TRAI’s framework will provide customers wide range of choices; we support the order: Punit Mishra, ZEEL

Punit Misra, CEO, domestic broadcast business, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), during an interview with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business, speaks about the effect that TRAI’s new framework that allows consumers to select and pay only for the channels they wish to view will have and how it is going to benefit both, the consumer and the company. Excerpts: 

Q: TRAI has asked TV broadcasters to disclose maximum retail price (MRP) of channels individually and that of bouquets. Tell us about the kind of impact it will have on the company as well as the consumer?
A: TRAI’s order has been passed with an objective to empower viewers where they can choose the channels they want to see and agree with the amount that is being charged for those channels. This is not something new or surprising as the whole business world runs in the same way where the consumer has the right to choose the product based on the price on which it is being offered. Interestingly, we have priced our channels and designed the bouquet in accordance with the order. Interestingly, our channels and bouquet has been placed priced in accordance to the order and has been designed to provide value and entertainment, so that we turn up to be their first choice when they are selecting the channels. 

Even marketing principle suggests that design your product and put it on a price that offers value to its customers. I feel consumers were kept in mind while deciding the rules and it is right and we support TRAI’s decision and will price our channels and bouquet in accordance with the same. 

Q: How the decision will benefit the company?
A: I feel, every company will have to think and redesign their business model in a different way, now, at least when the consumers have the choice and right to decide the product he wants to have based on the product that is being offered to them and its price. Content being that is being served is going to play an important role so your content should have an appeal where the customer says that he/she is going to have this channel on his TV and pay for it. 

Interestingly, we have always had a focus on winning the heart of our viewers by offering stories and characters that connect with them and they come to us again and again. So, in my view, if your entire business has been designed with a focus on the consumers then it is going to be good for you. We are moving ahead with the same approach. 

Q: Television business just not need eyeballs for growth but new verticals like OTT are also being used for the purpose. Do you think that these verticals will add some value to the business?
A: It not connected a lot with it, but I would say that the content consumption should be increased. I have spent several years of my life in marketing and that’s why I can say that the hardest thing for a marketeer is to increase consumption in any category.  Business grows through penetration not through consumption. And, it is a good thing to see that the consumption is increasing through another platform. I have been saying, my team, that ‘More is More’, and content is being consumed as they are available for being consumed. Rest depends on the content creator, who should make sure that their content is being liked and preferred. 

‘It is an and World’, is something that I say to my team and it means ‘This is not an OR world, but it is AND world, where this and that exists at the same place’. And this is how, consumption will grow on both platforms, TV and Digital platforms, in India.