Saturday, September 30, 2006

Peter Mukherjea Speech Summary in my words at TiE ISB Connect 2006

Peter Mukherjea, CEO, STAR group, was at ISB for the TiE – ISB Connect event to share his views on “Discovery of New Media Opportunities, blending technologies and leveraging India”.

He started off saying that “convergence” is the key to opportunities in the Media industry. Customers these days have all means available to them to check on the media of today. Be it mobiles or internet or television or radio or wired cars or wired planes, each customer has it at his disposal to make use of it. Thus, it is up to the every media company to find answer to the questions like “Who? What? When? How much?”. It is the answer to these questions which will help strategize moves to capture the market.

He claimed that the new media industry is moving towards a tipping point and we can safely assume to have hit it when even the lower class of the society will be having a means to watch TV shows on their mobiles. After all this said and done, it’s a fact that television still holds its current place with increased choice and complete control.

Mr. Mukherjea supported interactive marketing to be the jargon of the day with more and more people preferring to choose what they want rather than taking what is given to them. Interactive television includes shopping of related products (like DVDs) while you are watching a show and also gives you the power to control it in different ways.

He threw some light on the market size of the media industry and also showed some figures predicted for 2010. As per the analysis, the current media industry (including Television, Print, Internet and Others) has a market size of USD 1000 billion and its going to touch USD 1450 billion in 2010. In the segregation of the pie, Television will continue to have the same share but the Print media might loose some of its share to Internet.

Coming to the next point in the agenda of where India stands today in the Media industry, Mr Mukherjea educated the audience by telling that it has the third largest TV industry with 112 million viewer households after USA and China. He also pointed out one of the pain areas for broadcasters that they get just 14% of the revenue generated, which was because of under reporting on behalf of the Local Cable Operators.

He also shared some more facts on the advertising revenue of the Television Media industry. Total advertising expense in 2005 was USD 2.79 billion of which Television advertising expense contributed to about USD 1.15 billion. This revenue is growing steadily at the rate of 14% year on year. Having said this, India still lags behind its counterparts (other Asian countries like China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand etc.) in this stream of revenue. He also pointed out the fact that the number of television channels are increasing at an alarming rate and we might end up having 1000 channels by 2010.

With all this about the television industry in India, our presence on the Internet has not been lagging far behind and has lot of potential which will become obvious in coming years.

Mr. Mukherjea also brought out other pain areas for the broadcasters as he cited examples of mandatory sharing of sports broadcasts along with content regulation and reduced advertising time being enforced on them. Also level playing field is not available, with regulation on different levels of investment allowed for FDIs in different sectors with in the Media industry.

As the TiE-ISB Connect was an event designed especially for bringing budding entrepreneurs and VCs together, Mr. Mukherjea did not leave out on telling the audience about the opportunities available in the Media Industry. Analog transmissions are giving way to Digital equipments with more investments coming in. Also there is a steady increase in the market for original specialized content creation for TV shows on niche fields like golf, gardening, weather etc. Apart from these, there is an emerging market for new media like mobile etc.

To conclude the plenary speech, Mr. Mukherjea let the audience know about the forthcoming targets for the STAR group as a part of their growth plans. STAR group, amongst other plans, would continue to concentrate on the Television media along with Broadband Wireless, Movies on a pay per view basis, DTH (Direct to Home), Network (distribution of new channels) and also tapping the regional channel market to provide a complete bouquet of services to its customers.

Posted by Mahesh Shenoy

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

TiE - ISB Connect Starts Tomorrow!!

This is one of the biggest events of the year at ISB. We have delegates from different industries and sharing their knowledge with us. Then we have panellists from these industries also speaking to us. The main highlight of the event would be the presentation of the business plans to the Venture Capitalists.

This serves as an ideal platform for entrepreneurs to pitch for their venture. It’s also possible that it gets funded.

All this happening, I just come to know what I had missed in my life till now. This is how the real world, the real market, the real business looks like. How in the world I would have possibly known as to these kinda things do happen? Its really mind boggling.

Really really looking forward to the event!!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Where does the time fly?

It felt at the start as if this term was the coolest of all the ones that have already gone by but now when I sit in my room in front of my laptop, I seem to have a 1000 items on my checklist. Its not just with me but with all of my batchmates.. no one is able to figure out where and how the time is lost? Knowledge is definitely gained in the time lost but still its somewhat confusing the way this is happening.. :)

This weekend we have at least 6-7 things to be done. Assignments, Speaker series, Events, Classes, Presentations.. etc.. a whole lot of it. All in all a jam packed weekend... also with mid terms coming up in another 7 days, its even more scary.

Also with the different sections enjoying the company of their section as a whole for the last time, its sad as well. Term 4 will mark the end of the core term and it will be the last few days our sections will be attending classes together. Its been so entertaining... the arbit class participations, the sleeping beauties, the cross talks, the late comings... all seem to flash back in my mind.. :)

Today we have planned the last section event of the core terms and we are going for a picnic. Everyone is thrilled about it are definitely looking forward to it. Also the fact that we would be half way through with the course after term 4 is giving everyone mixed feelings.. on the positive side, its the achievement of finishing an MBA (a rigorous one) and on the negative side, its the scare of the placements which would be approaching soon... will i get the job I dreamt of? Will I get a job after all? Will I Will I... so many questions.. :)

Lets wait and watch, what the future has in store.. you keep a watch here and you will know what the present is like.. ;)

Friday, September 08, 2006

Term 4.....

With Term 4 at our doorstep after the term break, every one was pretty cool about studies. By now every one had got the hang of their life at ISB and knew how to tackle it with help of the "strategy" course already completed in Term 2.. ;)

Now with one week into the Term 4, it looks as if people are still in the term break mood. No assignment has been given to us till now for this term, which has never been the case for the previous 3 terms. Every one is enjoying this moment but I somehow have this feeling that its just the lull before the storm.. :( I also hope that I am wrong.. :)

To tell you all more about Term 4, we have 4 courses as usual and they go as follows:

1) Management of Organizations: A completely qualitative subject with official "paper plane flying" exercise happening in our 2nd class. We have never had any thing of that sort before and it was fun.. :) The name of the subject tells you what its all about.
2) Investment Analysis: Whatever was left over by Corporate Finance in Term 3 is going to scare us in Term 4.. :) It has started off pretty smoothly with the same concepts being revised again to create a base but have heard from sources that its uphill from here on. :(
3) Strategic Analysis of Information Technology: This subject deals with the much-accepted or rather assumed fact that implementing IT in every organization helps.. so we will find if this works for all or not.
4) Government, Society and Business: The name sounds pretty wierd ... right? How the hell this course would help us after an MBA? That was the exact question I had in mind but with a couple of lectures down my belt, I understand how the regulatory policies of countries and governments changes the rules of the game in a business. And its going to fine tune as the term proceeds. :)

Thats what we have for this term and lets see how and where it goes for when we can call ourselves 50% MBAs.. :)