Industry: Media
Product: News & Entertainment
Customer : Citizen (and advertisers?)
The Ram Gopal Varma movie RANN, took a dig on electronic media’s unethical practices. Talking point among the tech savvy crowd was suddenly all about the wrong doings of Indian electronic media. My colleague Monica says that ‘Indian electronic media is still in its nascent stage. It still has many years before it can get streamlined’. I agree with her that it will take sometime for quality to improve but it cannot happen unless the viewers of the media take some corrective action. Indian electronic media still needs to bring about policies on how to cover breaking news. The viewers need to come up with a feedback mechanism to express strong views regarding the content. Is it possible? I believe so……
Stake holders in the media industry consider ‘news’ as product similar to that of any traditional manufacturing industry. Are they right in doing so? Well, they are doing a business and need to earn a living and ensure a profit in sales to sustain themselves. Hence they are rightfully performing their role in creation of a product.
When any journalist goes through discussion forums of media personnel on a platform like ‘ LinkedIn . com’ , he/she might have come across serious discussions by members of the media (Read as non-editorial employees in media house) with questions like “how to make the product better for our customers?” Which is good. But, in those discussions customers are not the consumers of their product (news). Customers there meant only the advertisers! I think it is time to recognize that there is a difference between media industry and traditional manufacturing industry. Customer is complex word. Customers are both the consumers of the media (ones who account for the viewership and readership) and the advertisers (who bring in more revenue than circulation by buying advertisement space). Content cannot be created and broadcast without taking into account both of these customers.
Producer, product, consumer, now what? Probably, Target customer!
Well, Consider a case where a cosmetic soap manufacturing giant produces a bad quality soap or selling detergent soaps in the name of cosmetic ones. The target Customers will slowly move away from them. But the sales may continue as the product does serve a purpose. The accidental product here is a detergent and hence the laundry industry might find its use. But was it really the target audience?
No.
There is an increasing trend in media, where the target customer (audience ) is usually among the middle class, upper middle class, tech savvy, fashion savvy, business class or from the software industry (often called techie in Indian media). Most advertisers with big bucks will advertise in the channel or publication only when the target audience count is high and makes up of people from the above mentioned categories. Why? They have the purchasing power. They are the educated class. They want to stay connected with the world. They want news. And they may view/read the advertisements and in turn possibly become the future clients of these advertisers. That is advertising and advertisers have every right to act so.
But are the target audience liking the product? Do they have any issues with the content? Is the target audience that really watching a sleazy show or is the viewership count made up of arbit audience who tuned in for some poor soft porn thrill? Is there really a feedback mechanism for the advertisers to know whether the target audience of their client (media house) is really a fan of the content? I guess not.
Why?
Internet and social media has provided a platform for most people to vent their frustrations or express their opinions. And these sites seem to be faster in information dissemination than electronic TV media. Honestly speaking i came to know of the Carlton Towers fire incident through Google buzz first and not through any news channel. The kind of coverage a local news channel gave to that breaking news was very much in a bad taste. The channel had received few grainy cellphone videos of people jumping off the building to death while avoiding the inferno. The channel kept playing the visuals repeatedly and nothing else. This was broadcast at a time when there was no clarity on whether the rescue operations were over or not. The relatives of the victims might have still been glued to TV sets for information and might not have received any news of their loved one through authorities. At that time, showing dramatically replayed sequences of people jumping off to death, wouldn’t be a shocker to the concerned relatives? And this did not stop here. The TV channel claimed to have identified one of the victims who jumped to her death. They instantly revealed her identity, and kept showing the visuals while referring to her. Also, at the same time one of her friends was called live over phone! Isn’t this in a bad taste? I felt so (and still strongly feel so). I expressed my angst over social networking media. At the same time I noticed that there were lot many people on the internet expressing similar views. I am from the media industry, while those people were all the tech savvy target audience. Did the channel or their advertisers notice it? Maybe not. As it was a tiny rebellion in individual spaces.
Need for a feedback mechanism. Can internet be the solution? Yes..
Let us not write off that tiny rebellion and protest. Internet has become a powerful medium. Businesses are innovating over social media to reach clients. That means if properly channelized there can be an effective feedback mechanism to media houses.
Media wants to produce content that their target audience wants. Target audience too wants a customized product called ‘news’. Advertisers need to know if the target audience is getting what it wants. So feedbacks regarding content through open platform like social media networks is major need of the hour. There needs a creation of publicized space where all the feedbacks regarding content are collected and displayed openly to all. The data and statistics can serve as a guidance to sincere media houses in understanding the pulse of the Target Audience and creating content which the audience loves.
Imagine this…., next time a channel plays dirty, and overnight 1/6th of the country’s population tweets on a website something like this:” we will not watch XYZ channel from tomorrow 00:00 hours until channel apologizes or removes the notorious content .” A bar graph shows 6 lakh people will not watch the channel and only 4 will continue to watch the channel. What could be the impact? Don’t you think the stakeholders and advertisers will bow down to the wishes of the masses. This mechanism applies to any media house be it TV/print/radio/new media.
I request the Target audience not to underestimate their power and please start building a feedback mechanism. Else you’ll have to settle for mediocre and unreliable content. All it needs, is a start. Good luck
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I agree that a feedback mechanism is required to stop the current sham called News media i our Country. Shows like “sansani” are like a bad comedy show, not to mention “Baba ka keher” n so on. Not to say that the English channels are clean either. Times Now has been culprit @ showin repated shots ala EKTa kapoor's Saas serials. TV9 was just crass. They thought this was their BIG time, hence went for TRP. I guess the term Empathy and humane are lost on them. We need to send in our views, but are we strong enough?? and… Read more »
I agree with most of your views Nishant. I was shoscked to see the clip of the woman falling off to death being repeated over and over again. And this is not the first time that media has trashed ethics – is it? We all know of a certain reporter – almost a celebrity – who did stupid and unpardonable things during 26/11. But she continues with her arrogance. Reason? She sells. This kind of shock factor sells. I disagree with your point that the educated class and the other demographic classification that your mentioned are the prime target customers… Read more »
[…] don’t watch news channels, so I was spared the repeated shots (a good post by my friend Nishant) of those tragic jumps. I was watching the stream though, and […]
I agree that a feedback mechanism is required to stop the current sham called News media i our Country. Shows like “sansani” are like a bad comedy show, not to mention “Baba ka keher” n so on. Not to say that the English channels are clean either. Times Now has been culprit @ showin repated shots ala EKTa kapoor’s Saas serials. TV9 was just crass. They thought this was their BIG time, hence went for TRP. I guess the term Empathy and humane are lost on them. We need to send in our views, but are we strong enough?? and… Read more »
I agree with most of your views Nishant. I was shoscked to see the clip of the woman falling off to death being repeated over and over again. And this is not the first time that media has trashed ethics – is it? We all know of a certain reporter – almost a celebrity – who did stupid and unpardonable things during 26/11. But she continues with her arrogance. Reason? She sells. This kind of shock factor sells. I disagree with your point that the educated class and the other demographic classification that your mentioned are the prime target customers… Read more »