Media finding it difficult to break the clutter??

Hi,

Media was a channel or a medium which certain eccentric people who wanted to tell the world their opinion used or advertisers who wanted to make you spend and buy their product used. It was a hunky-dory 1990's as strong players emerged and strengthened their position.

Cometh 21st century and era of 8+% GDP growth and most industries were witnessing double digit growth as well competition from MNCs, local start ups. Thus, you had a growing industry with new entrants mushrooming every week.

What happens in such a situation?? The incumbent ups it Advertising and Promotion Budget to defend its turf, and new comers have to invest in communication to establish their brands. All in All, Media never had it so good. With Growth of media being seen at more than 20% CAGR for years to come, many new players emerged, and the existing ones started to use their muscle to expand their portfolio.

Media mushroomed, both mass markets or niche markets saw an entry of more players than the addition to population of India ( at least it appears so). It was like every new child in India brought with itself a new channel, magazine, website, OOH or something. International Players finally decided to enter from HOT magazines, to news channels. Indian Media Entrepreneurs also became a new set to be revered as more and more aam junta began to work for the oh-so glamorous media.

Result - Nobody holds ground effectively today. Everybody is under threat and few dominant player like TOI and Star are under threat from competition which is entering right into its arena as well as flanking it from all sides. TRPs, GRPs, READERSHIP etc. all of have fallen but the media rates have risen. Because while 15% was an easy task decade back, even 5 today is revered by everyone. Of course, you can forget the good old days when TRPs of top 10 shows touched 40-70. Now we talk in points, 0.9 and 1 are seen as respectable numbers and it takes helluva lot to reach there.

Result - a mirage of media growth. Media is consuming itself and fueling its own growth and not so much the outside world. Take a drive down South Mumbai and count no. of hoardings of 9X, Pannchvi Pass, IPL (SET MAX), Women Magazines..etc and contrast it with messages of non-media brands. You will find, empirically, that media outweighs non-media. This is about OOH, go to certain channel called MTV and all they run all day long is either roadies or a promo of it (of course, monotony is broken by nikhil doing select..since the time i got cable in my house..yawn). Star is no behind with the amount it promotes its own shows on its own channel consuming precious FCT. Media is becoming an increasing vehicle of each other and together as one unit can compete with traditional high spending sectors like FMCG, Telecom, Financial services etc.

Its fun to see them eat their own cake and very messily too...!! What this article concludes is beyond me..but it certainly is a striking observation..(so much for being mod....watever..)...

Anyways..oh..anyway..(somebody taught me).. alls good which ends with a thought.