When “Bruce Springsteen sang 57 channels and nothing on”,
the Internet was in its infancy. He would have had to rewrite his song if he
were to sing it these days with the massive profusion of the Internet,
especially in the entertainment segment. However, few startups in India have
started to eye this area. Ping Digital Broadcast, one such startup for digital
audiences, builds content across knowledge, utility and talent genres.
The concept
Currently, it runs India Food Network
(http://www.youtube.com/indiafoodnetwork), India’s first full HD food network
for home cooking. It counts over180 videos and the addition of 2-3 every day
and claims that it is the first of its kind in the food genre. Apart from food,
it runs India Music Network. Both these channels are on YouTube. Ping Digital
is founded by Govindraj Ethiraj, a former media personality and Prashanto Das,
who was the Network Head for Creative Services for UTV and is banking on the
experience with them to kickstart this genre in India. Today after Google,
YouTube is the next largest search engine and with others like Microsoft with
Bing and Facebook and Twitter building their own search capabilities, there is
a need for increased interactivity and a more personal way of consuming media.
The internet also provides you with a huge advantage of global audiences and
content - anytime, anywhere – whether on your desktop, laptop, iPhone, iPad to
even your 42” smart TV .
This prompted Google, in December 2011, to announce the
launch of 100 premium (professional) channels, each of which would carry
original content. “This ratified our belief that we are in the right place at
the right time,” says Ethiraj. With an initial investment of $100 million, the
internet giant had tied up with original content developers to create new and
experimental programs, in an effort to make the service more TV-like and also
compete against video-on-demand (VoD) services while increasing viewership and
getting more advertisers on board. “This is the era of re-imagining
everything,” says Das. Technology is changing everything and broadcasters will
need to re-align themselves to this reality, says Das. In other words, the
whole ecosystem is undergoing a change of sorts and with the FDI in
broadcasting increased up to 74 per cent, the dynamics are changing. “We felt
that there were huge content opportunities which were not being addressed or
could be addressed in newer formats for audiences which are increasingly
consuming via the digital pipe. We spent some time studying the market closely,
mostly in the United States and concluded that there was a clear opportunity to
build an enterprise here,” explains Das.
Challenges
However, to make this sort of a difference, the company
needs scale, which its founders admit is a challenge . To get another idea on
the kind of scale issues that the company faces, take a look at these
statistics.
According to the latest Mary Meeker report on Internet
Trends, the advent of the asset light generation, the rise of the sharing
economy has begun. For the first time in Q4 of 2012 Mobile Internet in India
overtook desktop Internet and this when smartphones form only 4 per cent of the
subscriber base. Coupled with the Internet’s global nature, it is turning out
to be a huge market as compared with the traditional broadcasting media, which
has geographical and access constraints.
“The biggest indicator of the need for our business is the
simple fact that over 200 billion videos were consumed every month covering an
audience of over 1. 2 billion users back in Oct 2011, according to comScore.
That number has grown and in India, 3.4 billion videos are watched in a month,”
says Das.
Initial Challenges
Das says that the key challenge remains the need to build a
business that is scalable, continue to use the best of learning that broadcast
has to offer all while delivering world class content at costs which are
relatively competitive.
Ping Digital Broadcast has procured angel investments from
two investors, Ashwin Damera, former founder of Travelguru and Ankur Daga, CEO
of Angara.com, a New York based precious stones e-commerce venture.
Learning’s
Like all startups one of its key learnings was to figure out
ways of overcoming initial hurdles without losing sight of the bigger picture.
Another lesson has been the benefits of good partnerships
like the one we share with Google, says Das. This philosophy of partnerships
has also been extended into its business model.
A recent example is India Music Network’s partnership with
OKListen, a leading E commerce venture for indie artists. All these have
resulted in users flocking to the website and it is averaging about 280,000
views.
In the next two to three months focus is on building the
brand and increasing our viewership base. Further, we will introduce genres
such as technology, auto etc. By the end of this year, Ping Network should have
about 10 channels spanning entertainment and infotainment genres up and
running, concludes Das.
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