Vineet Jain on Leading India's Media Into the Future
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strategy+business ISSUE 84 AUTUMN 2016 Vineet Jain on Leading India’s Media into the Future BY MUNNISH PURI Vineet Jain Under the leadership of Jain growth in circulation, viewership, and and his older brother, vice chairman revenues. And we’re aggressively on Leading India’s Samir Jain, BCCL has introduced building a digital media business that many innovations in advertising and over time could become larger than Media into the digital technology, including mat- our more mature businesses. Future rimonial and real estate portals; a smartphone app called Alive, which S+B: You were an early strong by Munnish Puri links scanned print images to down- believer in Internet-based publica- loaded videos; partnerships with the tions, back in the early 2000s. feature istory is history. I only care Huffington Post, Airbnb, and Uber; What did you see? “ Habout what’s coming next.” and Brand Capital, which develops JAIN: The newspapers in the West So says Vineet Jain, the managing and funds marketing efforts in India were dying. I felt that the same fate marketing, media & sales marketing, director of BCCL, also known as the for startups. BCCL also owns Times would befall India; maybe not for Times Group. BCCL is India’s largest Internet Ltd., one of the largest digital 10 years or more, but eventually. media conglomerate, with revenues media providers in Therefore, we would have to establish of about Rs100 billion (about US$1.5 Asia. With entertain- a big Internet company. We invested billion) per year and with more than ment and media at the beginning. Also, the digital 13,000 employees. It publishes the industries facing medium is interactive, and the news- Times of India, the world’s largest-sell- massive disruption paper is a one-way, passive medium. ing English-language daily (reaching everywhere, we met Interactive media always wins over more than 7.6 million readers), and the Jain in his Mumbai office to ask about passive media. Economic Times, the second-largest- his strategy for the digital age. We believe that Times Internet, circulation English-language business The insights here about media in our digital arm, will one day be a larg- newspaper (the Wall Street Journal is emerging economies are relevant to er business than BCCL is now. Today, 5 the largest). It also owns 40 FM radio many other media companies around it reaches over 171 million users, who stations, 15 online radio stations, 15 the world as they navigate major spend billions of minutes a month magazines, a number of popular tele- shifts in technology and audience across a number of our products. At vision channels (including Times Now, demand. the same time, we continue to focus ET Now, Movies Now, and Zoom TV), on providing value to consumers and live-event businesses such as the S+B: What do you see as the greatest across all media — print, television, Miss India Pageant and the Filmfare challenges facing BCCL, and how radio, and others. Awards (the “Oscars of India”). are you responding to them? BCCL traces its history to 1838, JAIN: The growth of digital has S+B: How are the dynamics of when its first newspaper, the Bombay altered the nature of media, and has news and journalism being altered Times and Journal of Commerce, was challenged norms of what it should by mobile technology? founded; Jain’s family has owned and be. We are fortunate in India to have JAIN: Mobile technology, in particular, managed it since 1948. Despite this size visibility into global trends, which al- is rapidly changing the way the news and longevity, BCCL is also one of the lows us to proactively address them. is consumed as well as produced. most entrepreneurial and rapidly chang- We continue to innovate in print and Capturing news is more “real time” ing media businesses in the world. television media, which drives their than ever before, and increasingly, Photograph courtesy of Vineet Jain anyone with a smartphone can JAIN: Advertising is still underrep- the immersive experiences that will capture the latest events. We now resented in India. Only about 0.35 delight consumers. Unless media give all our journalists smartphones percent of GDP is spent on advertis- outlets can think about capturing to video-capture events live. We are ing, compared with 1.5 to 2.0 percent consumer mind share with great also shifting our focus from long- in the rest of the world. We still see product and content experiences, form content to shorter, smarter room for significant growth. they risk losing their audience’s pieces. Our ability to be pointed, fast, Online, our increased presence attention. and crisp has improved substantially. in performance advertising and clas- sifieds is opening up a larger adver- S+B: You have opened a Brand S+B: India has a vibrant but frag- tiser segment than ever before. In- Capital office in Silicon Valley. What feature features mented audience. There are millions creasingly, across media, brands are is going on there? of people with very different social, looking for native solutions that are JAIN: When we look at digital, there title of the article title economic, and ideological character- less about interrupting the consumer are so many international technology media & sales marketing, istics. How do you address the needs and more about embedding a mes- companies that haven’t come to India of such vastly different segments? sage or brand into his or her conver- yet. It could take them another five JAIN: Our company was tradition- sation. Internationally, there is a huge or 10 years to do so. We want to ally centered around the elite Indian opportunity to build a commercially reach them much earlier; we think consumer. The Times of India and viable model with the Indian audience they would find markets and opportu- Economic Times are a core part of at the core. This gets amplified when nities here. their daily habit. But over the last 10 you consider the age dividend that We are beginning to act as to 15 years, our entertainment prod- India enjoys — its high proportion of venture capitalists. We invest in small ucts, such as Zoom Entertainment young people. We are sure that the technology companies, and we also Network, Radio Mirchi, and Gaana [a overseas young diaspora will become barter advertising in our media, in music streaming service], and our a valued audience over time. exchange for a small stake in these non-English print brands, such as companies. We aim to invest at an 6 NavBharat Times and Vijay Karnataka, S+B: What is BCCL’s approach early stage. have widened our user engagement to new technologies, like wearable bases. We expect that the majority of devices and the Internet of Things? S+B: What is your view of social our audience growth during the next JAIN: I constantly think about what media? few years, across media, will come as is coming next. If you don’t disrupt JAIN: Traditional media houses and we expand further into the heart- your own business, someone else newsrooms have to embrace social land of India. We feel we also have a will disrupt it. We thus continue to media. You can’t fight this technology. significant opportunity with the Indian experiment and innovate, leveraging In fact, it generates a large part of population residing overseas. our technology capabilities and our digital traffic. You have to understand understanding of the consumer. For Facebook consumers, and follow S+B: Will advertising continue to instance, Alive is our experiment with the conversations they are having, be the dominant revenue model for augmented reality. because their reading habits are very Indian media companies, or do These technologies need an different [from those of traditional you foresee other revenue sources effective infrastructure in place, in- consumers]. I tell our journalists to taking its place? cluding great connectivity, to provide get on Twitter and Facebook, because then they experience the gap between S+B: Even though time spent on and I’m happy to say that the govern- what they think is a good story and digital media by young people is far ment has really worked to clean up what people are reading. greater than time spent on print and this process. This was a campaign of The newspaper of tomorrow has TV, we haven’t seen a correspond- national importance, and went to the to be much more than printed text. ingly large shift in advertising dol- very root of good governance. When we first launched our television lars. Why is that? In general, I’m driven by what I news channels, I was already thinking JAIN: The traditional media outlets think is right or just, even if it means of digital convergence. I knew that offer reach, which is not easy for any being politically incorrect. And that the Times of India would require video advertiser to ignore. This will not inevitably means driving change, content, and that we would end up change for a long time, even though especially in this industry and this sharing our content among newspa- digital advertising may be more country. I believe a leader should pers, radio, television, and the digital measurable. For large-format busi- push himself or herself to get out medium. nesses (consumer products, apparel, of his or her comfort zone and take We are moving in the direction financial services), reach will always calculated risks. We should be ready of a common newsroom, where be relevant. Although digital advertis- to challenge the status quo, inno- we constantly update our news and ing is growing faster, we expect it will vate constantly, and disrupt our own feature we don’t wait for the big print story take a long time before we can ignore company’s business model.