Winsome loses some, wins lots

A model claims that she's been the victim of online fraud to the tune of Rs. 21,568.

That's not a lot of money to merit long articles in The Times of India and DNA (two newspapers I saw reports in).

The article is propped up by a photo of the model, Ankeeta Mukherjee. Obviously one from her portfolio. Does her a world of good.

And I spoke to a media planner friend, Poojary at TBWA, and asked him how much the space would have cost Ankeeta had she bought it.

If it appeared only in The Times of India's Mumbai edition, Ankeeta's gain is Rs. 2,97,840. If the story has been carried by all editions, she's gained Rs. 6,12,000.

And that's only The Times of India.

Not a bad loss, the twenty odd thousand. And Ankeeta's PR consultant has earned his beer.

Why India is out of the Big Mac Index: Where's the beef?

Still on economist.com. Looked at the Big Mac Index. Couldn't find India.

Why?
Clicked on link offering explanation.
Found this:

Burgernomics is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, the notion that a dollar should buy the same amount in all countries. Thus in the long run, the exchange rate between two countries should move towards the rate that equalises the prices of an identical basket of goods and services in each country. Our "basket" is a McDonald's Big Mac, which is produced in about 120 countries. The Big Mac PPP is the exchange rate that would mean hamburgers cost the same in America as abroad. Comparing actual exchange rates with PPPs indicates whether a currency is under- or overvalued.

And since McDonald's in India doesn't serve beef, we aren't considered for the index. It wouldn't be an apple to apple comparison.
I have no beef now on India being excluded.

India cleans up corruption act

Was on Economist.com. Looking for sports articles under articles by subject. “Corruption” caught my eye. Clicked link.
Here’s what I found:


EUROPE: Albania's government
No power, no glory
A tale of corruption and power cuts
UNITED STATES: Political corruption
Investigating Alaska
State and federal officials are facing a pile of indictments and inquiries. The common thread: oil
EUROPE: Political scandals in Italy
Courting trouble
Now magistrates take on the centre-left
MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA: Sierra Leone
As you were
Peace, and now elections. But not much else to brag about
THE AMERICAS: Brazil
Fight in the favelas
Rio cracks down on crime. But the police are at least half the problem
BUSINESS: Business in China
Dirty dealing
Despite a clampdown, corruption remains a formidable problem
LEADERS: Nigeria
Mission impossible, nearly
After fraudulent elections a new and tainted president faces a mountain of problems

Look, ma, there's no mention of India!
And why am I surprised? Just a few days ago, a friend and I were trying to recollect the last time either of us had paid a bribe to anyone. Couldn't remember...

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

When is a story a story?

When a Telugu filmstar turns 52, as CNN IBN feels?
Is it ever a story when someone turns 52?
In case the channel runs out of stories, here’s some help.
Bill Gates turns 52 this year as well. As does Indra Nooyi.
As do a few million other people.
And if you’re really in a fix, try people who turn 53. Or 51.

Or, for chrissakes, just pick a number!

Good news is no news

That’s all one can infer from two unrelated incidents of the past month.

Piyush Pandey completed 25 years at O&M. None of the MSM products saw fit to write about it.
Yashpal Khanna completed 15 years at STAR TV. None of the MSM products saw fit to write about it.

Let a mid level manager resign from O&M or STAR TV and it will be breaking news in the media focused dotcoms and will form part of a larger story in the advertising and media pages of newspapers.

Attrition is a story, retention or loyalty is not.

Of people to have a drink with

I can’t remember the precise exchange, but it went something like this:

“I’d walk a mile for a PG Wodehouse”, was Rex Stout, on PG Wodehouse.
“I have walked a mile for a Nero Wolfe,” was PG Wodehouse, on Rex Stout.

And a friend of mine starts a blog (http://www.plaincurdrice.blogspot.com/, where one is promised stupid answers to snappy questions) and has my blog as a link under “Glad to buy a drink anytime for…”

I’m always delighted to have a drink with you, Shirty. As I have been delighted to do for the past 25 years!

Of Orkut, of Big Adda and of ego

When I first came across Big Adda, I said to myself, hey, I've heard about this earlier...

Then I remembered, hey, I've written about this earlier...

And here's a part of a post written in October 2006 likening Orkut to addas.

I am on no Orkut group. I once got onto a Ryze group, but did nothing with it other than post a rudimentary profile.Orkut means nothing to me.

But it means a lot to my daughter.She’s part of a number of groups on Orkut, including one that discusses Osho chappals. I swear that’s true.

And she Orkuts (no reason why it shouldn’t be a capitalized verb, if one can be Bangalored) for an hour or so each evening.What she’s doing on the Internet is what another generation did outside of it. She’s catching up with like-minded people – not all of them anonymous and unknown. As time goes on, the group shrinks into grouplings and grouplets, tighter and tighter as the Orkuters find more and more common ground.

Objectors to Orkut should take a look at the Orkuts that we have had for years in the real world. Like the adda in Kolkata. Like the kitty parties anywhere in India. Like the Lion’s Club, like the Rotary, like chess clubs and carom clubs. Like the Laughter Clubs, like jazz societies and poetry readings and drama groups.

Piyush Pandey wins Silver

No, not at Cannes. Not at the Abby's. Not at any award ceremony.

He completed 25 years with O&M on the 31st of July. And, surpisingly, no one tom-tommed it.

What a story. In an industry which is going through an acute talent crisis, and attrition management is the foremost responsibility of CEOs, 25 years in one agency. And yet, it seems to merit no attention in the media.

Cool.

Peter Mukerjea to get out of recruitment business?

Towards the end of last year, newspapers in Mumbai reported rumours on Peter Mukerjea’s imminent departure from STAR TV. In the absence of any official comment, at that time, from STAR or Mukerjea, rumours and gossip were published as fact and as news.
And one would think that those who were so keen to know what Mukerjea was up to eight months ago would still be as keen – but they’re obviously not.
Peter Mukerjea’s non-compete with STAR ended yesterday, and, today, he’s free as a bird to get out of the recruitment business of INX and into the media business at INX Media.

And not a single newspaper reported the milestone.

Bloomsbury WILL announce 8th Harry Potter or new series by Rowling

Because the franchise is too big, and makes far too much money for Bloomsbury and Rowling to walk away from.
It’s naïve to believe that they would throw away the considerable investments made in both Harry Potter and JK Rowling. The 8th Potter book, if ever written, will sell like hotcakes – as will the first book in a new series “by JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series”.
If I were Ladbrokes, I’d open books on both, the 8th Potter and the first non-Potter Rowling.
And I hope they would acknowledge the fact that they got the idea here.

Of Harry Potter and Scotch whiskey

We’ve all heard of how more Scotch is sold in India than is bottled in Scotland.
Now, if this report on ibnlive is to be believed, more than a few million copies of the latest Harry Potter have been sold in India.

“In India, pre-release orders have run into several millions and bookstalls will open by 0600 hours on Saturday so that everybody can have access to the book on the same day. Separate stalls have been set up for those who have booked their copies in advance. Over one million copies have already been sold online.”

So says ibnlive.
The problem is, according to friends in the publishing industry, less than 2,50,000 copies of the book have been imported into India.

Do we know it all? Of Fest-O-Comm and Santosh Desai

Last Sunday, I decided to forgo bridge and Bacchus and instead conduct a day-long session on event management at Pune’s Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communications (SIMC).
One thing led to another, and the students wanted to discuss their annual event, Fest-O-Comm – and the biggest problem confronting them.
The Symbiosis credibility and reputation ensures that the most successful professionals from the fields of media and communication are always willing – calendars permitting – to visit the campus to deliver lectures, be on panels, and so on.
The problem is, Symbiosis has an auditorium that seats 650, and SIMC has only 150 students (both seniors and juniors put together). How does one fill up the auditorium so that, say, a Piyush Pandey or a Rajdeep Sardesai is not offended by empty seats?
SIMC invites colleges from across the country to take part in the fest and, yet, it is an uphill task to get the audi filled to the brim.

And the students are a worried and despondent lot – and I hope I’m able to find a viable solution to what is surely a vexatious problem.

And I think about all the seminars and symposia and talks I’ve attended in the past few years. And I am reminded of the poor attendance at a Santosh Desai review of the year gone by when hardly anyone who was anyone was there; of seminar rooms at FICCI Frames attended by audiences in single digits; of a Subhas Ghosal Foundation lecture delivered by Javed Akhtar given a miss by industry stalwarts.

Does nobody want to learn anymore?

Buy the new Harry Potter! Get fame, free!

Today’s consumerised society presents any number of get-famous-quick ops.
And the next one is imminent.
Be the first one to stand in a queue (it won’t be a queue yet) for the new Harry Potter. My advice: start tomorrow morning (Monday).
I guarantee you that the major news channels, the major newspapers and the major dotcoms will interview you immediately. Perhaps the international wire services will as well, and you could feature in a story in England or in America as part of a larger Harry Potter story – to prove that the Potter phenomenon works even in countries like India.
Yesterday, a news channel covered a Lagaan promotion at Landmark bookshop LIVE for over an hour! That’s potty.
And now they’ll go Potter.

Schizophrenia at ibnlive

This is getting ridiculous.
Three senior staffers at CNN-IBN blog on Rajnikant and Sivaji on ibnlive. First off, it was Anuradha Sengupta, who called the film crap – and Rajni fans came down on her like a tonne of bricks.
Next it was the sports correspondent, Sanjeeb Mukherjee, with a poorly written piece that borders on the irresponsible and the inflammatory by making the whole Sivaji phenomenon an Aryan-Dravidian polarisation. The post drips with thinly veiled sarcasm and a childish attempt at transliterating the Tamilian’s English accent, and ibnlive visitors came down on him like another tonne of bricks.
Finally, it’s Jhoomur Bose, Features Editor, who writes a blog in praise of the superstar. To prove her sincerity, she takes a cheap dig at the Big B, and underlines that she believes Rajni is a national, and not just a south Indian, superstar.

And none of the three bloggers knows Tamil. One claims openly that she knows but a few words. Despite reading Jhoomur’s post twice, I can’t be sure that she has even seen the movie.
This is madness.

Is there a method to the madness, Rajdeep?

QOTD: Can polls get stupider than this?

CNN-IBN is conducting a poll (here we go again, back to my pet peeve), that will identify India’s sports icon.
And I wanted to vote for Vijay Amritraj, but he wasn’t on the list of nominees. Neither was his brother Anand.
And I wanted to vote for Sania Mirza, but she wasn’t on the list of nominees.
No sign of Wilson Jones or Michael Fereira, though Geet Sethi is there.
Three cricketers are nominated, but not Bedi, Prasanna, Venkat or Chandra.
No Ramesh Krishnan, nor his father.

And get this one: Not a single hockey player. Zilch.

And the poll is completely ridiculous at the moment of writing (click here to see current status), with Sachin Tendulkar a runaway leader, with 84% of the votes cast. Currently Gavaskar brings up the rear, with a mind-boggling 0.29% (yes, that’s zero point two nine per cent) of ibnlive’s visitors opting for him.

Here’s my Question of the Day: Can polls get stupider than this?

A foretaste of times to come

A month or so from now, NDTV's Lifestyle channel will be available to all of us. And another few special interest channels from the same stable.
So will a number of niche channels from TV18, and from Peter Mukerjea's INX Media (oops, that should read Indrani Mukerjea).
So will a zillion lifestyle programmes on various channels.

So will a zillion niche and special interest magazines.
And in this wonderful age of consumerism, Indians will consume almost anything, which is good for the economy and good for special interest media products.

And one of my favourite media products, The Onion, gives you an idea of times to come.

New Pompous Asshole Magazine To Compete With Cigar Aficionado

NEW YORK-Upscale consumers who enjoy cigars, wine, and "all the finer things in life" will have a new magazine to enjoy beginning next month when Pompous Asshole hits the stands.

Go on, get out of here and click on the Onion link!

Of sobriety and text messages and the real wonder of the world

You cannot make a man sober by act of Parliament, goes the old adage.
Governments, over the decades, have failed to accept this simple truth.

And you cannot make a wonder of the world by totting up text messages.
You cannot make Shilpa Shetty a great actor by totting up text messages.
You cannot make Sanjaya a great singer by totting up text messages.

Consumers, over the next few decades, will fail to learn these simple truths.

And media houses and telecom companies, over the next few decades, will make fortunes because, as Barnum might have said a few decades ago, a sucker is born every minute.

And that, my friends, is a wonder of the world.

How hooked are you to blogging?

This is my 200th post, and by a bizarre coincidence, I stumbled upon a site which checks out how addicted one was to blogging.

and..
71%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Of course the survey is rubbish, but so is most of media and advertising.

But... how addicted are you?!!

The reader as judge, jury and executioner

CNBC TV18’s Anuradha Sengupta blogs about Rajanikanth’s Sivaji and calls it crap. The blog is inundated with comments (the last time I visited it, the count stood at 1250+), most of them from irate Rajni fans. Anuradha posts a reply, and the reply is bombarded by comments. More of them supportive and understanding her stand that the original post was a personal comment on the film, not a professional review, but a number still vitriolic.

I read and re-read her original post to try and understand what it is that Rajni fans were so upset about. It’s like people being upset if I said that I didn’t like the food at Bade Miya’s (I don’t; I think it’s overhyped crap).

If I did say, and I do, that the food at Bade Miya is crap, it does not
a) stop those who think Bade Miya rocks from going there
b) make Bade Miya go out of business

Just as those who think Sivaji is a great movie have a right to their opinions, so does Anuradha who thinks differently.

The worry, and the reason for the post, is the mob mentality that took over – some going so far as to threaten Anuradha with bodily harm. Increasingly, aided and abetted by live news television, the mob is becoming judge, jury and executioner.

And it’s bad enough that the media is becoming judge, jury and executioner too.

Yesterday I borrowed liberally from a post by Jamie Lee Curtis for mine; today, I link to a terrific piece in the Onion on trials by media. Does the spoof entertain me? No.

Does it frighten me? Yes. As do the reactions to Anuradha’s post.

Because there are audiences -- and they are entertained

It’s always fascinating when I read something written about another country and another culture and discover parallels to what is happening in India. Here’s a great instance.
Till last night, Jamie Lee Curtis, to me, was a successful actor – no more than that. After stumbling upon a blog post by her, she’s much more than an actor – she’s a deep thinker and a brilliant writer and commentator.
And there’s so much in her post that could be transported out of the America that she writes about to the India that I live in that you know that globalisation rules; trends in media, especially television, are the same everywhere.
Curtis is baffled by the success of, and audience fixation with, reality-elimination shows – as I am. The truth, however, is that there are millions of viewers everywhere who feed this monster and the format is here to stay.

Snippets from her post:
“There I was trying to celebrate with my friend when my eye kept being pulled to the set on the wall. There were some chefs on the screen, all standing with their hands clasped behind their backs, at attention, as a panel of people (who are they?) told them mostly bad things about, I assume, their food. I knew they weren't nice supportive comments as the camera was close on the chefs' faces and they looked scared and sad. They were then marched in and out as a group until one woman was asked to leave. She was crying, packing up her knives. It made me so sad and sick to watch. Why was I drawn to this? I didn't want her to lose...did I? Do I? I don't even know her. Why would I wish her harm?
I understand there are many of these shows now. All "elimination"-based and faux reality. Real like a firing squad. I understand there is a good side, a jubilant winner getting their shot at fame and fortunes, but the bulk of the watching, I gather, is some communal elimination where the audience gets a hand in the stone-throwing. It begs the question of why we feel the need to watch this. Are we all so unhappy in our own lives we need the fix of watching another human go into the gladiator ring and come out a bloody, eviscerated mess? What does Russell Crowe scream in Gladiator -- "Are you not entertained"?
I am not entertained….”

The full post, here. Go there, get entertained.

Image: www.freerepublic.com