Head honchos from some news channels yesterday stressed it was high time that Big Tech pay Indian news publishers for content used by them on their platform as is done in Australia.

“The news industry has to come together” on content monetisation efforts on the Internet, said Varun Kohli, Director & CEO of Bharat Express News Network at a session on TV news (titled ‘Challenges In Being in The News’) at the SatCab Symposium 2024, organised by the Aavishkar Media Group yesterday in New Delhi.

Asked by session moderator R. Jai Krishna of the NBF for his comments on an Australian law that mandates Big Tech like Google, Facebook and Twitter remunerate news publishers, Kohli said that a similar situation should be pushed for in India too and it can be done only collectively.

“Working cohesively together (by the news companies) is the way forward” on getting Big tech pay news publishers, Kohli added.

Some of the speakers on the panel — Zee Media CEO Abhay Ojha and PTC Network MD & President Rabindra Narayan — actively agreed on this issue.

Narayan added that industry association(s) should keep aside their differing agendas and fight for the news industry.

The issue of social media platforms and Google paying Indian news publishers has been discussed in and outside parliament too, but the news industry is yet to get feedback from the government or the Big Tech, which corners a huge chunk of ad revenues on the back of news generated by TV channels and newspapers.

An industry association, the News Broadcasters & Digital Foundation, had also written to Google India about two years back on the matter, demanding a fair share of ad revenue.

Though not directly commenting on the Big Tech vs. news publishers issue, another session speaker, Dr. Neeraj Sanan, CEO of consultancy firm Intin, did admit at one point that regulations are not being properly used by the government.

Holding forth on the evolving news eco-system, Ojha made a point, quoting Zee News founder and media maven Subhash Chandra —- we need to learn to unlearn. According to him, comparing the news trends of the 90s with today’s was unjustified, especially from the content point of view.

A consumer these days views one line of news on social media and goes to TV to get the details of the news or the development, Ojha pointed out. His remarks came in the wake of journalism professor Dr. Anil Singh observing that TV news channels don’t have editors these days, but only managers and that the general public has lost interest in news as shown on telly.

Bharat Express’ Kohli concurred with Ojha. Days of only editorial-led news operations don’t exist in the purest forms as the business of news is also about generating revenues, which involves marketing too.

On the issue of whether news has turned into entertainment to compete for eyeballs and ad revenues, TV news channels’ representatives felt that if that’s the perception then that is because of several reasons, including lack of credible audience data on news consumers.

Giving examples of how some big brands keep away from news channels, Ojha said, as per his data, approximately 328 big brands are off TV news because of inadequate audience data (from BARC India, the agency that provides audience related numbers in India).

In one of the States, which went to polls some time back, the ratings of news channels there had actually decreased, Ojha observed, raising questions on the audience data being generated.

PTC Network’s Narayan, while concurring with Ojha on this, bemoaned lack of data from addressable boxes from cable ops and then went on to make a case for having audience data from both linear and digital realms to help make more informed business decisions.

“Unified ratings (linear+digital) is a must,” Narayan observed, adding that petitioning the government on the issue could help.

However, Narayan, in all probability, echoed the sentiments of many in the country when he said that “credible news will be watched” and that having credibility is crucial for any TV news channel in the long run.