The first 12 months of the pandemic in 2020 created a winner for news channels and a loser for cinema halls – and by that extension – Hindi and Bollywood cinema.
In the first one year of Covid-19, people, citizens, and viewers were glued onto television news channels for information on Covid, to understand what was happening around them and to get updates and solutions. The pandemic was a huge event that had audiences glued to television news, eager to know what was in store for them. To the credit of news channels, they rose to the occasion, news reporters, cameramen, and TV broadcast newsroom professionals worked overtime to make sure that they were sharing news in real-time and in the public interest.
On the contrary, cinema halls were shut down because of the Covid restrictions and audiences were not able to access them, irrespective of whether they were multiplexes or single theatres. Over-the-top (OTT) became the mainstay of entertainment. It made viewers discover content on all the platforms and got them accustomed to OTT in the safe confines of their homes.
As the face-to-face or physical economy returned, thanks to the vaccination drive by the Indian government and because of Covid subsiding, the experiential economy came roaring back. Weddings, hotels, restaurants, airlines, malls, parties, schools, and offices – all reopened with a vengeance – but cinema halls in north India did not seem to conform to this trend. There seemed to be a dearth of movie-goers thronging the theatres for Hindi movies and Bollywood content.
However, in contrast, South Indian cinema continued to offer one hit after another and South Indian blockbusters became bigger and bigger, thanks to their record collection at the box office and drew in record footfalls at the cinema halls. Audiences were thronging cinema halls to watch South Indian movies and films like RRR, PS 1 and Pushpa were big hits, by any past standards, to which the biggest hits of Bollywood didn’t even come close.
It made me and us, wonder at what was going on and what the reasons were for the differential performance of Bollywood vis-à-vis south Indian cinema. Being a cinema aficionado, I love to watch movies in a cinema hall and wondered why more people were not thronging the movie theatres to watch Hindi films. In fact, in mid-February 2021, when the coronavirus wave subsided and restrictions were relaxed for a while, I went to a multiplex in south Delhi to watch a movie and I only saw six other viewers apart from me in the hall. It made me think then and I have been thinking and thinking about it over the last six months.
I wondered like many people in my industry, at what was happening and why? I have been thinking, whatever happened to the charm of Bollywood?
At the same time, news channels continued to do well and their revenues continued to be steady. In fact, it grew in the first 21 months of the Covid pandemic. However, since April this year, the viewership of some leading news channels have dropped and I did write a piece raising some basic questions on the television ratings mechanism, which by the way, still remain unanswered. I still believe that there is a lot that needs to be done to improve ratings and make them tamper-proof. However, what has been worrying me more is the fact that the viewership of news channels and television viewership as per ratings research, is not growing.
Now we have to investigate what the factors responsible for this are. I watch news for two to three hours every day. I can live without cinema, but not without news on television. I have been this way since 1991, first watching Doordarshan, then CNN and for the last 20 years, all the leading news channels. It’s my job too to watch news and I do take it seriously, but more importantly, I enjoy tuning into television news channels.
Let’s look at the historical context. The Indian television news business has been dependent on four ‘C s’, namely Crime, Cricket, Cinema and say – in the last six years – on Cacophony! I of course, refer to the debates at the television studios. What has changed about television news that is not helping it grow its audiences?
Is there possibly, an issue with the way the audience measurement is organised? Does the system favour entertainment channels? I don’t know. I don’t think so. However, I am only asking legitimate questions. In fact, four years back, possibly the most celebrated Indian media leader who turned into an entrepreneur partnering with India’s biggest business owner and the world’s leading media owner, complained about the falling universe of entertainment content on Indian television and asked some hard-hitting and serious questions.
This media leader was amongst the few handfuls who were founding members of the viewership rating mechanism and served on all media industry bodies and wielded clout and credibility. The question is, why did a celebrated media leader question the decline in viewership with some straightforward basic questions, even when it came to entertainment TV content? Why was he not satisfied? Were his questions addressed? The only thing you may want to factor in is that he is now a shareholder in a leading sports broadcaster, who is also a shareholder in the entertainment platform. The point is, that these questions should be and are raised by all news TV owners, CEOs and editors too, as they are basic. Why is the news TV viewership shrinking?
If for a moment, we take the TV news viewership data and its universe on face value, we have to ask, what are the reasons for the television news viewership universe not growing. If the stagnation or the shrink is indeed true, rather than blaming everyone else and the business media that reports it honestly, the television news promoters and CEOs and editors have to introspect. They will find the answers and if they ask the right questions, hopefully, the solutions too. However, in my view, the reasons that the TV news audience is not growing and the reason that Bollywood is not being able to pull audiences into the cinemas is the same and here they are:
- Sticking to old formulas of doing content, no freshness, no reinvention and not investing in content that is deep. Re-invention needs to happen for both Bollywood and television news fast and at a scale.
- New challengers are chipping at the existing Players. New talent ideas have to be given more credence and experiments with content and boldness of content have to be showcased and if it works, be expanded on. The WION channel is a great example of this and there are multiple reasons why WION eventually did well, but digital traction and differentiated content are two main reasons for it.
- We need younger leaders, both in the television news domain in all functions, especially editorial and in Bollywood.
- Both have to stop taking shortcuts. Let me explain this. In television news channels some news broadcasters tom-tom about being ‘Number one’, in spite of the fact that most of their ratings come from the investments they do in the landing pages and not content or marketing. How convenient? In Bollywood, the shortcuts are big stars, big directors and safe scripts.
- Audiences both in news channels and Bollywood have tasted new blood. Viewers are consuming video content online from news startups that are not linear but only Digital and bold and honest. Ditto in Bollywood, where newer directors are experimenting with bold themes and scripts and taking up taboo issues that are real and appeal to audiences.
- The scale has to be multiple times where it is now and the content and delivery have to be scaled up. In news channels, Indian news broadcasters have to learn from my favourite TV news channel CNN, how they invest in their people, how they cover an event and how the anchors are brands that are nurtured. They are not dependent on one face for pulling in audiences. South cinema can inspire Bollywood by its sheer scale, quality of production, investments and marketing blitzerkeig.
While the audience measurement system needs to be fixed and made more honest, leading broadcasters can shun the landing pages to get real and be honest about their actual viewership. You can only improve what you can measure. If you take out full-page advertisements when the landing pages give you viewership, who are you kidding? It is a sense of false achievement that you are lulling and you are telling your teams and the ecosystem that this is ‘okay’. Whoever can outspend on landing pages can fool their promoters, internal colleagues and advertisers. Na–na, that’s foolhardy. Get real guys.
The only people who benefit from this are people who want to game the news channel ecosystem. Don’t fall prey to them.
Truth must prevail and it will prevail.
Dr Annurag Batra has been writing on media for two-plus decades and is the Founder of exchange4media and the Editor-in-Chief of BW Businessworld.
First published on exchange4media.com