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Media Mughal
Wearing a crisp off white kurta, embroidered in subtle earthy colours and a lungi with a red banarsi border, Subhash Chandra exuded a certain magnanimity that is hard to explain. Coming from the naughty world of the bold and the beautiful, his cool demeanour did not come as a surprise. His expressions gave no clue of the fact that ‘he shuns publicity.’ In fact, it seemed that he enjoyed a great comfort level with the media and doesn’t find interviews tedious.
Known as Asia’s Murdoch, the Haryana boy from a small-time business family, who made his initial money by exporting rice to the erstwhile USSR, has come a long way. He is the first Indian who sought to harness the huge business potential of satellite television channels when viewers in India were under the firm grip of Doordarshan. The media tycoon of South Asia, chairman and managing director of Zee Telefilms Limited, sat comfortably on a sofa at the Punjab House in Islamabad where I went to see him. He had just returned from a dinner hosted by Chaudhry Shujaat in his honour.
His vision that “if Zee succeeds in sustaining its head start, it would shape up as a media giant sooner than later,” is admirable. Could he forecast the popularity of Zee TV way back in the early ’90s? “I would not have entered if I knew the responsibilities it will bring with it,” he smiles, teasingly.
A man who has nurtured Zee into India’s most popular satellite television network and positioned it as a global brand with visibility in the US, UK and South Africa is set to launch a global news network, the Asian Television.
‘News is never unbiased. If I am running a news network run by Asians, we will look at things with an Asian perspective because everyone is a partner. It won’t be just the Indian viewpoint. Our perception in India is that we are trying to become the BBC of South Asia’
“Today if you look at the global news network arena, it is only occupied by CNN and BBC who only safeguard their own point of view. So why should we not have our own channel that looks at the global scene from the Asian perspective? Discussions with Asian countries are going on. We have discussed with the Chinese government (the CCTV). We are already in negotiations with Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.”
Being an Indian owned concern, will the channel be able to remain unbiased?
“News is never unbiased,” comes the reply. “If I am running a news network run by Asians, we will look at things with an Asian perspective because everyone is a partner. It won’t be just the Indian viewpoint. Our perception in India is that we are trying to become the BBC of South Asia. We are trying to be holier than the cow. I don’t know weather you understand that phrase. Whenever there is an issue in the subcontinent, we do try to balance both points of view. We are working in partnerships. It can work only if you are honest. We will have to invest a capital expenditure of about 400 million dollars. The deadline is December 2006. We are playing around with the ideas of names, one of which is Asian News International.” He uses his neatly manicured hands while he talks, a beautiful rakhi tied around his right wrist.
How does he feel about not getting paid for the viewership?
“Zee Network has 14 channels. We are the leaders in entertainment with the largest viewership. One learns from experiences in life and sometimes some experience pays you dividends. Then you don’t try to turn it around and change it. And the experience in this case is that in 1993-94 we became hugely popular. Our programmes were being pirated with cassettes being made in Dubai and Malaysia and sent to the entire South Asian where programmes were available in video libraries and Indian grocery stores. People were watching our shows without our being there. My colleagues kept worrying that ‘piracy ho rahi hay we should stop it.’ I kept saying, ‘hooney do,’ because the day we will launch our network, we will not be new to them. So it will worry me more if the cable operators are not showing Zee channels.”
In today’s age he doesn’t think there are any surprises left for the public because everyday you either watch TV or read newspapers. Recently venturing into the print media domain, he says as a media company you have to respond to your customers’ needs and provide a total solution under one roof.
“Today the advertiser doesn’t want to say ‘keh mein itna paisa print me dalta hoon, itna television me daalon ga, radio me daalon ga, itna PR me karon ga.’ They want a total solution,” he says.
Flying in his own private plane, Subhash Chandra was on a whirlwind tour of Pakistan which lasted less than 48 hours, in which he met the chief minister of Punjab in Lahore, the prime minister in Islamabad and the president in Karachi. As for the reason of his visit, “We paid a courtesy visit to the prime minister and held a very free, frank meeting. He listened to my project and wished me success. The meeting with the president is also more of a courtesy call in which we would like to introduce our group. We will meet with a very open mind. We hadn’t had a chance to meet one to one. It’s nice of him that he has given me the time,” Chandra explains.
This is not his first visit to the country. He has been in Pakistan three time and “enjoyed the hospitality of Pakistanis. Zee as a network is very well received in Pakistan. Unless you come here and meet the people, one feels definitely aloof. You are away from you clients. I agree, I should have come more often.”
Recalling one of his visits, he said “I boarded a PIA flight to Mumbai from London and had to get down at Dubai to change the plane but I fell asleep and no one woke me up. I landed in Karachi without any permission, or relevant papers. It was a pretty tense time between the two countries. But the kind of love I received from the airport staff is beyond words. They recognized me as a Zee person and I was put on the next flight to Mumbai. It was amazing. I can never forget that time.”
On Indo Pak ties, he says Zee is playing a very big role.
“I believe in doing things without saying. That gives a major impact. You must have seen Pakistani and Indian artistes together at the Zee Cine Award function, which was watched by 300 million people across the globe. Without saying anything we showed what the media can do to bring the two countries together. We didn’t say India Pakistan dosti zindabad. Besides that, we used to have a private sector bulletin on Zee TV’s main entertainment channel, ever since our start in 1994. We received a huge amount of letters from Pakistan. Perceptually we are two different nations but we are not far off from each other. As one can see the improvement made in the last year is commendable,” he concludes.
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