8 ISSUES AND INSIGHTS MUMBAI | WEDNESDAY 22 MAY 2019 > > peddling fake facts to support a point of CHINESE WHISPERS view brings an immediate high in audi- Elections and the news media ences and therefore, revenues. Imagine a film full of item numbers, the stuff that The counting day of the general elections will bring a nice high for news channels. But gets audiences in. That is what most of Kamal Haasan’s ‘false votes’ India’s 400 news channels have become. steady viewership and revenues will require more fundamental changes A good chat with their counterparts at entertainment or film channels could Two, increasing ad time or doing any- 403 million on the Tuesday that was and eight per cent. It ended 2018 with 7.2 help. While the peaks are good, you need thing to maximise revenues could put counting day. English news channels per cent of all TV watched in India. the bread-butter programming to keep the audiences off. But pushing for better on the other hand saw it go from 0.4 Advertising and pay revenues are usually a steady level of audiences and therefore rates and more money during elections million impressions to 1.4 million. indexed to share in viewership. Little predictability in revenues. In entertain- can be planned and is kosher. Overall the rise in viewership was as wonder then that news broadcasting ment programming, the steady viewer- By tomorrow, we will know the high as two to six times on Hindi and remains an unprofitable, ~3,000 odd ship comes from soap operas, the peaks results of the general elections that English news channels, and five to 10 crore part of a booming ~74,000 crore come from reality shows or events. On were just held in India. And the total times on regional ones. Indian broadcasting industry. film channels, they come from old films, viewership counting day got. In 2012, TAM Media Research, the And that brings me to the point of such as Sooryavansham, a perennial hit Meanwhile, to get a sense of what erstwhile ratings body, had crunched all this analysis. on Hindi movie channels. They bring While the exit poll results have led to a elections does to news viewership numbers on the viewership spikes from Sure elections bring a nice little spike the steady revenues while latest block- mad scramble among political parties, MEDIASCOPE Business Standard asked the Broadcast elections versus other events from in viewership but to sustain it requires busters such as Dangal or a Sultan bring one finding in particular has left many Audience Research Council or BARC 1999-2009. The Lok Sabha Elections in much more. It requires solid on the the spikes. baffled. A survey in Tamil Nadu predicted VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR for help. It looked at viewership on 2004 and 2009 pushed the news genre ground reporting, fantastic coverage If the only way you can get your audi- Kamal Haasan's Makkal Neethi Mariam counting days for the assembly elec- to over 10 per cent and over eight per and loads of investment in journalism. ence every night is by simply confirming bagging 3-6 per cent of the votes polled in tions in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh cent of viewership. But natural calami- No news channel in India has made that their worst fears and prejudices, then you the Kanchipuram constituency. But the hat the Indian Premier League (2017) and in Mizoram, Karnataka, ties and the Mumbai terror attacks in the last decade. If anything they have are investing in a model with diminishing problem is that the party did not contest or IPL is to sports channels, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, brought far bigger spikes. The latter cut back on reporters, reporting and on returns. Because there are dozens of excel- that constituency because the Election W elections are to news chan- Chhattisgarh and Telangana (2018). On actually led to news channels getting hard, on the ground journalism. News lent quality newspapers and now at least Commission of India did not give nels. They bring a happy spike in view- counting day for the Rajasthan, 18 per cent of the overall TV viewership. channels today depend more on star half a dozen great news sites that do what permission to its candidate to contest. The ership. For news channels, spikes usually Chhattisgarh et al assembly elections, But these are just that — spikes. Over anchors and window-paned shouting news channels forgot long back — report television channel that commissioned the come from an attack, a bomb scare et al. viewership on Hindi channels went the 10 years ending 2018, news viewer- matches. This cheap format comes with the news, all of it. survey admitted the mistake and said that And they can’t always be monetised for from an average of 103 million impres- ship has hardly moved. Its share in total hidden costs — that of sliding quality it was "a human error". two reasons. One, you can’t predict them. sions on the previous four Tuesdays to television viewership hovers between six and rising polarisation. Screeching or Twitter: @vanitakohlik Who’s BJP’s MP hero? Almost all exit polls have shown a thumping win for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Some polls have given the party as many as 27 of the 29 seats in A crude sweet spot Madhya Pradesh. The million-dollar question now is: Who will get credit if the party performs so well in the state? There are compelling reasons for India not sanction waiver, was unusual. Iran has Former chief minister Shivraj Singh been in the sanctions crosshairs several Chouhan is the favourite as he addressed to worry too much about oil prices in the times earlier. The latest of those was on more than 140 public meetings. If the post-sanctions regime December 31, 2011 when Washington DC meetings he attended in other states are imposed sanctions on the Central Bank taken into account, the count will be of Iran as well as third-country banks if more than 220. In the run-up to the SUBHOMOY BHATTACHARJEE to push prices too high. countries importing Iranian oil did not election he, on an average, addressed five In a world market where investment significantly reduce their imports within to six meetings every day. But the leader o what extent would the US in renewables even for transport, the six months. India was immediately of the Opposition, Gopal Bhargava, is in sanctions on Iran, disruptions in mainstay of the market, has now impacted. But Zarif’s first visit to India no mood to give all the credit to Chouhan. T Venezuela and other controver- become the norm than an exception, it materialised only in February 2014. "Shivraj Singh Chouhan might have ruled sial developments in the international is looking increasingly difficult to raise Between 2012 and 2014 to get the state for 13 years but this time we are crude oil market, such as the contami- prices of oil. True, battery-powered around the sanctions India created an going to outperform the Congress because nation of supplies from Russia to electric cars account for only 2.1 per in-country escrow account in state- of the Modi magic," he told a gathering. Europe (a well-cleaning chemical has cent of the global vehicles market or owned Uco Bank favouring the Iranian entered the pipeline that could take about 2 million. That number could rise government to be able to pay for the months to clean up), impact India’s oil by another million in 2019 even as the sales in rupees. But Iran protested import bill? broader auto market declines. There since the entire basis of the US-led No to media The unexpected answer is: Not are optimists and pessimists about elec- sanctions was to cut its access to dol- The Enforcement Directorate has issued much. That’s because India tric vehicles. Against a lars. Tehran kept pressuring India to an order on Tuesday, asking all its officers matters in the global politics Bloomberg New Energy find ways to pay in dollars for the oil, posted in the headquarters and the of oil market as a purchaser, Finance report of 548 mil- and offered no cutback in the price. headquarters' investigation unit to keep a heft it did not have earlier. lion sales of such vehicles by FUTURES HOPE BRENT CRUDE The pressure only ebbed somewhat away from "unwarranted interaction First, it is buying far more 2040, Exxon Mobil puts it at once Mangalore Refinery and with the media". "It has been observed and the rest of the world only 162 million. But the Index Units Price Daily % Contract Year Price in Petrochemicals, which imported that certain information relating to (especially Europe) is buy- direction of mobility and the ($) change Change expiring on $/barrel about $12 billion of crude from Iran ongoing investigations have been ing a lot less. India bought pressure on oil wells is clear West Texas* USD/bbl 63.73 0.51 0.81 Jul ’19 2013 101.0 annually, began to cut back purchases published in the media. This information 226.6 million metric tonnes either way. Hyundai has Intermediate 2014 116.0 because no insurance company was relating to impending action may in 2018-19. Just 12 years ago, announced an investment Crude Futures 2015 42.0 willing to give cover for the shipments. jeopardise the interests of ongoing (2006-07) that figure was of $6.7 billion to develop fuel Since 2015, Zarif has visited India investigations," it said. Henceforth, it half at 111.5 tonnes. Among cells. If Opec or Russia raises Brent Crude USD/bbl 72.39 0.44 0.58 Jul ‘19 2016 42.0 every year.