Sensationalising news is in nobody’s interest in the long run. The corollary to that is that news should not be boring and ineffective. In today’s day and age, people will not watch a channel, if that’s the case.

When it comes to advertising, in news channels or elsewhere, there are two or three things that come into play.

When you evaluate a channel for advertising, one needs to look at the right, and relevant, numbers. When clients put money on a channel with a million viewers, relevance is important, as the channel is of no use to him if the client’s target audience is just a minuscule part of the channel’s viewership.

Equally important is the editorial environment of the channel in question. Otherwise, it will have a negative impact on brands. In this aspect, the genre of news is different, as the content is not in your control.

You release an ad in a general entertainment channel or a movie, you know what to expect.

But in a news channel one cannot know what will unfold when your commercial goes on air.

However, what media planners know for sure is the editorial nature of the channel and media planners do factor that in.

In my view, the unfortunate part is that several news channels are deliberately sensationalising to get numbers and beat the system. It would be easy to identify if there were one or two culprits.

But when everyone is following that route you cannot do much.

(As told to Prasad Sangameshwaran)

Ashish Bhasin is Chairman & CEO South Asia - Dentsu Aegis Network Chairman Posterscope & psLIVE - Asia Pacific

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