Consolidation of radio is killing the medium, giving audiences few choices of music, artists, formats and local voices, says a report released by the D.C.-based Future of Music Coalition.
Food and grocery retailers like Spencer's, Trumart and Spinach have begun aggressively pushing small appliances into the domain of routine consumer purchases to push up the average ticket size of daily purchases and help profit margins.
With over 300 FM stations scheduled to go on air, the radio sector is emerging as another employment generating sector. However, there is a dearth of trained professionals. Keeping this in mind quite a few radio veterans have ventured into training the right talent.
The Bombay Ad Cub has decided to include media in its hitherto advertising-only quiz, ‘MAD Quiz’. Hence, from now on, the MAD Quiz will be called the M.AD Quiz. The sixth edition of the popular quiz is scheduled for January 12, 2007.
Shaju Ignatius has decided to venture into consultancy. He has put in his papers at the Percept Group, where his last stint was as a consultant to the Percept Integrated Marketing venture. He had also worked as President and Business Head of Percept D’Mark for their entertainment and special projects.
In his year-end talk, Ian Diamond, Senior VP and GM, Turner Entertainment Networks, Asia talks about the growth of Cartoon Network and POGO as lifestyle brands along with the various initiatives from their end in pioneering new shows and also the need to continually reinvent the shows and channels.
Mausumi Kar has quit Initiative to join ESPN-STAR Sports, where she will be heading Research and Planning as Associate Director. Kar brings with her 14 years of industry experience.
More repercussions of the Percept-Carat break-up are surfacing. Percept Holdings has announced the acquisition of Shripad Kulkarni’s Allied Media and launch of Percept Media, a full service 360-degree media offering. It has also announced restructuring of its media businesses to strengthen the new ‘true 360-degree media offering’.
In a coup of sorts, NDTV Profit has gone live on the wall of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the biggest symbol of the Indian capital market, marking the channel’s presence at the ‘action-point’ of the stock market.
OMS (Optimum Media Solutions), the specialist media independent belonging to the Mudra Group, has been appointed the media AOR for travel portal Yatra.com. The win was following a multi-agency pitch. Industry sources peg the size of the business in the region of Rs 8-10 crore. The creative duties are being handled by Everest Advertising.
In a rather surprise move, Arpita Menon, Vice-President, Lodestar Universal has decided to move on from the agency. Menon has been with the agency for over 12 years and has played a key role in various Lodestar initiatives. Agency officials were not available for comments and further details regarding the move will be clear only by December 18.
Sindhuja Rai has been roped in as General Manager and new head of Bangalore operations of Publicis Groupe-owned Starcom MediaVest Group. Rai, who joined from December 4, takes over from Indraneel Dutta who, had quit due to health reasons. Prior to joining Starcom MediaVest Group, Rai was with Lintas Media Group, Bangalore.
Neo Sports in its efforts to further stress on being ‘the home of Indian cricket on TV’ has announced its calendar of international cricketing properties lined up till March 2010. The channel has claimed that 72 per cent of all confirmed international cricketing events and series featuring India till March 2010 would be telecast on Neo Sports.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has been busy of late. The Council has rapped seven advertisers and their agencies for objectionable ads, of which five have been withdrawn, one modified, while one ad was a one-time insertion.
<p align=justify>The days when one said 'I am XYZ brand, buy me' are passe. People don't look at advertising in that way anymore, they have to decide for themselves what they want and in that sense you have to mean really something and be relevant to the consume...Anything that looks nice now might become passe later, so how it integrates into the thinking of the consumers and how consumers adapt to it for a long term is important.