The largest and most democratic industry body of top pan-India television news organizations and digital publishers, News Broadcasters Federation (NBF) National Conclave held an event here under the theme ‘Future of News’.
Participating a panel discussion, Member of Parliament Kartikeya Sharma said, “I don’t think that there is any doubt about core function of a media business is to be the fourth estate and invite the qualities of a democratic setup, but that doesn’t take us away from the fact that we are running a business at the end of the day.”
He added, “We have a systematic problem in the news industry at multiple levels. So we spoke about the only source of revenue being advertisements which should not be the case ideally. And if that were to change, the income streams will also change. We need to look at the systematic setup as to why we are in the industry and why we are in a position we are in.”
Kartikeya Sharma also questioned the rationale of advertisers, “Why is it that advertisers are only looking at numbers if that is not the only thing is communicating? A channel can have a 5% share. But who is to say which 5% of people are watching the channel?”
Talking about the various revenue models, Kartikeya Sharma elaborated on subscription. He said, “Subscription will be possible only if the consumers think that the content is worth paying for it. And that will only happen when there is a commonality in consuming content. I think the future for subscriptions lies in communities. A common platform where people come together to use content, consume it.”
At multiple levels, he said, many are not realising the fact that the industry is changing a lot and consolidation is happening. “But the real change in not happening within, it is actually happening in new areas of media. So, traditional broadcast business is facing challenges from independent content creators, and going forward I think we really need to concentrate on how we actually monetize each and every aspect of it and create new revenue streams. We can’t be traditional based on just pure play advertising and that thing that would make us profitable per say.”