Overview Curtains down on one of the busiest years of Indian ad and media industry Noor Fathima Warsia In the last quarter of 2008: • Marathi GEC Star Pravah was launched • Spiritual channel Divya was launched • Kids’ channel Spacetoons was launched • Rigorous hiring took place for RGB’s Hindi GEC and English biz channel ET TV • Four new channels between just the news and spiritual genres were announced • DNA launched its Bangalore edition • Femina celebrated 50 years with language editions and brand extensions • At least four regional Hindi publications were launched • WorldSpace announced bankruptcy in the US, but continued with expansion plans in India • Airtel Digital TV and Big TV launched • Sun Direct expanded to other cities • Reliance prepared its GSM launch for 11,000 towns • Insurance advertising actually went up • Indian ad agencies were busy with at least 15 pitches • At least two admen were preparing to begin their own agencies • Clients like GM, who filed for bankruptcy in other countries, showed growth in India And the list can go on... If this was slowdown, one can imagine what the rest of the year was like. The way I see it, it was a year of extremes. The beginning couldn’t be bigger, and couldn’t be better. Awards were big – JWT India bringing home the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions was celebrated through the year... Scams were never discussed with the depth in which they were this year... in fact, they became so hot, people forgot that the bigger development of advertising awards on the home-ground was that for the first time the industry resolved all differences and the Abby and GoaFest happened under the same sky, at the same time… Big pitch in the way of P&G and the larger-than-life development with Sam Balsara acquiring 51 per cent of MediaCom... The biggest launch of recent times in the television space took place when Colors shook everything up... the three K-serials died a sad death… INX Media was a perfect example of some of the things one should not do... STAR India embarked on a milestone deal by getting into a partnership with Jupiter (Asianet)… If newsprint cost sucked the life out of the print industry in the first half, the FDI from the Government for special interest magazines was seen as a welcome move by quite a few… Radio stations quietly waited to see how the I&B Ministry treats them this year... Well, it was not a very good treatment, with some of the fluctuating decisions on allowing news and current affairs on radio... However, political advertising was finally allowed on radio – that was a bit of a welcome break for radio… Needless to say, the media environment was very busy. I have been asked by quite a few people – was this a landmark year for us? On the face of it, I did not think so... We have seen bigger years, and fiercer moves from media organisations that changed the face of the industry. But when you really see things closely... did India’s coming of age on the international awards platform not impact us? Did Sam Balsara reversing the usual trend in the media industry not make a difference? Has Colors not set a new benchmark in the Hindi GEC space? Did STAR India not get on to a journey where national presence is the next level of growth? We think all these have left a mark on the industry, and have changed the Indian media industry as we know it. Even the slowdown has done that. True, the dip in activities and all the closures and exits that the slowdown brought about, gave us a year of absolute extremes. But the escalated price tags on everything needed to settle and now, many hope that water would find its balance. So, coming back to the question... was this a landmark year for the Indian media and adland? We would think so…