Exclusive: Polls solace for media

By M H Ahssan

Newspapers & News Channels To Attract 70% of The Ad Spend, Internet Canvassing Too Picks Up

Rising Decibel levels accompanying elections may be an unwelcome din for many, but for the country’s media sector, reeling under a crippling advertising downturn, that din could be music to its ears. The April-May general elections may extend a muchneeded lifeline to the battered media sector, particularly news channels, which is struggling to cope with dwindling revenues as companies cut back on advertising in a slowing economy.

Media planners say political parties alone could spend up to Rs 800 crore over the next two months on communications — what a top advertiser like Hindustan Unilever spends in an entire year — providing a crucial breather to the media sector. The total spend this election is estimated to be more than double of the amount spent last time.

“There is definitely an increase in spending by political parties on news channels because of high viewership. News channels continue to be a cost-effective medium to advertise,” says Chintamani Rao, CEO of Times Global Broadcasting, which runs leading English news channel Times Now.

Media stocks, which have lost a lot of ground over the past one year, have started climbing in anticipation of the expected sharp rise in their advertising revenues. Most media stocks gained more than 10% in the past one week.

One media planner, who requested not to be named, estimated that the BJP alone plans to spend Rs 200-250 crore on its advertising campaign distributed across a raft of platforms ranging from television to print to radio, while the bill may be slightly lower for the Congress at Rs 150-180 crore. Together, these two parties will account for more than half the overall advertising spending by all parties.

Political parties in India are increasingly packaging themselves and their leaders as brands, emulating similar trends in the west, notably in the United States where a combination of slick marketing and innovative fund raising catapulted Barack Obama from relative obscurity to the White House.

Some parties, especially the Congress and the BJP, have engaged established media buying firms to work for them through the election season, a change from the past wherein big media buying agencies worked for political parties only on ad-hoc basis. While advertising spend by Indian political parties will not be a patch on the billion-dollar-plus spending typically seen in US presidential elections, media experts say it is still a welcome additional source in difficult times and the election season usually has other significant spin-off benefits.

“Every election year in the West, media industry’s advertising revenues show high doubledigit growth. This may now become a trend with the Indian media industry as the advertising pie is expected to grow,” says consulting firm AT Kearney’s head for media and retail practice, Debasish Mukherjee.