“It’s important to measure what India watches today now more than ever”

“Advertisers look for ROI. For advertisers, investment on television remains the single best source. As every research has shown, ROI on TV is significantly higher than any other medium. But it is a business of content and there is huge consumption happening on digital. However, if you do just digital, ROI can go horribly wrong. In fact, I am thinking of how to bring digital to television again,” these were the observations of Punit Misra, CEO, Domestic Broadcast Business, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, while discussing ‘The Next Seismic Shifts In Television’ at the recently concluded Zee Melt 2018 conference in Mumbai. 

Also participating in the panel discussion that hosted by SureWaves were Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, and Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India. Paritosh Joshi, Principal, Provocateur Advisory, was the moderator. 

When asked about the move to launch Zee5 being defensive or a strategy to be at the front foot in the industry, Punit Misra remarked, “For me, OTT is another way in which content will get consumed. More platforms giving avenues to more content is better than the content just being on TV. I see this as an essential complimentary offering for the audience who consume content digitally.” 

When asked by Paritosh Joshi as to how BARC intends to measure the other screens (digital) that are not TV, Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India, replied, “It’s not about the screen, it’s about content. It is all about how you measure content. Unfortunately, it needs to be discreet in this digital space. Although there is a convergence happening at every level, which makes it important to measure what India watches today now more than ever.” 

Joshi then asked IPG Mediabrands CEO Shashi Sinha when agencies were going to move towards CPTs, to which he responded by saying, “I generally believe that CPT is a way of life and a lot of advertisers use CPT. There are various advantages that it offers from a media planning perspective. I think as the market evolves, digital, too, will take its place; it’s just a matter of time that the agencies’ mindset will also change towards it.” 

Here, Punit Misra put forth an interesting observation that when one looked at the CPRP numbers, they have been going up in the few years, however, “the moment you look at the CPT numbers, the rating numbers have been on a 14 per cent decline YOY for the last 5 years”. 

He further said that when it comes to consumers, they have this option to reject an ad that they don’t want to see.

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