Freedom that isn't

A diagnosis for the doctor

Newspapers have a shelf life of 12 hours, while TV channels are history in 10 minutes. People have a very short memory, specially when it comes to politicians. Don’t make things worse by talking about news. Just ignore it!

It was during the last year of CBN's rule that YSR undertook a padayatra that captured the imagination of the citizenry of the state that was getting jaded with a stoic-looking economics-student-turned-politician from Kuppam. Two and half years later, the people of Andhra Pradesh are getting bored of YSR. Not that YSR has overreached or underdone himself. It's more to do with his obsession on what the media thinks of him and how people of the state perceive him.

Small mis-steps have led to huge conflagrations all of which have led to the government putting one after another. Handling media is a fine art, and one has to learn that from the people who have mastered it. Handing out plots at dirt cheap rates to so-called journalists of shady media houses helps only those in the bottom of the chain. These are people who work for yellow rags and can do little to help YSR with positive news. At the end of the day, it has been proved by media surveys that people read top three newspapers of every genre. Going by this logic, YSR needs to be worried about what gets written in Deccan Chronicle, The Times of India, The Hindu among the English language dailies Eenadu, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothi in the vernacular media. What appears in other newspapers is of little consequence.

The British media, specially the tabloid newspapers are considered the scum of earth and have tested the patience of the royalty and the political elite. Rupert Murdoch's raunchy Sun competes with other rags like News of the World to come up with the gutter news about the rich and famous. But the strict libel laws in Britain, have often deterred these tabloids from publishing news that would have otherwise found their way in Ripley's 'Believe it or Not'. Over the years, thick skinned British politicians have found a way to survive the muck that is dredged up by the tabloid journalists. Pamper, Pester and Plaster is the dictum, and YSR can learn from that to keep himself on the right side of the media.

First, don’t antagonise the press. Today, YSR has achieved the impossible in the media industry in the state. By targeting Eenadu and Ramoji Rao, he has united the disparate elements in the state media into one single unit. The botched up GO seeking to gag the news media has made things worse. Even those who hate Ramoji Rao, are today forced to side with him in what is seen as a blatant attempt to muzzle the negative publicity that is hounding the YSR government.

It’s here that YSR needs some education on how to handle media. To start with, you cannot stop people from talking bad about you. It happens in our personal lives and so will it happen when you are the head of a state. By reacting to a negative news, you only give it more publicity. Newspapers have a shelf life of 12 hours, while Television channels are history in ten minutes. People in our country have a very short memory, specially when it comes to politicians. Don’t make things worse, by talking about news. Just ignore it, and it will die a natural death. Obsession with what is written in the media borders on paranoia, and one would need a Joseph Goebbles to counter that.

Cultivate the media. When you do good things talk about it. Not at press conferences, which are often attended by good-for-nothing unemployed reporters, who will write anything for a cup of tea. Talk one to one with senior reporters. Call them to your Begumpet residence individually and treat them like a king. The guy will go ballistic and talk about YSR being akin to Jesus Christ. Talk only to major newspapers, nobody reads the chota-mota newspapers. Stamp out a bad news before it gets to the airwaves. Television is a great medium to have instant nirvana. Don’t wait for the television guys call you for a news bite. You call them instead.

YSR can start off by scrapping the Directorate of information and public relations (DIPR) and put in a professional PR outfit to handle his image. The babudom at DIPR has over the years become inefficient and corrupt. They will tell the CM what he wants to listen, and that’s the first sign of sycophancy. Scale down the operations at the DIPR, and eventually shut it down. It will do a world of good for YSR’s image.

Media is like a horse, handle it well and it will trot along. Mishandle it, and you will be thrown off the saddle and be trampled.

Courtesy: Pix from net editions of The Hindu & Business Line

Write to us at vikram.apmedia@gmail.com

TV5 enters the fray

Looks like it’s the season of aaya Rams – gaya Rams!

NTV got a taste of its own medicine! I Satyanarayana, the core team member who resigned, has joined TV5, another channel in the pipeline. So, talent-poacher NTV has itself lost some to rival, even before its launch!

News is in that IS was upset at the princely treatment given to juniors at NTV. For instance, Ramachandra Rao, was offered a salary that was close to what was offered to IS. Ram was a stringer at Chennai when IS was the News Editor of ETV2. TV5 is a natural choice for IS. He is close to the new channel’s CEO, Sivaram Prasad, a former colleague. Prasad was the initial promoter of Satya TV and his long-time associate Rajkumar heads the Marketing Team at TV5. (Geddam) Narsimha Rao is likely to join soon.

Talk is that like in the case of NTV, there are some hidden hands behind the main promoter. Got any inputs? Write to vikram.apmedia@gmail.com

Those who missed, please check reports of a survey in US on blogs. Times of India has it on Page 20 of Thursday’s edition.

Fissures @ NTV

Narendranath Choudhury’s NTV has started off on the wrong foot!

I Satyanarayana, among the first to join NTV, has walked out. He resigned on Sunday (!) evening (thank you, mailer). There is no news on why IS left or where he is headed and multiple versions are doing the rounds!

The exit of a core team member even before the launch of the channel belies assessment that NTV, which has recruited a team of seniors, would have a head start. On the contrary, IS resignation might spell trouble — journalists planning to join the place would think twice now, nay, may even make a hasty retreat. After all, AP Media is rich in examples of false starts and short-lived experiments. What’s more, none wants to risk being nowhere when the coveted house plots are about to be allotted!

The latest development has also given scope for guesswork — doubts are being raised about team spirit among the top guns at NTV. Talk is that KSR, the bulldozer, railroaded his proposal to rope in his protégé Yadagiri Reddy. That had upset a few. And there are some in the competition who see the latest development at NTV as the thin end of the wedge! Let’s see how it plays out.

The art of faking

"Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive,

but what they conceal is vital."

A few days ago, we discussed the concept of fudging circulation figures in the Chennai market. After having played the dirty game in Chennai and burnt their hands and pockets, DC bosses are limping back to Hyderabad. And to keep the morale of their troops high, DC bosses have some news to share. The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures July to December 06 are out and DC shows a figure of 3.85 lakhs for Hyderabad. That's almost a growth of one lakh copies for the last calendar year 2006. Is it too good to be true?

If the figures are any indication to go by the English readership in Hyderabad has grown by over 2 lakh copies. That's more than Bangalore city, the biggest English market down south. Media analysts say that the DC has grown by just about 38,000 copies in the last calendar year. The rest is just straight forward dumping.

In the print industry, a hike in advertising tariff follows increase in circulation. That is because someone has to bear the cost of printing more number of copies. It costs about 5 rupees to produce a 24-page newspaper, with a mix of 16 black & white and eight colour pages. Which means in the last one year, DC has been spending about 5 lakh rupees more every day to print a 24 page across the state. That is 150 lakh rupees extra every month. That translates into about Rs.18 crores in the last one-year. DC bosses while publishing their annual financial results have hidden that amount from their auditors.

DC is in a Catch 22 situation, and has not been able to pass on the cost of increase to its advertisers, who might defect to Hindu or Times. Going by logic DC should have upped their ad rates by about 30% to take care of the higher input costs. Not doing that makes everyone in the media industry apprehensive. Dal mein kuch kaala hai!

This is exactly what happened to Hindustan Times in their circulation war with Times of India in Delhi. After a five-year bloody battle, both Hindustan Times and The Times of India were almost neck and neck in the Delhi market. Times lost money, but HT lost a lot more. Times survived because of their deep pockets but HT did not have any such luck. Even the backing of the Birla group did not help, and HT called for a truce.

Now, HT and Times have come together in a 50:50 joint venture to produce an afternoon newspaper titled Metro in Delhi. This move was unthinkable a few years ago, and it shows that as in politics there are no permanent enemies or friends in media business. This move is aimed at thwarting the plans of the India Today group, which is planning to start a daily in Delhi titled Today. Incidentally, the editor of the new daily of India Today is Kingshuk Mukherji, the ex editor of Times, Hyderabad. Sourish Bhattacharya who handled HT city is now the Executive Editor of Today.

Today, HT does not want to grow from where it stands now. The inference is obvious, as more circulation will mean higher printing costs. If one goes by that logic, DC should have stalled their growth in Hyderabad at around 3 lakh copies. But DC bosses seem to be going against industry norms. Analysts see only one reason why the Reddy brothers are doing this. Being a listed company, they have to show stupendous growth year on year. Or else, there will be a bloodbath in the stock market.

It seems, DC bosses are going for the broke. As they say, finally when the shit hits the fan, there will be nobody around to take it.

Perilous Emotional Heroism

Channels in a flux

Managements of mana Telugu television channels seem to be as good (or as bad) as the Indian cricket team management! Just as our cricket team is in a shambles ahead of the World Cup, our channel houses are in deep confusion ahead of competition getting tougher, what with the much-talked-about NTV gearing up for launch. Opinions might vary on NTV’s prospects, but without doubt the channel has compounded confusion at the existing ones, if not actually triggering it.

Management-related issues are bugging employees at three channels: ETV, TV9 & Maa; Confusion and uncertainty triggered by Operation Undavalli has taken a toll on ETV employees and a good number of them have applied for the upcoming channel. As a result of the recent turmoil, ETV has postponed pay hikes to ETV2 programme employees, originally planned for last November. Naturally, some of them drove down the road to the new channel’s office.

At TV9, no one knows when Srini would exit from the company, offloading his stake. Venture Capitalist Srini, we hear, is mighty upset over Ravi Prakash’s sudden somersault, to take a pro-Congress line. Srini, apolitical though, would any day prefer the ‘progressive’ yellow brigade. Srini not only wants to walk out but also deliver a parting shot to Ravi Prakash – ensure his role is cut in the new set-up post his exit. That’s precisely what Ravi is seeking to avoid and the continuing one-up game is keeping the staff guessing on the final outcome.

Meanwhile, our friend Ravi Prakash summoned department heads after learning that 40 of his staff applied at NTV and spelt out his policy clearly: “Tell them to first resign here before submitting applications there.” Now, that argument makes sense only when you are the boss!

The scene at Maa TV is no less blurred. Insiders say they are witnessing a cold war of sorts between the two Tollywood stars, Nagarjuna and Chiranjeevi, stakeholders in the company. Super Nag fighting a two-way battle to be the Boss, with Indra Chiru one hand and with the real boss, founder promoter Murali Krishnam Raju on the other. Sharma stepped on Raju’s toes, occupying his chamber, for which he paid dearly. Chiru's frontman Sarat Marar replaced Sharma as the COO. Sharma is still around as the chief advisor but there’s no guessing how long he is going to last! Moreover, some biggies who left after Nag & Chiru stepped in are said to be planting doubts in the minds of the staff about the channel’s future.

Gemini group, the most successful among Telugu channels, too is going through a rough patch. Muniraju, the Tirupati hero who captured live visuals of the attack on Chandrababu Naidu at Alipiri, is the now the de facto bureau chief. Nobody whom Gemini bosses interviewed for the post of bureau chief, including Madhav of AJ, showed interest in joining the channel. The volatile situation at Gemni is said to be the reason for the disinterest. Of course, none would forget how the channel indiscriminately fired more than 20 news staff in one day without prior notice.

Star to form JV with Balaji for Telugu channel

Star Group is partnering with Balaji Telefilms to launch a Telugu entertainment channel. The channel would be launched around August. Star would be the majority stakeholder in the joint venture with Balaji Telefilms.

NTV’s claim: Guess how many would have applied for jobs at NTV? Given the questionable credentials of the promoter and the supposedly hidden ‘hands’ behind the channel, one would assume not many. Reality is otherwise. One senior at NTV proudly declared recently that the channel received more than 2,500 applications, for all jobs –journalist, technical HR etc. “We are flooded with applications and have multiple options in selecting the staff,” he said.

Resignations: ETV2: Political reporter at ETV2 Dronamraju Ramachandrarao decided to call it quits -ending almost 12 years of association with Eenadu group. He is now on long leave and we know what it means. His exit comes close on his bureau chief Moorthy quitting to join NTV as Bureau Chief for a pay Rs 43K plus car. We are not sure if Ramachandrarao too would join Moorthy at NTV but AP politicians would be relieved now that Ram is out of action, at least for the time being. Ram, who worked at Chennai and Tirupati before joining the bureau in Hyderabad, is known for his non-conventional approach. He had the knack of posing tricky questions and evoke ‘something controversial’ from the netas.
Deccan Chronicle: We hear ASR is on the way out. No news on what shocked the Transco correspondent but his exit would cut the elite club of senior reporters, with 10 years plus of service @ DC, to just two.
DNA scouting: At last DNA seems to be getting serious about launching the Hyderabad edition. The paper has started scouting for seniors to join its bureau in the city. At least half a dozen reporters received cold calls – two each from DC and ToI and the rest from other organizations. That’s good news. However, those who got the calls are surprised that it’s a city businessman making them instead of the local chief.

write to us at vikram.apmedia@gmail.com

The Lord of Great Things

This is one issue that has united strange bedfellows, from the MIM to TRS to the TDP and even some Congressmen. The making of Greater Hyderabad is now a foregone conclusion, with the Andhra Pradesh High Court clearing the decks by dismissing the petition filed by MIM. The court has allowed the petitioners to file their objections with the government, which is only a formality. With the setting up of Greater Hyderabad, the contours of the politics and development of the state capital, with the twin cities will change forever.

The 715 km area, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will become one of the biggest urban agglomerations in the country. It will merge seven municipalities from Ranga Reddy district, including Alwal, Gaddiannaram, Kapra, Kukatpally, LB Nagar, Malkajgiri, Rajendranagar, Serlingampally, Qutballapur and Uppal Kalan. Greater Hyderabad will also gobble up two municipalities, Patancheru and Ramachandrapuram in Medak district. Gram Panchayats including Tukkuguda, Jalapally, Mankhal, Mamidpalli, Ravarala, Satamarai, Shamshabad, Sharadanagar in the outlying districts will also get amalgamated. In a way, GHMC will make Ranga Reddy district irrelevant in the new scheme of things.

For MIM, this move will sound their death knell, as their stranglehold on the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad and the new set-up GHMC will weaken considerably. The writ of Owaisi and Co Pvt Ltd does not run beyond Barkas. Trying to win in an area like Malkajgiri is akin to India beating Brazil in football.

The BJP is the only party celebrating as it has all to gain and nothing to lose. With TRS and Congress parting ways, the biggest gainer in the new set-up will be the saffron brigade. The party which has a good hold in the city proper and some of the other municipalities will play on the Hindutva card, a la Shiv Sena in Mumbai. It will work wonders in many areas of the old city, where communities are highly polarized on communal lines.

With TRS and Congress parting ways, Bandaru Dattatreya can look forward to gaining the upper hand in Secunderabad. Kishen Reddy who has the record for the best development schemes among the MLAs in the twin cities will look to sew up his pocket borough of Himayatnagar. On the other hand, Karwan, Begum Bazar, Maharajgunj, Musheerabad, Malakpet will witness a renewed BJP onslaught. To make all this happen, city BJP President, Prem Singh Rathore will have to bring disparate party elements together into a well-knit team.

In Congress, the biggest losers will be the Hyderabad brothers, Sashidhar and Janardhan Reddy. The new set-up will make it difficult for PJR to lay claim to the fact that he has an absolute hold in the affairs of a number of constituencies that fall in the Central, West and North zones of the city. YSR on his part will go all out to ensure that PJR's nominees for GHMC are humbled at the hustings. PJR is all the more aware that his detractors had played the same dirty trick on him during the last Assembly elections, when he lost to rookie Vijaya Rama Rao. The sabotage plan is to ensure that PJR and his henchmen do not win too many seats and start demanding the mayor's post in GHMC. Sashidhar Reddy is a one-man army unlike PJR and winning the divisions in Sanathnagar will be tough for the well-mannered gentleman.

For the TDP, it is a case of being neither here nor there. Devender Goud who will lose all his footing with the setting up of Greater Hyderabad is the most vociferous opponent from the opposition. Goud knows that once TDP is elbowed out of the electoral race for GHMC, it will be curtains for him, and with it his dream of upstaging CB Naidu. For Goud, the delaying tactic in the form of an appeal to the Supreme Court is the last straw.

For the TRS, the setting up of Greater Hyderabad is a precursor to de-linking the city from the proposed Telengana and paving the way for a conspiracy to make Hyderabad a union territory. In the GHMC elections, KCR and his men will have to fight it alone, and will not stand a ghost of a chance to win, especially in areas like Kukatpally, LB Nagar and Dilsukhnagar which are heavily populated by people from coastal region. The anti-Medak stance of KCR in the IIT issue will cost his party dear, specially in the city outskirts. The abysmal performance of party MLAs from the city, Nayani Narasimha Reddy and Padma Rao will complete the rout.

On the other hand, the move to create Greater Hyderabad will help the state government access funds under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Union Minster Jaipal Reddy and the ex MCH boss PK Mohanty, now the head of JNNURM have considerable say in the release of urban development funds. The central government is already talking of extending Rs 2,000 crore grant for the Hyderabad Metro project. The third phase of Krishna water project which was given up, is now being dusted up and sanctions are on the way with funding assurances from Jaipal Reddy.

The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad will don the new title of Greater Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. All the newly merged municipalities will initially serve as sub offices all reporting to the super boss of MCH, Sanjay Jaju. The Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) will also get a new avtaar, Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) with a de-centralised setup.

For the average citizen, anything good is welcome, Greater or not so Great. What they will be worried about is the likely impact of Greater Hyderabad on property taxes, water and sewerage charges will be a bone of contention. MCH authorities concede that there will be an appreciation in taxes, but the increase will be done in a graded manner. The crucial question is about the status of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board. The infrastructure development in SCB area is nothing much to write home about. Building rules are violated with impunity and builders care two hoots for rules and regulations.

The term of the present body of MCH ends on February 11th, and corporators are waiting in anticipation to see when the proclamation for Greater Hyderabad would come about. MCH officials say that once the objections are filed, Government would go through them as a formality and reject them outright. Then the moment for notification will arrive.

Greater Hyderabad is an idea whose time has come. What it requires is the will to succeed in ensuring a better quality of life for the citizens, specially the new ones who have come into its fold. Democracy is after all for the people, by the people.

Write to us at vikram.apmedia@gmail.com

The Star is fading

Aasmaan pe udne wale, mitti me mil jayega

At one time it was the tiara of the Rupert Murdoch group, and today it is struggling to stay afloat. Satellite Television for Asian Region (or STAR for short) Indian operations has been a hot spot on the Murdoch family’s media business in Asia. When Rupert Murdoch bought the satellite business from Hong Kong real estate tycoon, Li Ka-Shing, the business model was in doldrums. Today, STAR is said to have more than 300 million viewers in 54 countries.

With his sharp business acumen and devil may care attitude, Murdoch set about building up his fledgling satellite television business. Such was the early dominance of the STAR channels that cable TV in our country was known as STAR TV. Slowly as the business matured, STAR pressed home the early mover advantage. One of the big bosses who built up the revenues for the group was Peter Mukerjea.

Peter led a team that comprised of Samir Nair, a young hotel management graduate from Chennai. Samir, who went on to IIM Ahmedabad, was the back office and programming genius. He knew what would click and what didn't with the Indian audiences, specially the housewives. Mukerjea looked after the sales part, which did well for years on end. When they clicked, they were like a house on fire.

Soon, business grew and STAR with annual sales of Rs 800 crores became the second biggest media company in the country, after the Times of India group which had annual sales totaling to Rs 3,000 crore. For all the facade of an Indian company, STAR India has an umbilical cord stretching all the way to Hong Kong. In fact 80% of STAR's turnover came from India. Murdoch knew that he needed his men to keep an eye on the Indian operations, which was the cash cow of the group.

Murdoch senior brought in his son James Murdoch to do the policing job from STAR's headquarters in Hong Kong. But James soon grew tired of a market he could little fathom, with soaps in which women cried their heart out, or a crazy game called cricket. He moved on in 2003, to head BSkyB in the UK and Michelle Guthrie took over as CEO of Star TV Hong Kong. The fast talking and sometimes paranoid lady knew that she needed to do a revamp the Indian operations if STAR India was to stay ahead in the media sweepstakes.

In March last year, STAR India was split into two separate divisions - STAR Group India and STAR Entertainment India. Peter Mukerjea, who was chief executive officer of STAR India, was named the chief executive of STAR Group India. At the same time, Michelle promoted her blue-eyed boy Nair, who was then the chief operating officer of STAR India, as the chief executive of STAR Entertainment India. For Mukerjea, the new job was demotion and a loop line posting. That was a mistake in hindsight, and the genesis of STAR India’s downfall. Samir is a brilliant programming man, but a disaster in sales. To Samir's bad luck Amitabh pulled out just as KBC 2 was taking off.

STAR Plus, which contributes to over 80% to the star kitty, is now in the sick bay. The channel, which mopped up Rs 795 crore last year, is not expected to make beyond Rs 600 crore this year. With viewers getting tired of Saas and Bahu like serials, ratings have gone into a tailspin. Even STAR One, which was launched two years back, is still in the red. Now with the Government of India setting new rules for sports telecast, its distribution deal with Nimbus is deep trouble.

KBC 3 on STAR Plus has drawn a mixed response. According to online rating agency AMAP, the show saw a rating of 5.35 percent on the opening day, and has since been on a decline to land up just 3.3 on the fourth day. STAR bosses say that they will wait for TAM ratings to come in before they react. The talk is that like Tata's buy out of Corus, STAR's huge payment to SRK seems to have gone over the top, and made the show unviable.

To top it all, the ascent of Zee with Pradeep Guha at the helm of affairs is beginning to show on the fortunes of STAR India. A hands-on boss, Guha is recreating the magic, that he had done during his days at the Times group. Revenues at Zee are on the rise, and even the flanking channels are making money. Guha is pushing the sales teams in Zee into an overdrive in a bid to overtake Star.

As things in Star India began to become messier, Michelle Guthrie was given the sack. She was replaced by Paul Aiello as chief executive officer of STAR, Hong Kong. Aiello, who had a fairly long stint with Morgan Stanley, joined STAR last year and was responsible for developing strategic and business directions.

Samir Nair who was seen as Guthrie's protégé, quit just a day before KBC 3 with new host, Shah Rukh Khan went on air. With an aggressive Zee hot on its tails, Peter Mukerjea too realised that he had no chance to move into Samir's slot and arrest sales decline at Star, and put in his papers. A firangi, John Askera will take over as the new COO of Star India.

Samir Nair is said to be speaking to Radhika and Prannoy Roy to take charge of the entertainment channel to be launched by NDTV in partnership with filmmaker Karan Johar's Dharma Productions. On the other hand, Mukerjea is said to be joining Mukesh Ambani who is planning to launch a slew of channels.

Media watchers say that with the departure of Mukerjea and Samir, morale at STAR is down and out. The new boss, Askera is said to be making a renewed attempt to halt the decline, and was holding a series of meetings to reassure that things were fine. But, will Star ever emerge out of Samir and Mukerjea's shadows?

The Economist has suggested that News Corporation may eventually merge STAR with BSkyB and DirecTV to form a global satellite TV company.

Will it all click? Watch this space.