The commercialization of the Indian media

PONDICHERRY, INDIA — A businessman I know was approached by representatives of a leading Indian national newspaper and offered a deal: Give us a stake in your company, and we’ll give you advertising space and favorable editorial coverage.

A publisher told me that she received a similar proposition: Pay us, and we’ll interview your authors and write features about them. Rumors about shady practices — unethical, possibly illegal — in the Indian media have circulated for years. Over the past year or so, and especially since the 2009 parliamentary elections, when the sale of media space was reported to have reached new heights, the issue has drawn more attention.

The commercialization of the Indian media takes many forms. It has been known for some time that a few of India’s leading media conglomerates — including Bennett, Coleman & Co., the publisher of The Times of India and The Economic Times — offer what that company calls “innovative” and “integrated” marketing strategies that blur the traditional line between advertising and article content. Bennett, Coleman’s Medianet division, for example, lets advertisers place articles on certain pages in the paper without clearly marking them as advertising.

One of the company’s more aggressive offerings is a product known as a Private Treaty, which offers companies a certain amount of advertising space in exchange for equity stakes in those companies. According to the Private Treaties Web site, Bennett, Coleman now holds such equity stakes in more than 100 companies. Officially, the companies are only given advertising space. But at least one businessman confirmed to me that it was made clear that he could also expect favorable news coverage.

At the very least, it seems evident that Private Treaties set up a very serious conflict of interest, a point highlighted last year when the Indian stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, wrote a letter to the chairman of the Press Council expressing concern about the business practice.

Private Treaties are an example of the commodification of business news. But much of the recent attention in India has focused on paid political content. Over the past year or so, there have been a growing number of reports of politicians paying media houses for favorable coverage or to skirt restrictions on campaign financing.

P. Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, a national newspaper, has been instrumental in drawing attention to such practices. In a series of articles on elections in Maharashtra State last year, Mr. Sainath listed specific prices for different kinds of articles.

From Akash Kapoor's Letter from India in The New York Times

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I hate IPL, because....

I hate IPL, because...

1. The players were made pawns in the hands of the team owners. They were auctioned and guys like Vijay Mallya bought them for peanuts. They lost their self-respect. There is a big difference between playing for one's country than for a greedy billionaire like Mukesh Ambani or Shah Rukh Khan.
2. Mukesh, Mallya and others were into the IPL not because of their love over the game. They were there to mint money and have succeeded instantly, enormously without any big effort. They virtually invested zero money in grooming players. It could have made sense, if they had taken some enthusiastic college kids and trained them and groomed them as players. Instead, they made avail of themselves readymade cricketers for paultry sums. P. Sainath has rightly termed it as Indian Paisa Loot!
3. The presence of cheer girls and gyrations and gestures of these scantily dressed girls is nauseating
4. The party culture promoted by the IPL is disgusting. According to sources there were close to eight varieties of dishes at each party and over all close 1,29,600 bottles of beer and 27,000 bottles of whiskey were consumed; 9,450 songs played at post match parties 27,000 bottles of whisky consumed, 432 dishes served in the buffet spreads, 1,728 garments displayed at 54 fashion galas 39.7444 kms covered by models on the ramp and 810 security personnel on duty.
5. The allegations about match fixing holds water. The scope for betting is enormous. A 32-year-old man  committed suicide in Udhagamandalam town of Tamil Nadu after he lost heavily in betting on a match in the ongoing IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament. It is only a tip of the iceberg.
6. Greed breeds greed. The gory tales of proxy shares, tax evasions, money laundering etc are sickening.

IPL = Indian Paisa Loot!!

P Sainath

P. Sainath has nailed it on its head. He writes in The Hindu:

Who stand to gain from the public wet-nursing of the IPL? 

Among others, four gentlemen who make the Forbes Billionaires List of 2010. Three of them are team owners and one is a title sponsor. 

All dollar billionaires and long-time residents on the Forbes List. 

Then there are the mere millionaires in the shape of Bollywood stars. For all these and other worthy people, governments bend over backwards to make concessions. Even as they slash food subsidies in a period of rising hunger. Big time partying is an integral part of the IPL show. 

Only look who is paying for that. Street argot has already begun to brand the IPL as Indian Paisa League or, more directly, India Paisa Loot.

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