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T R E N D S The Media Matrix All four mainstream media will co-exist in the future, but each will be forced to play on its strength, says Suveen K. Sinha.
But the fact that one doesn't know for sure doesn't prevent one from portraying a future picture based on available information and trends. Even if the picture may not be worth a penny. That picture, going by the views of a wide array of people, will have all the four colours that now adorn it: print, radio, television, and web. Their shades will however under-go considerable change. ''These are merely means of accessing content and may evolve or become more diverse,'' says McCann-Erickson India's Executive Vice-President Santosh Desai. Adds Indya.com CEO Sunil Lulla: ''Each will have a specific role in catering to the needs of the individual.'' These roles will be defined by the changing needs and habits of the consumer. Watch Or Read? Time spent on the written word will go down across a range of publications,'' says Gopinath Menon, Executive Media Director of advertising agency Anthem. Which is hardly surprising in view of the explosion of channels and improvement in the quality of programmes thanks to some globally competitive expertise arriving in India. According to the director (sales), of a high-profile television channel, the last few years have been path-breaking in terms of viewing habits. News channels have ensured that routine headlines in the morning papers serve no greater purpose than creating a sense of deja vu. Things will not get any better when that ultimate dream of the couch potato-direct-to-home, or DTH-materialises, delivering an unlimited number of channels through a dish.
The print medium will most certainly rally around the news peg. First, because it has next to no hope in competing against TV on the lei-sure turf. Interactive TV, which is just around the corner, will merely seal a result that is already known. Secondly, television, with all its plethora of channels, hasn't been able to emerge as a primary vehicle for news. (If otherwise, could KBC have displaced Star News in the prime time slot?) ''TV will not be the primary medium for news, only for entertainment,'' says Menon. Third, according to one theory, news is more of a morning thing in our lives, while leisure/entertainment is the evening affair. ''There is evidence to show that people are generally unwilling to experiment with a morning thing like toothpaste. It's much easier changing an evening thing like liquor,'' says Sreekant Khandekar, head of news website Agencyfaqs. Besides, TV is not flexible. ''If one is watching the news at 10, the cricket results will come only around 10:03, neither before nor after,'' points out Desai. If print can establish itself as the primary vehicle for news, it stands to gain infinitely. This is simply because a news medium gets a much higher intensity of attention even though much less time is spent on it as compared to a leisure medium. The Net Threat It's much bigger. The internet provides news real time, is more flexible than even a newspaper, and delivers customised information any time and (if you have a laptop or other web-enabled mobile devices) anywhere. Reading online is more efficient than printing documents and transporting them physically. ''On the net, you can choose what you want. That will cause the most radical shift,'' says Lulla.
But, for some inscrutable reason, the internet is still caught in the quagmire of a user pattern that is excessively skewed towards communication. According to research sponsored by media2india, a Microland company, 90 per cent of net usage and 35 per cent of the time spent on the net, is for e-mail. Plus, most users are not willing to read large texts on the net. Then there is the stumbling block of penetration, which is high, but concentrated in the top 10 cities. And 80 per cent of those PCs are installed in offices. The net becoming the primary vehicle for leisure is even more unlikely. It is good at delivering music and text to customers, but not video, which makes up the biggest slice of the entertainment industry output. This could, however, change if the resolution on pc screens improves drastically and, more important, broadband spreads faster. The task is, thus, cut out for print. It has to become more focused. And articles must have enough depth to satisfy a reader who already knows what the news is. There could also be rapid regionalisation of publications, since there will be pockets of markets spread across the country. All this leaves radio with the role of being more of an accompanying medium. So you can be tuned in while driving, reading, eating, whatever. But that is precisely also the reason why radio will always be around. It's the ultimate 'lean back' medium and is characterised by high recall rates (remember those jingles?). It has a role to play in education, public broadcast, etc. Its continued existence will be further guaranteed by the impending FM boom. However, it may become difficult to call 'radio' radio after some time. Technology developments indicate one would be able to hear it on one's watch. So don't be surprised if no drastic shift happens in the next five years. After all, when radio arrived after the First World War, it was expected to end wars by bringing the people of different countries together.
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When
writer Stephen King posted a novella on the internet in March this year,
no less than 40,000 people downloaded it within the first 24 hours. But
even that large a number wasn't enough to avoid a sharp schism in opinion.
Many in the business said electronic publishing had come of age. At the
same time, there were sceptics galore, saying most people downloaded
King's novella just for kicks. Electronic books were just not the real
thing.