Convergence: The Changing Entertainment Landscape
– Media Club Club Panel

The Media Club panel had illustrious speakers such as Nikhil Mirchandani, MD, NGC Network; Rahul Nanda, Vice President, Webchutney; Manish Vij, Co-Founder & Business Head, Quasar Media; Prem Panicker, Editor, Rediff.com; Raj Singh, Executive Director, Active Media Technologies; and Dr Pramath Sinha, MD, ABP Group as the moderator.
The panel focused on the concept of convergence of multimedia content, and how attempts are being made to create a single device that serves all the needs of a user, while at the same time, provides the content creator an effective way to reach his target audience. It also explored paradigm shifts in business leadership to keep pace with a fast-evolving competitive landscape.

The session was chaired by Pramath Sinha, MD, ABP Group. Sinha has been a partner at McKinsey, and was the Founding Dean of the ISB. “I represent the fuddy-duddy print media, and the panel consists of new media - the companies that people have been talking about,” he said. He stressed on two points - one that content is king, and the other that consumer demand is on the rise.

Manish Vij addressed the factors of convergence, and the evolution of the medium of communication from the archaic to the modern. “Small is powerful,” he said. He explained that the smaller the device, the higher the sales, and this is currently the global trend.

Raj Singh spoke about strategies to create newer and better content for mobiles. Two changes in recent years, according to him, were reduction on barriers to entry (anyone can create media content now), and reduction in consumers’ attention span. He sent out caveat feelers for those gung-ho on digital advertising. He said that it was a slow process, and it would take a few years to become a viable and mature model.

Nikhil Mirchandani talked about NGC as a successful brand with its content getting byte-sized to suit the short attention spans of the new-age media. An important challenge, he said, was “to work with the middlemen in the new media.” New media, according to him, is important, but not urgent to embrace.

Prem Panicker redefined ‘convergence’. “Convergence is nothing more than just cabling and connecting the whole country, and deliver content for one and all,” he said. For media, convergence is being able to provide everything on a common platform - a single device. His advice was to “Converge expectations of consumers with the abilities of the suppliers.”

Rahul Nanda provided a summary of the proceedings by identifying twelve key trends in the media industry that reflected on what the panellists had talked about in the preceding talks, including Youtube, Google, Microsoft (X-box) and other torchbearers for the new media industry.