The Sahara India Parivaar, estimated to have a turnover of Rs 160 billion, has this knack of getting into the news and, most of the time, for all the wrong reasons. The group's media and entertainment business, a growing revenue stream for the diversified conglomerate, has been no exception to this rule.
Critics had sniggered at the group's foray into the domestic airlines business some years back, but have been more or less silenced since then due to the creditable performance. Similarly, when the Sahara group decided to dabble in media products, starting off with a Hindi language daily, the critics had pointed out that it is another flight of fancy of the group's managing director, Subroto Roy, who prefers to call himself the managing worker much to the chagrin of critics who claim that the group doesn't have any creditable HR policy.
Then came a Hindi general entertainment channel! Critics crowed that Sahara's media & entertainment business was just another ploy by the Roys to give themselves some power, the likes of which is wielded by the Jains of the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., or the Birla-Bharatiyas of the Hindustan Times Ltd. or the Kasturi family of The Hindu. Sceptics also pointed out that Sahara's flirtations with media would end soon. The speculations have died out now that Sahara has emerged as a serious player in the media business in the country.
One of the reasons for such an all-pervasive notions about Sahara may be because the group's senior executives, leave alone Roy, seldom interact with the media. Instead, Roy prefers to throw lavish and star-studded parties (attended by topnotch editors, of course) which become the talk of the town and regularly get featured on page three. But for a change, the Sahara group decided to open up a bit and talk about its media & entertainment business.
In this rare interview conducted just before Christmas, Sumit Roy (no relation of the promoter family), a deputy director in Sahara India and head of the group's media & entertainment business discusses with indiantelevision.com's Anjan Mitra the future prospects of the company, the reason for attempting to launch 30-odd region- specific news channels (Sahara plans to invest close to Rs 6,000 million on the whole news project) and, more importantly, the yearning to be taken seriously, whether it be in general entertainment or in the news category. Roy, as per his own admission, is not new to media as he has been handling the media and organising press conferences from the time he joined Sahara almost 16 years ago.
What is the status of Sahara's news channels projects? Then, between February and June 2003, some of the other news channels will also be launched in a phased manner. In the pipeline are Sahara Samay Mumbai (which will also cover part of the state of Gujarat, apart from Maharashtra), channels meant for the other Hindi-speaking states like Rajasthan, Bihar and National Capital Region (covering Delhi and surrounding areas). So, basically we are looking at six region-specific channels, plus the national news channel by June. Let me also assure you that the work on the first two channels, slated for February launch, are at an advanced stage and the progress is satisfactory. I am also told that some dry runs for training purposes did start some days back. |
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Did the company bring Vinod Dua in because the whole venture was getting delayed because of internal politics and differences between the various channel heads? |
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Really? But Sahara has not denied the stories that have appeared on these lines in the media, including the one on indiantelevision.com. |
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"Our aim will be to offer products which will be as good as BBC and CNN. " |
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That's exactly the point. If you have faith in the channel heads, then why bring in Vinod even as an advisor? |
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Sahara's media ventures, especially the news channels project, have been plagued by delays in what looks like a classic case of failing to deliver on promises made. The announcements were made in 2000 whereas the delivery will be in 2003. When will Sahara clean up its act? Despite the best of our efforts, some things are out of our hands. Let me give you an example - people from the (foreign) companies which are working on the technology aspects, like EMP and Omnibus, want to go on holiday at this time of the year. We cannot stop them as Christmas is around. Moreover, our plans too underwent some changes over a period of time. Broadcasting is a dynamic situation and thanks to our managing worker's vision, the group realised that a different approach has to be adopted for the news channels project. Instead of having a national news channel, it was thought to be better to have several region-specific channels to cater to the huge demands of small advertisers (for a viable advertising platform in the electronic medium) as also the needs of various categories of audiences in this vast country. We are in a unique position to cover the country via our 30 plus news bureaus and other outlets. That's why I'd say that the delays you are referring to are all perceived delays considering the logistics of the project. |
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Since you are launching region-specific news channels, I am sure the group has done some market research. What would be the advertising market size that you are targeting? |
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Distribution of satellite channels has always been a challenge for broadcasters in India, especially if they are not part of a bouquet, as is evident from the low penetration of the general entertainment channel Sahara TV. How is the group tackling this issue where the news channels are concerned? |
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"We are looking at launching Hindi and English weeklies, including three English weeklies, for the markets which will be targeted by the 30-odd news channels" | |
Has the market been already seeded with STBs for the news channels? |
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So, you have realised that distribution is a problem. Apart from pleasing the cable fraternity, what else is being done? |
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Sahara has set up an earth station on the outskirts of Delhi for uplinking its channels. How much of investment has gone into this and will the uplink facility be used for in-house purpose only or also rented out to outside broadcasters? |
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What sort of branding and positioning is Sahara looking at for its news channels? |
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"I feel DTH is not going to be a successful proposition in India. "
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But don't you think that there are already products like Zee's Alpha channels and ETV's language channels, not to mention Doordarshan's vast network of regional channels, tapping the regional advertising market which will pose competition to Sahara's news channels? |
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Mission and not business? You mean to say the group is into the media business and investing so much in the electronic medium out of charity and the purpose is to serve the people only? |
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Is Sahara looking at making forays abroad with its media products? |
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Apart from the electronic medium, what are the plans for the other media business that Sahara is in? |
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What is Sahara's stand on conditional access? The only objection we had to CAS implementation is that the government should not decide on the channels to be carried as part of the basic tier of free to air channels. The government should decide the minimum number of channels (in the basic tier) and the maximum rate for the service. We have communicated these views to the government. But if, I repeat if, we feel Sahara is not benefiting from CAS and not taking advantage of it, then we may need to change our strategy. |
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Is Sahara TV or the news channels looking at turning pay to increase subscription revenue post-CAS? |
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Does Sahara have any plans where KU-band DTH service is concerned? |
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Why is Sahara group's HR policy so maligned and criticised? Any improvements in the near future? I don't subscribe to the view in the first place at all. The group functions like any other diversified company. Look what happened to the critics of the Sahara's airlines service? Now, along with Jet Airways, we are one of the sought after airlines (in the domestic circuit). And the success for that is largely due to all those who work there as a team. |