'India is among seven or eight priority markets outside the UK'

In its quest for a bigger share of the Indian satellite television market, Rupert Murdoch-controlled STAR TV has turned to original British programmes again. The success of Amitabh Bachchan-hosted Kaun Banega Crorepati, based on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, is being sought to be repeated with remakes of popular British television serials Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has licensed STAR to broadcast the remakes in Hindi, Ji Mantriji and Ji Pradhanmantriji. For the Beeb, that marks one more effort at consolidation of its visibility and business in the Indian market.

The BBC is seeking to distinguish itself in India as a complete media identity, not just a news organisation. Spearheading the effort is BBC Worldwide, the largest non-US, English language television programme producer and exporter in the world (1999-00 programme sales 138 million pound sterling).

Rupert Gavin, BBC Worldwide's chief executive officer, was in Bombay this week to announce the strategic tie-up with STAR. In an interview with Y Siva Sankar, Gavin explained why India is an important destination for transnational media companies.

You may have interacted with the Indian government regarding your future investment plans. What kind of response did you get?

We've got a very positive response from the Indian government. They want to see investment in the country. They also see the media industry as a major area of growth; a lot of changes have happened here in the last three years.

In the next year or so, you can assume an announcement on DTH (direct-to-home). You probably are going to see some development in digital terrestrial (transmissions).

I should add that, in a technical capacity, we are hoping to advise Doordarshan on digital terrestrial. You are also going to start to see broadband, fibre optic deployment... now that's going to create a wealth of opportunities for Indian companies.

But we do think it is important in a market like India to have a balance. I think, hopefully, the Indian government, given our long relationship, sees that we can be a balance to American companies that have been operating here.

The government had decided against DTH last year. What makes you think it will be revived?

In the next year, you will see some announcements about DTH. We certainly believe that the government will be saying in a matter of weeks as to what their plans are for DTH. I don't know what they are.

What would be your investments in future?

Our investment plans are to increase our local production. We invest considerably in newsgathering. One of our largest news operations in the world is here in India. We will continue to develop that further and also the Asian business programming.

We have invested a lot in BBC World. The channel alone has 45 people supporting the channel here and hoping to create some great programming.

Among the emerging markets that you are looking at, China and India are said to be the biggest. The use of English is more in India than in China. Where would you invest more?

In the near term, in India. Although, in the longer term, China, obviously, will be very important as well. The BBC is better known in India. From our perspective, we would certainly see over the next few years our focus getting sharper here.

The media scene is moving that much faster in India. There are more opportunities being created as a result of the changes in the media.

Does that mean India can be a money-spinner for the BBC?

We have around seven or eight priority markets outside the UK for growth. India is among them. The reason is because of the changes that have been happening in the market here.

We think now is the time particularly to invest in India, because of the historic relationship, because of the recognition of the BBC brand, because of the growth that India is going to have. We've a real fear that if we don't build on what we've got from radio here, then other people will come in and take advantage.

If you are looking at a media company that is from outside India, we feel the natural player should be the BBC.

In India, satellite television began in English, then Hindi channels sprouted. Now, channels in regional languages are expected to command highest viewerships. Do you think the BBC can still do good business in India?

BBC World is known for what it does. It is not attempting to be a local channel. Its audience remains very strong in the particular niche. We'll always be a niche channel, that's our purpose, our intent. But within the higher, affluent, opinion-forming part of India, it still has a phenomenal reach. Not because we are trying to be local... we are not trying to be local.

Why not?

It's not our focus. We are about global news. We can't do global news by being local.

Do you think remakes of British political satires can improve a television channel's viewership and business in India?

STAR TV is the broadcaster that believes in them. They should know. The series has been popular in English. We will find out whether it will click in Hindi.

Indian viewers seem to be most interested in entertainment and sports. Can news be a good business?

Yes. We have the right viewership and advertisers. Advertising is growing strongly in India at about 50 per cent per annum because we are reaching a particular target of audience.

It is not a massive audience but we reach the more affluent part of Indian population. That is very attractive to some advertisers.

Like...?

Quite often, they are the banks, financial institutions, airlines, travel companies, car manufacturers.

As you would expect, those are the companies who are trying to sell their products to people who are travellers, business-people, opinion-formers... that's our market.

All these companies find the BBC effective; they come back and continue advertising with us, they increase their ad-spend.

Has CNN's aggressive approach eroded your viewership in India?

No. Our viewership has been increasing. We are very different from CNN. We've been doing various things that we think are increasing our appeal to our particular niche audience.

For example, at 9 O'clock every day, we are running business reports, particularly those related to the region. There is a whole range of programme ideas, still in English, appealing to the particular audience.

We are producing information, news, business news in particular, that is more tailored to a particular requirement because they want to know what is happening in Bombay or Hong Kong or Singapore.

What are your impressions of the Indian audience?

I don't think we can talk about an Indian audience because India has so many different audiences. India is a very plural society. What works in north India is probably different from what works elsewhere.

The Indian audience is an intelligent audience, they are interested in politics, very interested in business, and they are an audience that has grown up with BBC, and they probably do better than any other audience outside the UK.

There was a time when the BBC was known in India for its authentic and quick radio news. Has this brand equity been useful to build your television operations?

We will find out in the next few years how successful it is. Certainly, it's worked for us.

In India, people understand that when it is the BBC, it's going to be high quality. There's going to be no question about that. But we also have to get over certain barriers that are very much driven by the perception that the BBC is about news, that that is all we do.

Yet we do so much more. We are a big movie producer, not many people know that, as well as being a producer in entertainment, drama and fact-based programmes.

One thought the BBC and STAR are rivals. Aren't they?

We are not particularly tied up with STAR. We are working with Doordarshan, we're doing a lot of work with Broadcast Worldwide. We are tied up with Discovery, we've a 50 per cent equity in Animal Planet. We work with a large number of broadcasters. We are a programme-maker.

Whom do you perceive as your business rivals?

Our business rival for news is obviously CNN; in programming, we consider Disney as our rival. We work in 84 countries. We are a programme-maker and also work extensively with other broadcasters. That we have our own channels is an enhancement of our strengths. Our core business is creation and production of programmes.

As head of a media unit with worldwide operations, what is your approach to business?

When I joined BBC Worldwide in 1998, two-thirds of our sales were in the UK. Now it is about 50-50, fifty from outside the UK, and the way we've done it... is by creating very strong co-branded programmes.

In the children's segment for example, we've Teletubbies running in about 200 countries. We've a whole range of children's programmes developed for the global market.

We're coming up with a stunning programme called Walking with Dinosaurs....this type of high computer graphic production is not just for the UK audience, this would work in many, many markets around the world.

When it ran in America, it achieved the highest ratings of any television programme on a cable channel.

We are trying to create ideas that would work not just for the English audience but would work in many countries around the world. This approach seems to be working.

Could you elaborate?

Our overall sales this year have been 500 million pounds sterling. About 10 per cent of that comes from Asia. This is growing at 30 to 40 per cent year-on-year.

Besides news, information and documentaries, BBC Worldwide has been focusing on children's programming, science, history, natural history, entertainment, drama, lifestyle, gardening.... We're very well known in India for news, but that is only a small part of our offering.

You have said the BBC's audience in India is the affluent, opinion-forming section of the population. But this section is said to be increasingly turning away from television to the Internet.

We move ahead of our audience. The BBC became an Internet company probably ahead of any other media company other than some in America. We've invested so much on the Internet now that, we're one of the most heavily accessed content companies on the Internet outside America.

Currently, our service runs in about 250-million page-impressions every month. We've more video on the Internet than any other company in the world. We are producing our Internet content in 43 languages, four within India alone.

From our perspective, it's not our role to tell the customers what to do and what not to do. If they want to use the Internet, our role is to be there with high-quality content.

Doesn't that cannibalise your television business?

Maybe. We started off as a radio company. When we forayed into television, the move proved controversial. A lot of people within the company were against it. They said we should not do television because that would cannibalise radio. We had to make a decision there. It was very controversial: 'Fine, we will cannibalise ourselves'.

Interestingly, radio is still a very strong medium for us. Thirty years ago, people said radio would die. It has not died.

What is quite interesting is, in the UK, you can measure our audience through the day. Our audience on radio exceeds television till about 5 O'clock. So from 7 O'clock in the morning to 5 O'clock in the evening, more people are listening to BBC on radio than they are watching television, then obviously television takes over.

People hurry to write off old media. Media will change. People's use of the radio has changed. Gone are the days when in England you used to have a whole family gather around the radio to listen for the whole evening. That's all gone.

Now the radio is in cars, kitchens. It's always there in the background. Once again, people said the BBC would die. At the beginning of the '90s, people said if we get to the next century -- in the UK we had more than 25 per cent of the audience share, so was Sky with Murdoch and all the commercial stations.

'How can the BBC have more than 25 per cent?' Today, we have a 42 per cent share. It has only very steadily declined. And that's because we've moved to the Internet, we've moved to television, we've moved to multi-channel... actually cannibalised. It takes some investment to cannibalise. If you don't, you are dead.

Does BBC still mean Be Bloody Careful?

I think we are being a bit more adventurous as well. Be careful but adventurous all at the same time.

EXTERNAL LINKS:

Career sketch of Rupert Gavin

Rupert Gavin on the mass media in the 21st century

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