Peter Mukherjea, CEO, Star Network

"The next turnaround would need something dramatic. Today, none of our competitors has appetite for such investment"

Reaching to the top is tough. But staying there is much tougher. Especially, in the space that evolves every nanosecond – Satellite TV. To his credit, Peter Mukherjea has managed to scale both heights. And still kept his head firmly on his shoulders.

Over the last few years, Peter Mukherjea, CEO Star Network, has driven the group to a leadership position. But much lies ahead. Competitors, Zee and Sony, have crafted different strategies, regional channels are gaining at the cost of pan-India operators and there was a recent spate of senior executive movements at the group.

In this extensive 2-hour interview with Amit Agnihotri and Ritu Midha of exchange4media, candid Mukherjea spoke his mind on very many issues. And asserted, that given how competition is playing the game, his channel will continue to rule the charts.

Q. Coming to regional channels, they seem to be growing their audience share even in pockets of so called Hindi-belt. Does that worry you?

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It does not worry me, but it does make me think. Because the next phase of growth in cable and satellite penetration would come as a result of regional languages. But it will take some time.

Q. As an individual where do you see yourself going from here. You have achieved much in the Indian market…

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I don’t think so. There is so much to do here! I think the Indian market is still at a nascent stage and there is a long way to go. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

I think this marketplace is hugely exciting, it has some tremendous challenges and right now I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.

Q. So is consumer, or viewer central to your programming? Is it actually being practiced?

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I don’t know. I don’t think traditionally media companies look at it like that. There are some who have started to – and senior executives in the media companies need to do that. They need to be telling their teams that this business is about giving the consumer or viewer what it is they want. Today it generally tends to be - ‘let me put it on air because I feel it is good.’ Or whatever the programming head or the company feels is a good show. End customer is not currently being looked at. People in the business need to be saying what it is the consumer or the viewer is looking out for.

Q. Coming back to Star Network’s ad-sales strategy, will it be different now?

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Why should it be! I think for the last three-four years we have been doing what we had been planning to do. The management team sits down and plans it and then the Ad-Sales head goes out and executes it. So I don’t think anything dramatic has happened that will change the course of how we conduct ourselves. Or our rates are not suddenly going to fly high or drop low. We are not suddenly going to change our sponsorships structure. I think we are going to continue to what we are doing and we do it pretty well.

Q. There was a recent interview with exchange4media, Kelly Clark of MindShare commented that price of television time is moving up too rapidly and might call for a rethink? Your comments...

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I would argue it that in India the rates are lowest, as far as cost per thousand is concerned. We C&S channels reach forty two million homes. And for a market of not just for today but key for future, cost of reaching those homes across a variety of channels today is the one of the lowest!

If we had a marketplace that was a little bit more evenly laid out – the market universe would then be bigger. Star Plus has the largest audience share – the number two player is forty-six programmes behind. If our rate is 100, what should the next guy’s rate be? If we were a little bit more evenly laid out, say we had 22 programmes and they had twenty, I think they would be pushing for higher rates as so would we. Right now only we have to make that move.

Q. How is it to run a media company? We see intense competition, a move towards going public and so on. How have the dynamics of running a media company changed over the years?

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Let me clarify. Getting listed is not one of our priorities. Our mission is to be providing viewers in all the C&S homes world-class entertainment and news programmes, keeping in mind the local sensitivities and values. And we are doing that pretty well. As I keep saying, there is always room for improvement but over the last five or six years I think that the notion that television is all about glitter and glamour has sort of changed. People now realise that there is a business here that is fairly complex – it is a science. It is not just hanging out with the stars and VJs. It has more to do studying consumer behavior and fulfilling need gaps, at a profit.

We want our viewers to feel genuinely satisfied after spending hour or hour and a half with us. That is the core! Everything else in the media business is actually incidental.

Q. Mr Mukherjea, you have been an integral part of the growing dominance of Satellite television. Over the years, has television programming and marketing approaches evolved as a discipline? Or is it still a very individual and gut-feel driven environment at the broadcasting companies?

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I think the whole space is getting more organized and developing as a discipline. No question about it. But there is still a long way to go.

Overall, programming side of our business is getting more scientific. It is getting more and more disciplined because people are looking at monitoring performance of programmes very very closely and scientifically. They are not only looking at programming from rating point of view but getting into nuts and bolts of what the viewers want to see – the sets, the script, the costumes, the lighting – even the name of particular characters, whether it is Sneha or Karan. People are getting into lot more details than they did earlier. As a result, entertainment programming across all the channels is of much better quality than it was four years ago.

Q. Lets move on to Ad Sales strategies. Recently, you have directly assumed charge...

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As a CEO of the company, I always had the ad sales responsibility , because the CEO is responsible for revenues. So I have not taken the charge now. Yes, I would be looking at ad sales a bit more closely now – during Raj’s absence.

Q. Are you evaluating launch of regional language channels?

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Not immediately. We have an eye on it. But we are not planning to do anything dramatic right now.

Q. What about marketing efforts at the broadcasting companies?

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I think there is still some scope for improvement. At Star, we do it better than anybody else. We have some of the best people working at it and if you look at the combined effort of what we do, I think we generally get best return on our investment. It is not to say that we can’t get better. But, overall I think there is a long way to go.

Broadly, there is still a fascination towards promoting channels and not promoting programmes. KBC and a few others are exceptions. If you look at international programming and try and draw some comparisons – you will find that there are programmes like X-files or Simpsons or BBC’s Telly Tubbies, they are brands in themselves. They are not only TV programmes, but have extended themselves into various areas, different categories – which extended the popularity of that brand franchise. In India, we had some very good programmes– we have not really taken them out into a new dimension or domain.

I think from the marketing point of view we are still very narrowly focused. Here is a programme that comes on Tuesday at 9 o’ clock and that is what we keep telling people!

Q. Is it a mindset issue – or is it that tools are not available?

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It is certainly a mindset issue! There are plenty of tools available. Most people, fall into this trap from time to time.

Q. But there is no market where if you buy more you end up paying more per unit. Advertisers and agencies would want a justification?

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Well, if we had flexible inventory then we could keep stuffing the ads into the programmes. However, it is not so. What I would like to achieve at the end of the day is consumer feeling enriched. And they would hate the idea of increasing the current 10 minutes of advertising in an hour to 20 minutes!

Fast moving consumer companies generally have the largest budgets and that is why they want the lowest rates. It is not wrong – but they should work with the broadcaster to enrich the viewer experience.

Q. Do you think it would be a format different than the regular soap?

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I don’t know. It could be anything. If I knew what it was, I would be running it. Instead of crystal ball gazing!

Q. Finally, what moment would you remember as your best moment at Star?

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I think I wouldn’t know the best – but one of the most memorable moments was getting a call two or three weeks after we launched KBC, from my senior boss – that is Mr Murdoch senior, from New York saying that ‘I think we have made the breakthrough’ and what a wonderful job we were all doing as a team. I think it was a pat on the back for me, as well as recognition for everyone in our team. There have been many great moments but this was one of the most memorable ones.

Q. Star Vijay is your only presence in regional space. Has it met the expectations?

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Vijay has surprised me a lot. We have learnt a lot by being in regional language business. Chennai is the toughest market. A very strong player – both on-air and on-ground, dominates the marketplace. In spite of that we have continued with our push to provide consumer better programming. And from the numbers I see, I think it is making some headway. It is important for us to be in that market, and I think in the last 12-14 months Vijay has accomplished a lot. It has certainly woken up the other players.

Q. Moving ahead, almost all the other channels from Star Network - be it Star News, Star Movies or Channel [V] have very strong competitors. What are the plans there? Are they on track?

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Well, they are pretty much on track. See, the desire to do with these channels what we were able to do with Star Plus is limited to what the marketplace allows us to do. Every home has one TV set and so it is hard for us to expect that an average home which is not English speaking to watch Star World or Star movies all the time.

However, in their own categories, we would want them to be number one and if they can’t be number one then most certainly the number two. We don’t want to be number three in any of those categories.

Q. I want to ask you a few personal questions. When you look back at your career, did you ever plan – to create and head the largest TV Network in India…

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To be honest with you, I don’t have the habit of looking back. I focus on what lies ahead. Yes, I do look back to see who is behind me, but I don’t have the time to look backwards.

I want to continue to move forward. I want to plan ahead and see how we can continue to do what we do today even better.

Q. I am sure there are many more to come…

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Absolutely!

Q. While on ad sales, we keep on hearing about this category-wise rate-card that Star is planning to introduce?

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It is all speculative at this stage. It is only at the drawing board. We haven’t really figured out the mathematics of how it would work.

But there is a realization that we need to have a category wise rate card. For arguments sake let us say that there are a large number of, say twenty, car brands being launched next year. They are broadly chasing the same consumers and would want to reach them thru television. Now should I have the same rate card for this category vis-à-vis a brand of cell phone service or men’s shirt with just a few players? I believe it should be different. To what extent and whether it should be a premium or a discount, we haven’t really worked out yet.

The logic would tell you if you use more you should pay less. However, if you use more and pay less, as a broadcaster I suffer. Unlike print, we have finite volume of inventory. While the newspaper can print additional pages we keep our ad-inventory absolutely under check.

Q. Let’s move on. There is a theory that the next radical change can only come from a ‘break-through’ programming format. And not a typical soap or a serials. Your comments.

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Yeah, we are constantly looking for new formats, new programming genres. But we would not necessarily change something that is working so beautifully well. If you look at other marketplaces, they have programmes of the similar kind like Coronation Street or East Enders. These are the programmes running for the last twenty years and leading the charts. So there is no reason to believe that these shows will necessarily crash, unless we do something stupid and make grave mistakes.

Television is not necessarily a rocket science. You have to continue to believe in some basic things to give family good viewing experience.

Q. But will it be a new format that will create a momentous change. Or a strong serial or blockbuster movie can also change the existing lineup?

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A single blockbuster movie will find it very difficult to do it. Yes, whatever it is which provides the next turnaround for who ever it is needs to be pretty dramatic. It will need to have long term sustaining ability. They need to be running it four or five days every week for some time which requires a considerable amount of investment. And right now I do not foresee any of our competitors having appetite for making such kind of investments. Because one of our competitors has spent large amounts of money in cricket and they need to recover that before they invest in anything else and there is the other competitor that is experimenting with a different model. So I think there is some time.

Having said that, we have never stopped looking in the rear view mirror to see what they are doing.

Q. But do you feel the need to move in that direction? To strengthen our approach and evolve these disciplines...

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Yes, I feel that we should move in that direction as of yesterday! Only then will broadcasting companies get the real value.

If you invest in company that is producing Simpson’s - for arguments sake – then you know that there is life longer than just a programme. It can potentially stretch to 10 product categories. But I think we have not really put our heads to that. So there is a lot of work to be done on that front.

Indian advertising agencies – commissioned to create channel communication – too need to do a better job. I am not saying that take a bad programme and try to make a big deal out of it but take some successful ones and make them into properties which are more than just programmes. There are millions of people watching these programmes every night and that is a big opportunity.

Q. Isn’t it changing?

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I think it is changing but it is changing too slowly.