MUMBAI: With broadcasters upping investments on content and marketing, monetisation from multiple streams becomes crucial in a digitised market.

Multi Screen Media President Ad Sales Rohit Gupta feels the key in a digital market will be to create customised content that suits the need of a specific demographic and market.

The addition of LC1 markets to TAM panel will increase their weightage vis-a-vis the four metros. It will also force broadcasters to rethink their content strategy towards these markets.

?Digitisation is key challenge for broadcasters. Monetisation of content is key. With addition of LC1 markets, their weightage has gone up. Creating different content for different type of audiences will be the key,? Gupta said during a panel discussion on ?Revisiting Content in Digitised Space and Impact of Ratings in the Changed Scenario?.
Gupta said television as a medium has seen phenomenal growth to become the biggest medium but it remains under-indexed when it comes to ad spends.

?We are adding 15 million consumers every year but we are still under-indexed vis-a-vis advertising revenue growth. Broadcasters are not getting the benefits of additional eyeballs,? he added.

Gupta said it?s high time that the industry works together to create a new television measurement system. A new system is in the interest of both broadcasters as well as media gencies.

Disney UTV Media Networks CEO MK Anand said the ad revenue led business is here to stay. It will co-exist with subscription driven business model.

?The advertising revenue led model is here to stay. Ratings are not anti-thetical to the broadcast business. Digital Addressable System (DAS) will lead to two kind of broadcasters - one who are subscription led and the ones who are advertising revenue led,? he said.

According to Anand, broadcasters irrespective of the genre have to work hard in a digitised market. The packages that MSOs design will also be of paramount importance.

Time spent in digital homes has increased due to bucketing of content genre-wise, he added.

IndiaCast Group COO Gaurav Gandhi said digitisation will change three things: it will change economics, choice of services and accountability and measurement.

?The cost of content has gone up considerably, it?s on par with international markets. But the revenue growth is not sufficient,? Gandhi said.

Broadcasters will also have to look at other revenue models apart from advertising and subscription to monetise their content.

Natpe President and CEO Rod H Perta said the problem of inadequate measurement system and fragmentation of market is not unique to India. US too has gone through the same path.

Digitisation, he said, will lead to emergence of new business models and opportunities. The question is whether broadcasters are ready for this change, he asked.

He said ratings are an equally ?contentious? issue in US but the market over there has matured and advertisers now don?t just look at ratings while making advertising decision.

?In fragmented markets, advertisers don?t just look at ratings. They also look at the quality of content,? Perta contended.

TAM India CEO LV Krishnan said the issue of reliability of data comes only when the ratings starts falling. Broadcasters, he said, don?t complain when the numbers are in their favour.

He said viewership measurement in multiple-screen era will go from platform-centric to becoming platform-agnostic.

?It doesn?t matter which platform the content is consumed. Parameters will change as content consumption will happen on different platforms,? Krishnan said.

Fremantle Asia MD Paul O Hanlon said, ?We have to rethink the way we produce content which made us look at different formats in different ways and segment it to make it flexible for broadcasters.

?The cost of content is going up, so we have to rethink the business model. We are looking at different ways to monetise content like AFP and not just remain dependent on broadcast fee.?

MUMBAI: Disney UTV has set a three-pronged strategy to build its television business in the country which includes strengthening the distribution of its existing channels, developing richer content and expanding portfolio with new launches.

Distribution is the most important priority for the company that was integrated with Disney following its acquisition by The Walt Disney Company early this year as part of its strategy to expand its business in emerging markets like India.

?The main thing that we did this year was integration of the two companies, Disney and UTV. The two networks together had a 3 percentage share of viewership of the total Indian market from a television point of view,? says Disney UTV MD-Media Networks MK Anand.

The coming together of Disney?s kid?s network with UTV?s mass specialty channels will help Disney UTV in gaining critical mass, Anand believes.

?It was a three-part step to take us from wherever we are over the next two to three years. As separate clusters, they were basically niche networks. I mean you couldn?t call them national level networks,? he adds.

Disney UTV has nine channels under its belt spanning kids, youth and movie channels post integration. These include Disney, Hungama, Disney XD, UTV Stars, Bindass, UTV Movies, UTV Action and the newly launched preschool channel Disney Junior.

?What we realised is that Disney UTV started to emerge as a significant media network (post integration). The least that you need in order to become a significant player in the Indian market we believe is 5 per cent plus,? he avers.

With ambitions to become a significant player, Disney UTV set out to strengthen the reach of its channels with special emphasis on kids and movie portfolio.

Anand expects the distribution piece to be sorted out by March-end next year. The target is to grow subscription revenue by 30-35 per cent and strengthen its presence in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

He also said that the distribution was earlier optimised on the basis of what advertisers wanted.

?Our targeted subscription revenue growth for the coming year is 30-35 per cent and we are very confident of achieving that. We expect it to continue for another year and then it might come down,? he claimed.

He also said that Disney UTV will gain on a net basis as carriage fee payout has remained under control.

?The silver lining is that our carriage fee over the last year has not gone up; it hasn?t gone down because we have increased our distribution requirements on ground presence. We are making more money than we are paying, so for us net-net we are making profits from distribution,? he avers.

And digitisation came at just the right time for the broadcaster with the first phase almost through and the second phase deadline scheduled for 31 March.

Like most broadcasters, Anand is bullish about digitisation as carriage fee is expected to come down while subscription fee should look up. Disney UTV has also concluded deals with multi-system operators (MSOs) in the three cities.

?On a long term-basis the carriage fee will come down on per-channel basis because the capacity of cable has gone up,? he states.

The first one on the radar was Disney XD which was mainly concentrated in South India and the objective was to take it to the Hindi Speaking Markets, the primary market for most kid?s broadcasters.

?We believe that is the channel that should be able to cross the 100 GRP mark. This would mean that out of the six major (kids) channels in the country, three would be with us,? he says.

Disney XD, according to him, has more than doubled its GRPs from 35 to 65-70.

On the movie channels side, the thrust was on having a reach on par with top three channels in the genre - Star Gold, Zee Cinema and Max. The priority for Bindass and UTV Stars, on the other hand, was to maintain its reach among the SEC AB 15-24 HSM 1mn+ market.

According to Anand, kids and movie channels put together are drivers for the network.