Search This Blog

Wednesday 30 November 2016

Ad-Spend Slide Hurts Media-Biz

By Pyotr Mundolsky and Phyllis D’Souza in Mumbai

Southern News & Feature Service Exclusive

SNFS provides an insight into the sufferings of advertising industry, due to the demonetisation by the National Democratic Alliance regime

The demonetisation has dealt a body-blow to India’s audio-visual entertainment to the tune of Rs.1400 crores [US$ 20 million], top industry sources told SNFS.

The monthly ad-spend is roughly Rs.4500 crores, as per industry indices.

In early 2016, media agency GroupM had predicted an annual growth of 15.5% to Rs. Rs.57,486 crores from last year’s corresponding spread of Rs.49,758 crores.

Part of WPP PLC, the media agency had predicted that digital advertising would annual swell by a face pace – by 47.5%.

The earlier fiscal had seen an ad-spend annual growth of 14.2% overtaking the group’s prophecy of 12.4%.

“Audiences have thinned in cinemas affecting box office collections of movies that were expected to be hits. Advertising agencies that are already known to delay payments up to 120 days have asked production houses to hold the cheques citing demonetisation blues. And this has adversely affected top programmes with high television rating points [TRPs] as advertising contracts are being heavily withdrawn and/or deferred”, top satellite channel sources told SNFS.

India’s top advertiser Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has cut its TV ad-spends December onwards, sources said.

Release Orders are being handed over on week-on-week basis instead of the usual monthly practice. As a result, HUL alone has cut its budget till January 1 by Rs.150 crores, a highly placed source in a general entertainment channel [GEC] outlet told SNFS.

HUL, however, denied the averment.

“Our investments in popular brands are planned dynamically to ensure optimum exploitation of consumer interest driven by market forces and ground realities,” a source aware of the development commented.

Nevertheless, an internal HUL communication, it is said, had predicted adverse short term impacts on sales dampened by the ongoing demonetisation scheme.

“Cash strapped retail buyers are bound to spend less,” says one of the operative lines in the presentation, an insider said.

The strain has been outlined in a circular of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF).

“It has been observed that several advertisers/agencies have started sending cancellations to members on existing deals, which include both short term and long term contracts citing the demonetisation initiative of the Government of India,” it says.

Production companies are facing the crunch as units supplying equipment and food during shooting and post production schedules are not able to withdraw cash. Stars too are paid a sizeable portion of their remuneration in cash. Endorsements of products involve a huge cash component – and these have acquired new question marks. Finally, those who succeed in withdrawing money are landed with two numbers of Rs.2000 currency notes. Nothing at all can be achieved with this sum. Further, even for this paltry sum, change is extremely difficult to obtain, insiders told SFNS.

Media sales firms chose to downplay the development.

“Cancellations are underway. However, we see this as a temporary hiccup. While old-school sections are feeling the heat, newer companies specialising in e-wallets like PayTM, M-Pesa and a few others are experiencing a windfall. The losses, when finally computed could be around Rs. 500 crore, at present estimates, in the known sectors. The hit is also bound to hurt those surviving on TV advertising. Nevertheless, the newer businesses’ inflow could stem the ebb to a decent extent,” a channel’s marketing head said, insisting on anonymity.

The worst effects were experienced in the FMCG, textile Banking-Financial Services-Insurance [BFSI], Non-Banking-Finance-Corporations [NBFCs], real estate and jewellery sectors whose sizeable component depend on initial cash inputs. Rumours about income tax raids only worsened the fears driving business further southward.

Demonetisation has also forced a rethink on the advertising plans to be finalised before March 2017.

“Everything depends on how the market shapes up in the coming weeks. The biggest dampeners are coming from tidings about a 50% tax outgo adversely affecting sentiment. Firms that have a little stashed cache of cash meant for the oncoming year will have to consult auditors to do some serious tax-planning, to reduce the burden of fines. It would, however, imply a windfall for income tax department. While none grudges the taxes, fears of what taxmen would do later, is a source of serious worry,” a top source said on phone from Kolkata.

Well-known media personality S Gurumurthy told an elite gathering in Chennai that a decade-long decadent and unrealistic growth fuelled by false currency, black wealth and black money had triggered the urgent need to force the demonetisation move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The course correction was long overdue. The discredited former United Progressive Alliance [UPA] regime allowed the inorganic, sudden and unrealistic growth that drove prices northward that suited the designs of some 5% of the super rich in this nation. What seemed like a runaway growth potential was also financed by counterfeit currency and even terrorist funding,” he said in the Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture.

“Surprisingly, most newspaper and television channels opted not to expose the obvious malaise,” he added.

-additional reporting by Radhika Padmanabhan in Chennai

PM/HA/TSV

SFNS is a news service with a difference. News is narrated succinctly and in detail - for the reader to understand - every event it its complete perspective.



For further info, contact: tsvhari@tsvhari.com

Monday 28 November 2016

A Posthumous Insult To India’s Soulful Voice – Mohammad Rafi


A SNFS Feature on special arrangement courtesy - Ravi Menon, music research head of Mathrubhumi group

Chal ud jaa re panchi
Ke ab yeh
Desh huaa begaanaa

Fly away, winged angel,
This land is yours no more

Celebrities’ receiving bouquets and brickbats when alive or posthumously is an everyday occurrence. Eternal crooner Mohamed Rafi – considered the soulful voice of the nation fared no different. 

Karan Johar, one of Bollywood’s richest and best connected movie-moguls “insulted” the memory of the legendary singer. A dialogue from the October 2o16 release, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil apparently ridicules Rafi. The dialogue has Anushka Sharma telling a character played by Ranbir Kapoor, “Mohd. Rafi gaate nahi rotey thhey” [Rafi didn’t sing, he cried].

Having authored over 10 books on entertainment side’s aural waves, Ravi Menon, Head of Mathrubhumi Music Research tried to find out whether Johar had any justification for the diatribe against Rafi.

The year was 1958.

Silent sadness hung heavily in the Bombay recording studio’s console. Rafi was lending his voice to Shailendra’s lyrics and Salil Chowdhury’s tune for the classic Madhumati – starring Bollywood tragedian Dilip Kumar a.k.a. Mohammad Yusuf Khan and those days’ southern siren Vyjayantimala.


Broken dreams have taught us 
Visible realities cause 
Hearts’ achievements’ losses

Paying close attention were the above personalities and also the famous director – Bimal Roy and recordist Badri Nath Sharma.

Rafi emerged from the voice room of the recording studio and noticed the sad expressions on the faces of those who were meant to approve the song.

“Should I do one more take? Your faces are depicting disapprovingly sad expressions,” he said.

“We are sad, alright, Rafi Saab. You sang so emotionally that the song took us to the brink of tears,” Shailendra said.

Rafi smiled disarmingly.

“Probably, the lyrics’ plaintive numbers and the tune’s inherent sadness helped me render it this way,” he whispered. All singers speak in very low voices – saving their vocal chords’ strain for the microphone.

None of those present could have imagined that the song would be hummed for decades.

The ironical twist followed an hour later.

Salil Chowdhury had composed the tune for another song in the same movie – a comedy piece featuring teetotaller funster Johnny Walker doing a drunken scene on screen.


None noticed the peacock dancing in the forest
But the world noticed my having quaffed a small drink!

“We wouldn’t mind recording this song another day, Rafi Saab. After the heavily emotional stuff a little while ago, you may find it difficult to do a light-hearted number,” offered Sharma.

Rafi had none of it. 

He rendered the song in a single take.

“It is part of my job. We are part of the film industry that needs to survive. I am contributing only in a small way, as a professional. Every singer must be prepared to switch styles and emotions to suit the song-situation,” Rafi informed the awe-struck movie-bigwigs and walked away.

“I had seen a hundred per cent true professional that day,” recordist Sharma commented later.

That was an era of mono-recording done on tape, in the linear method.

The modern day methods of ‘punching-in’ special lines, ‘cut-paste’ tricks etc were unheard of in the fifties. For that matter, none even dared to splice and edit the audio tape, which was technically possible at that time. Reason: half a second’s missed beat could ruin a song.

Released in 1958, Madhumati won that year’s national award for best Hindi feature film, completed a silver jubilee, and succeeded in helping Roy haul himself out of financial holes created by earlier tear-jerkers. It was India’s second Oscar entry and went on to bag 6 Filmfare Awards.

Karan was born in 1972 – 14 years later to Yash Johar. Johar senior’s film career started in right earnest in 1963 when he was made production manager of veteran actor Sunil Dutt’s classics Mujhe jeene do [let me live] and Yeh raaste hain pyar ke [these are paths of love].

Rafi sang “Ab koyee Gulshan na ujde ab watan azaad hai” for Mujhe jeene do – played on every Independence Day in many parts of India. The lyrics mean, “From now on no Eden shall be ruined as the nation is free!”

A couple of years later, Yash joined evergreen star Devanand’s production company Navketan to assist in the making of all time classics Guide and Jewel Thief, Prem Pujari [love worshipper] and Hare Rama Hare Krishna. While Guide had 3 songs by Rafi, Jewel Thief had one number by the singer.

Yash launched his own outfit Dharma Productions in 1979. The first movie was Dostana [friendship] starring Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha, Pran and Zeenat Aman.

It is a cruel irony life that Rafi was “insulted”, as never before, in the recent film 2016 Diwali release  – “Ae dil hei mushkil” [life is difficult, dear heart] made by Karan Johar starring Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Ranbir Kapoor.

The dialogues of ADHM were penned by Niranjan Iyengar – a Tamil speaking Brahmin born in Anand, Gujarat.

While the movie had its fair share of controversies due to its Pakistani actor Fawad Khan, it received tepid reception at the Box Office.

Cutting across language and geographical barriers, the controversial lines mouthed by Anushka Sharma in ADHM– Rafi gaate nahin rotey thhey [Rafi did not sing, he wept] raised the hackles of Indian music lovers throughout the nation.

Music director and singer Bappi Lahiri told a radio station in faraway Calicut thus: “How can one remain quiet if one’s father’s reputation is besmirched?”

Lahiri was justified in saying so, for Rafi is indeed considered the father of modern-day playback singing in India.

Rafi’s record speaks for itself.

He sang several thousand songs in multiple languages – viz. Hindi, Assamese, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Magadhi, Maithili, Urdu, English, Farsi, Arabic, Sinhalese, Creole, and Dutch, says Wikipedia.

Naturally, Rafi’s son Shahid was enraged.

Rafi’s son, Shahid said, “This dialogue doesn’t take the movie forward or backwards and if that is the case, what was the need to include this dialogue? And while writing this dialogue, didn’t they realise who they were talking about? Mohammed Rafi is a versatile legendary singer and I am not saying this just because he is my father. Even after 36 years of his passing away, my father’s fan following is far more than many other singers of our industry. My father was an institution. He was a very down-to-earth person. He was like a saint. People still worship him. Nobody in the industry says anything bad about my father. This dialogue is an insult. It is stupid. The man who wrote this dialogue is stupid. My father sang for Shammi Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar, Joy Mukherjee and Biswajeet. From love songs to qawwali, he has sung it all. It is ridiculous to say whatever has been said in the film,” Shahid told the Indian Express. 

Sonu Nigam, a currently popular singer took umbrage.

“Rafi is the king of singers. Using frivolous words for someone of his stature is unacceptable and offensive,” Nigam was quoted as saying.

Incidentally, it is amusing that the ADHM title was borrowed from a six decade old super hit Rafi number from CID (1956) picturised on Johnny Walker.


“O heart, life is difficult in Bombay, manoeuvre a little and take care, for this is that kind of city,” it is English meaning.

The song was tuned by OP Nayyar and penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri [the pen name means wounded soul of Sultanpur].

Rafi was eloquent in every emotional aspect of songs sung for the screen – pathos, romance, devotion, comedy, anger, you name it.

Here are a few links of his songs - that provide insights of the singer’s versatility and range:


May be the spirit of Rafi, sitting in a far off land, would be humming this song from the 1957 classic from AVM studious – “Bhabi.”


Fly away, winged angel,
This land is yours no more

Appending the opening lines of lyrics from a song in the film Dostana [friendship] – one of the first movies made by Yash Johar would prove to be the supreme ironical icing on the cake to round off this tale about the behaviour of Karan Johar and the tasteless remark on the great singer Rafi.


O friend, what an ironical incident this is
I hear that you have become an ingrate

RM/M/KMT/TSV

SFNS is a news service with a difference. News is narrated succinctly and in detail - for the reader to understand - every event it its complete perspective.


For further info, contact: tsvhari@tsvhari.com