At first glance, Star India's senior vice president ad sales, Kevin Vaz comes across as unassuming to a fault. But there is no getting away from the fact that this soft spoken man has in eight years risen from being just another ad sales executive to heading sales at India's lead broadcast network.
Vaz, for the first time ever, gets up close and professional in an animated conversation with indiantelevision.com.
Excerpts from an interview Vaz gave to Sonali Krishna:
What was the highpoint of 2003-2004 on the ad sales front as far as Star is concerned. |
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But, there must have a dip in terms of ad sales due to the India-Pakistan matches this year? We planned it differently this year. What we did in terms of strategy was we got our deals in earlier. And we tied up with clients earlier and saw how, instead of doing things last minute, we could work out deals right in the beginning which could be phased out accordingly throughout the year. So we were not under any pressure. Last year, when the World Cup was on, we went through the market trying to offer better deals for that period. This year right across the channels, we did not offer the industry any better deals. Cricket at the end of the day, as much as its strong viewership value, would only happen for 5 days in a month. Star plus delivers rating of cricket 365 days in a year. So, yes, there are few brands which would associate with cricket and which would want that hype, but the same brands cannot ignore Star Plus. If Samsung was the title sponsor for the India-Pakistan series, Samsung at the same time spent huge monies on Star Plus, because they need the other 25 days. So, basically what we did this time is that we got into a lot of forward bookings and that's how we worked it better. |
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At the Star network today, are the channels all sold separately now or are there still network based deals that are negotiated. |
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But I believe that you are going be switching back to the network deals. Well, wherever possible, yes, we will be working out network deals depending on the clients needs. Earlier, since there were three channel heads, network deals were totally out of the question. But it's not going to be a rigid thing. We are not going to enforce something to the effect of every client buying Star Plus has to buy on every other channel. That's not the way we are going to be looking at it. |
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But what would you be pushing, network based deals or singular ones? |
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Star Group CEO Michelle Guthrie has in a recent interview said that even if you have all programmes in the Top 100, there will be a constraint on growth unless you start growing the pie beyond the $500-$600 million that the TV ad market is at today. Do you think the launch of Utsav will go some way in growing the pie? Where Star Plus would fall short would be maybe for smaller clients with smaller budgets. If a client has 50 lakhs (Rs 5 million) to spend over a two or three month campaign, he cannot look at Star Plus. Not because Star Plus cannot deliver the objectives, but Star Plus cannot give you that frequency for such a period. When we looked at Star Utsav, it was designed to compliment Star Plus in terms of:
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But will this mean a strategic way of increasing the pie or will it just be eating into the market share of the SABs and the Saharas (And Zee also I think you mentioned somewhere)? |
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But it will also eat into your competitors' pie…? |
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So basically, small and medium enterprises (SME's) will be your focus TG. |
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Which are the weak babies of Star and what are the potentially strong ones? What is going to be your strategy to improve ad sales across the bouquet? I wouldn't call anything weak. Because if you look at every genre, we are pretty much up there as a number one or a number two. Star Movies is the number one (English) movie channel. |
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But the competition is saying something else... When I say number one, I am not saying there is a huge lead. But Star Movies having a bigger library and more tie-ups automatically delivers higher hits. To continue, if you look at Star World, it doesn't have any competition. Star Gold is one channel which we have focused a huge amount on. In the last one year Star Gold has jumped by a huge percentage. Gone are the days when we used to call Gold a classic channel. In the last 12 months Gold has had the biggest growth for us in terms of channel share, in terms of movies. |
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But clearly, Star Gold is not the leader in its genre, as compared to the other channels under the Star Bouquet. Any specific plans for Gold as regards the coming year? |
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What strategies will you be implementing? |
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Looking at a more general picture, how has the business of deal making between media agencies and channels changed in the recent past? Gone are the days when you would see agencies getting a lot more to the table in terms of strategy, in terms of positioning. It's all about what rate you can buy a Kyunki…, and what rate you can buy a Kahani…And that's what becomes the crux of deciding an agency. That's shocking. Maybe the TV channels are to blame also. This will essentially drive the CPRP lower. So instead of competition taking this one step higher, it has become the prime reason for the fall of CPRPs. Whereas Star Plus has been trying to use this to position itself, competition has not taken up this matter so as to increase sales. |
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But isn't there a forum, where the TV industry sits down and discusses crucial issues which effect you'll as a whole? |
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What have been your experiences in negotiating with media planners and buyers across markets? |
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Is there a threshold level beyond which discounts shouldn't be given? See, we are not like a manufacturing unit, where when the demand increases, you can increase production. For us our 10 minutes remains 10 minutes. So, for us to achieve our objectives one is to try and increase our yield and the second is trying to sell more time bands. Our whole business works backwards. And this is where Utsav will come in, wherein we try give options and variety to out clients. Instead of moving somewhere else, we'll try and get him onto the same basket. |
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What happens when programmes don't get good ratings? We don't sell on CPRP. So yes, for new shows the client is bearing certain amount of risk, but no show has really disheartened our client. |
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Doesn't the fact that Star Plus being so far ahead of the competition in a perverse sort of way devalue the efforts that go into selling it? But yes if you look at it, certain channels may have to sell their product, but the deal with Star Plus is that one is trying to get the highest yield and how you can get maximum out of the clients budget. Our objectives are trying to get clients exclusively onto our network, getting clients exclusively on the channel. And that's the only way we can keep up the game on today's date. |
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The flip side of this is that as far as sales targets are concerned, there would be enormous pressure that sales should match the ratings in terms of the distance between you and the competition? How do you cope? We as a company have never sold on rating points. If you look at it, the share of rating to the share of revenue is disproportionate. The share of revenue is much higher than share of ratings. So, if I had to compare myself to competition, which would be a Sony and a Zee put together, Star's share to revenue ratio, revenues will be much higher. What I am saying is if a Sony has to be a rating 5, Star will be rating 11 and 12, but the revenues will be disproportionate. That's the only reason, why we have not gone down, as the simplest thing for us to do was going by the CPRP route. Being up there, with such huge margin, if I had to give a CPRP guarantee, I don't see Sony or Zee as competition having anything left. |
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On a more personal note, your rise at Star has been phenomenal these last two years. How did your journey with Star begin and what do you believe are the key strengths that have got you where you are today? |
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Your key strengths that you have brought to the table… Believing in the product and trying to see how you can do something beyond. Dedication. |
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So is Kevin Vaz a man of all work and no play or is there a side to you that one has not seen? (Laughs) Well let's just say Kevin Vaz works hard and plays harder. |