easily crossed 120 pages on a regular basis) meant that printing prices were going through the roof.
The concept of the free flanking product meant that prices spiralled further out of control. The cheaper ad rates in the 'flanking products' often meant that the main paper/magazine lost out on revenue. These pricing decisions were decided not by editorial folks, but those in management. Sure, there was wildly irrational hiring, lazy bums got paid huge amounts of money just to make sure they didn't join another 'proposed' paper. And fair enough, staff costs have to be cut. But will paper owners bite the bullets and raise daily prices to more sustainable levels? A copy of the NYT still costs $1 (Rs 50) and that is not an inconsiderable sum of money. But should a daily - loaded newspaper in India continue to cost Rs 2 - 2.50? I have a feeling that the Rs 5 newspaper isn't very far away.
Oh, and about the Internet - the sites of every major paper in India are so horrible, that they all need a rebuild. Save DNA perhaps.

A spot of good news!

Mining in the Aravali's have been temporarily stopped. Refer this post and the fact that ToI carried the same pic in the front pages of the Delhi and Chandigarh editions today (I had sent the pic to someone there, though I carried the image here well before that). Hopefully, the destruction of the hill range has come to a stop. Plus, to answer a constant cribber, yes I didn't publish that comment, but that said several people close to the owners were removed. They had a 'Pets' vertical run by a 'cousin' (or relative) which was shuttered and several people close and even related to the portals management were let go.
I don't think sentimentality played a role in those mass layoffs nor should it in any layoffs. Recently, a rather successful publisher in a media group, a guy who turned around a dying publication a couple of years ago was let go. Anyway, soon after the layoffs I went to Shillong on a holiday and upon returning joined a proper newspaper. Sure, people will say I parachuted in there too, but for crying out loud, I'm no JC, so use what you got! Anyway, thanks for reading the story though, glad to know some people do!

Misleading?

There was a time, before the country went broke and Narshima Rao sort of had to open India up much to the consternation of Rahul Bajaj that we used Vanaspati to cook. I really don't know how many middle-class English language newspaper reading people really use Vanaspati any more. I'm sure there are some households where the 'cheap' oil is used as well as the place where you buy your samosa's - but the general betterment of our lives since 1991 has meant that most homes use decent cooking oil. Even poor ones. So the headlines in both HT and ToI today morning puzzled me to say the least. There is a difference between cooking oil and Vanaspati and while I agree that food safety standards are next to zero in India and that eating food cooked in Vanaspati is a sure-fire way to need an angioplasty, crazy misleading headlines are dangerous to your health as well.
And there is that little story of the $10 laptop. Now it is called an extremely low-cost 'Access-cum-Computing' (I do not understand the fascination with 'cum' in product names and designations in India) device. A laptop it is not. Even if you connect this to a TV and even if you use a low-cost ARM processor in a Ti or Qualcomm chipset Rs 500 is a ridiculous price even when you do the sum of parts. Kapil Sibal should remember the lesson of the Simputer from a decade ago. What killed it? The mobile phone - investing money on a more capable mobile device or software that can run on a mobile device over next-generation 3G networks giving access to more people in rural India is far more sensible. What we have crerated is a glorified pen-drive with a Wi-Fi antenna and a really low-end processor (I hope it is a 32-bit processor). Anyway these are just my two cents.

Erm.. like what?

Firstly I read this. Times and NDTV? Interesting. It is no secret that Times is hurting, the group is still in the Black despite being burnt on long-term newsprint contracts but they're making money. At least the print side is, television is a different kettle of fish. But a tie-up might make sense for both sides. NDTV has no experience of making money. None whatsoever. Times knows how to make money, but their experience of TV is well, the less the said the better. So Times+NDTV in Delhi. Maybe. But then again, NDTV is hedging, they've tied up with The Hindu in Chennai, though with a freeze on capex this year, that channel may not see the light of day.
Also, there was this very interesting graphic in Mint (PDF) recently and that puts what P. Sainath (who in reference to later in this post, refused a gong) says in context. Sainath accused mainstream media of ignoring agrarian India and well, looking at 2008 coverage that is horribly true (though, The Hindu was also measured). However, I suspect that 'International Affairs' includes all news of Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka and lets be honest our neighbours have been newsy this year and I'm sure that 95 per cent of the coverage was from these three countries, four per cent on Obama and one per cent on the rest of the world. 'National Security and Defence', I presume would include all terror blasts and 2008 had one hell of a lot of them. Yup, go down the chain and you see that 'Public Policy & Governance', 'Education' and 'Science & Tech' is way down the list. As the column accompanying the graphic says, this should be a wake-up call to Editors, there can be substantial improvements in coverage.
A little birdie tells me in reference to a 'pompous ass' mention in a Sunday column that someone is very upset that he didn't get a gong. Journalists close to the government always get gongs and god forbid that the BJP come back to power later this year and all chances of any gongs or Parliamentary posts might go away. But to abuse a senior bureaucrat Hmm, corrigendum or not, that was intended, but then again MKN still has his job. That said, it is good to know that the Sangh leadership is finally managing to talk up against the extortionists that are the rabblerousers and rioters across the country.
The BJP's 'Digital Cell' is trying hard to project Advani as youthful, through his 'website', and in the process is sending a lot of money to Mountain View but incidents like Mangalore do not help, demographics and voter profiles are changing and until the Sangh can get a grip of its loony wing and get kids into the fold, things are not going to change. India needs a credible right-of-centre party and increasingly, it seems to be the Congress which after ditching the Commies has started treading ever so slightly to the right.

Counterpoint

Dude, there are websites and then there are websites but The V's website is not as good as it could have been (it cost five lakhs to develop supposedly) - it went live today. The most interesting snippet so far - Vir's fusillade at Mint - this is a no-holds barred attack on Suku (more fun soon? But also read Suku's esoteric but excellent blog here) EDIT: The site is back up (up, down, up, down - WTF?) in case it goes down again - view it here and the piece that wasn't carried here.
Also read Outlook Groups response to Monika Halan's resignation letter, they call Monika's charges baseless and defamatory. This could shape up to be quite good fun, stay tuned for more. The morning papers seem to have drunk the Obama Kool-Aid and overdosed on it, five, six pages to what was a rather ordinary speech but one that sounded like the Sermon on the Mount - though you can read Mihir's counter-argument to Obama-mania in the Express today. Obama sounded messianic yesterday according to my mother with whom I watched the speech and I must agree with her, and that frankly scared me - the man is an extremely intelligent man and extremely intelligent people are as scary as extremely dumb people. Talking about pomp and pageantry, I was thinking of going down for the R-Day celebrations on Rajpath, it has been at least a decade since I went to my last R-Day parade and while security has always been insane, if the weather holds, it should be fun.
Also, since the morning I've been getting text messages talking of lots of lay-offs at HT Media (read Nikhil's post on HTM's Q3 results and the immense amount of cash sunk into FireFly) companies and from what I've heard is that there have been lay-offs at all major media groups in the marketing, printing and distribution functions. In editorial functions there have been lay-offs in some media houses, but to the best of my knowledge there have been no lay-offs per se. at EchTee. I believe that several people might be, and this is not just in EchTee, taken 'off the rolls' where they become consultants rather than full-time employees.
Listen times are bad everywhere (I believe at Times Life, SToI's supplement is down to one or two adverts, this was until a few months ago an advertising supplement for all intents and purposes) and employee costs have soared over the past few years. fair enough people were being paid jack till the media boom, but there are far too many examples of rather lacklustre people getting paid quite a lot. Some people will lose their jobs in editorial, and one hell of a lot of interns will not get jobs. I've seen a couple of message boards with 20-somethings crying about their lot in the media, but this is the current economic reality.

Hey...

2009 has come around, and not a moment too soon it appears even though my start to the year was rather bizzarre thanks to other family members. Anyway, the year ended with it appears with Bombay Times being taken for a merry old ride. I doubt 2009 will bring better tidings for news accuracy if bad photoshops go through - check out this blog by the way. Of course, no-one managed to catch Brad Pitt when he shot a scene at Varanasi for Benjamin Button. But...

I'm No.1... no wait...

I will not comment on how both large dailies in Delhi today went a bit over the top with Obama coverage, HT even replaced its City pages with Obama coverage. While American papers did fill up their front pages, their inside pages tended to talk of other electoral issues. Anyway, I still think we went overboard with coverage considering that most coverage was agency copy, save a couple of pieces here and there. Again Chidanand's writing was by far and away the best, but anyway, I won't carry on about Obama because the fun part was below the fold in the anchor pieces - both HT and ToI claimed their 'Number 1' in Delhi, HT celebrated the fact and starting tooting its horn yesterday which puzzled people in BSZ Marg who were poring over the numbers, and were not even looking at Delhi while in HT House cakes were being cut to celebrate the re-taking of Delhi.
But it became like Al Gore's win in 2000, someone at HT didn't exactly look at the numbers properly because it seemed that the IRS had changed its methodology, and since ToI's piece wasn't self-congratulatory (or an attempt to get onto the honours list) and after talking to the smarter stats folks, there was all-round sniggering. People at BSZ Marg, are still trying to figure out where the numbers came from. But, don't expect the last of this today, there will a bit of back and forth.
PS: Have you noticed how the papers have begun to get thinner and ad-edit ratios have begun to change. The collapse of the realty market in the NCR is showing - the days of 32 page editions might be over pretty soon and maybe by early 2009 the major papers will revert to 24 page editions.

Looking for buyers?

At least two large English-language led publishing houses are on the block, several more regional language publishers and television channels are having serious problems raising funds which are also drying up for large broadcasters - one of whom I believe has only six months worth of cash left in the bank. Despite Chiddu's statements and the Congress protecting those who are close to them (and have historically been close to them), some bailouts might be very difficult to push through. And even if a bailout package is well designed, banks will still charge usurious rates though not the 25-odd per cent they're charging realty firms. Yes, funds will be found for the big players, but lets not beat around the bush, things are bad. Organisations which splurged on launching new products are regretting the investments and I really won't be surprised if you see a big-name casualty before the end of the year. Even if it is claimed to be a pause.
Nothing of course is as terrible as the stuff that is masquerading as US Election coverage in ET - which is absolutely pointless, but I have to admit US coverage by correspondents based there - including Chidanand Rajghatta, who is a pretty good writer and has made sure that ToI has a clear lead in US coverage, has been very poor in this an election year.
Too much agency copy, no feel to the reportage. I know the chips are down, but it would have been nice to send a seasoned Indian political reporting veteran over to the US - say a battleground state like Ohio, Virginia or Florida. US Election coverage, and lets not kid ourselves, the next US President will impact all our lives immensely, would have made for interesting reportage. And election reportage is always best written. I mean here we are heading into an election ourselves where we can vote out the most incompetent government in decades, maybe we could learn how the Americans are going about doing the same thing. Even coverage in the news channels has been mediocre to say the least, though UndieTV (which might soon lose its undies) has been decent.
I went to watch Russell Peters perform at Siri Fort last night, and despite the crappy traffic and ratty seats (though my friend who got the tickets ended up with some pretty awesome seats) the show was great fun. Well, unless you happened to the Uncle and Aunty with the two hot daughters sitting in the front row. Other than the fact that the uncle happened to be Pawan Munjal of Hero Honda, it was pretty good, but to be fair to Munjal, when he left the auditorium his face was as deadpan as it always is (and he got ribbed worse than Vineet Jain at last years show). Great show, I haven't had so much fun in a while.

The shit has hit the fan!

And I'm not talking about the blatant misuse of copyrighted material by newspapers. Which almost invariably occurs in the Edit pages of newspapers - wonder if edit page editors stuck in a 1960's time warp don't quite understand the concept of copyright. But, some argue that Chiddu is really not to blame, after all Chiddu (and the desi economy) is but a mere victim of global greed and GW not content driving the US into ruin has managed to drag the entire world into chaos. I wonder if my mother's idea of withdrawing money and buying gold a few months ago has become an act of sheer genius.
But seriously, Udayan's face during initial market hours as the market collapsed a thousand points in early trade was in marked contrast to the faces of absolute horror that the CNBC US anchors last night. Those guys almost went hysterical with fear and rage - while UM seemed strangely dispassionate, almost Zen-like. Two extremes within twelve hours on the same channel, and I'm not quite sure I was a big fan of either. Well UM was not bad, and I get the idea that one should not perpetuate panic, but now even the language channels have caught on - and even the mainstream CNN-IBN is asking 'Is your money safe?'. Note that CNN-IBN asks crazy rhetorical questions such as 'Have Christians lost faith in India?' where the Congress sends a spokesperson there who says that 'those people' (the Sangh) are going on about Ram-something or the other." Interesting way of pissing off 'those people'. Note to the Congress send erudite people preferably from the majority community to answer criticisms, unless you admit that a large majority of your party is scared of taking action against the Bajrang Dal, lest Hindu votes consolidate against the Congress.
True, the religious whacko's manage to go mad just before election season, but you could almost sense that this was coming. The problem is that all those who claim that they feel strongly against the whacko's on TV and Print won't vote. I hate the whacko's but I cannot possibly vote for this inept government again and I will vote. As much as I think that V.K Malhotra is an old coot, I can't vote for the party that gave us the crappy BRT - even though god knows what can be done with that stretch of road short of re-doing everything.
Anyway, back to the media now I guess. I'm just wondering how Ratan Tata and Bennett have kissed and made up a few short years after the Tata Finance fiasco. The only exclusives before the launch of the Gujju Nano were to ET and ToI. Makes you wonder really. As they say, there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics, maybe even Ratan Tata is a lot more pragmatic than people think. I mean the concept of 'Indian pragmatism' not business pragmatic - since the Jaguar-Land Rover is probably going to end up sinking Tata Motors, though apparently they could have even bought General Motors for the same amount of money going by yesterday's share price of GM. I wonder, GM's desi unit CEO, a Brit called Karl Slym is selling a three-year free service program for their cars here, I just don't think that there will be a GM in three years time. Heck, a hell of a lot of other companies won't be there in three years time.
Actually, the economic slowdown has put a cramp on the launch plans of several networks - apparently Triveni TV, the guys who just launched Voice of India TV are holding back on their lifestyle channel launch. Which is a good idea for a while, but what about all the people they hired for massive salaries? And how long will a channel hold on before cutting back staff for unviable channels? As it is appraisals in 2009 will be on the lower end of the scale. And a note to CNBC-TV18, I know that you guys have revamped your feature shows line-up - but isn't this a horrible time to have a show called 'Wealth Creators', nothing against Mitali, but the name of the show and the timing of its launch are a double whammy right now - and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is not exactly a hero of the investing classes right now.

I agree...

I so completely agree with The V's column in Papermint today that I thought somebody had taken the words right out of my mouth. But I have to add, that, and this is at the cost of being snobbish, that the most irritating specimens are those second-generation desi's whose fathers usually moved into low-paying blue-collar jobs and whose new 'white-collar' status has to be protected at all costs. Airline ticket agents, immigration and police officers and store clerks are sometimes the worst. I remember in Atlanta several years ago how in the CNN Centre at a fast-food restuarant manned by a family we were give attrocious service. Maybe because I asked for beer.
I also found ToI's second lead about Manmohan's proclamation about 'Indians' being in love with George W Bush hilarious (and disturbing). I love lots of Americans such as Scarlett Johanssen, but GWB? Why? I don't want to know about MMS and GWB's man love, but don't get me involved, ugh! Surprising that the other papers didn't play this up. Maybe after the government has said that man-love is still illegal (and will not squash the colonial legacy of Section 377), they don't want to play it up. So does MMS have a perverse mind also?
And while many of you hate my political ponderings, all my hopes of Delhi being removed from under the yoke of Aunty Shiela, the BJP has gone and nominated the most ineffectual VK Malhotra (Can't speak, can't hear and can barely see) as the candidate for Chief Minister of Delhi. I would rather vote for the Communists than have Malhotra lead Delhi. Why does the BJP always manage to shoot itself sqare in the ass? Not in the foot, but they take a shotgun and fire it up their ass, it seems difficult but decisions like these have led me to this conclusion. What next? Sushma as Prime Minister?
And there are more bombs in Delhi. The night I plan to have a party. And if Pakistan is led by this, I'm scared. But then again, maybe he won't know how to aim the warheads!

Why PR sucks in India...

When you give a product out for review, check it once before you hand it out to make sure it works. You know, that is a nice and rather simple thing to do. Instead of being mindless drones that keep calling on my mobile number unable to gauge the level of my irritation at times. "Is this a good time?" just doesn't cut it on the etiquette front - texting does. Sorry, but after having a rather harrowing day fending off some people I'm rather bugged.
As for Outlook Business, I knew that Sonal Sachdev is going to Undie Profit. What can you say - frying pan to fire or rock to hard place? I don't know which analogy fits better. And as for one comment, about how Mint resembles Apple - great looking product but lacking substance - I liked that actually. But just look at the great top of mind recall of Apple and the fact that the all the 'cool' people use Apple. That said, I would like to point out that Apple PR in India borders between the horrendous and the abysmal.
In fact, BS could well still be ahead of Mint in circulation and readership, but among the people who matter, Mint is slowly but surely building up tremendous equity. Just shows you what a little bit of patience and some decent marketing can bring about. For a previous example, just look at the way the Times decimated Deccan Herald in Bangalore and riding roughshod over HT in Delhi. The latter example is quite dramatic, it was a slow and steady erosion for years and then the 'flip' happened. I worked in HT those days and people screamed and shouted that 'HT had better editorial content' and other yada yada, while The V started a personal crusade against Medianet (though since then, paid placements have ripped through Indian journalism, everyone is guilty). But today, ToI is a strong #1 in Delhi, and strangely enough has improved its editorial ever since it took over pole position. Again, some of you might read far too much into this, but I'm just saying it as it is. Lessons have been learnt, but defensive strategies can also be formulated, and it would be interesting to see the phalanx that BCCL develops (and be assured they will) and maybe the new TV channel is a start.
And someone is desperate for me to cover NewsX and UTVi, and I'll be brutally honest - I'm sorry I just don't watch either channel. I've switched a lot of English viewing over to Times Now - and there are two (male) anchors on X whom I just can't stand (one can't speak) and UTVi somehow just doesn't seem to enthuse me. Neither channel does, you know, and there is no compelling reason to watch them. Sounds silly, but really, that is the way I feel.