Tag: tata sky

Redundancy in movies

I’m writing this while watching this Hindi movie called Cocktail, which is being shown on the pay-per-view Showcase channel on Tata Sky. Ten minutes after the movie started, I remembered this review of the movie that I’d read back when I was released, and thanks to that lost most interest in the movie. However, I continue watching, giving company to the wife, and reading papers and writing, as I watch.

The last Hindi movie I watched with any degree of seriousness was Gangs of Wasseypur (1 and 2), which is an absolutely mindblowing movie. While watching that movie, I remember that time moved insanely slowly. After what I thought was an hour of the movie, I looked at my watch only to realize that only half an hour had passed. Each part of the movie (which actually lasts about two and half hours each) felt like it individually lasted five hours! There was so much action that was packed into the movie.

So coming to the point of the post – the problem with most Hindi movies (not of the GoW variety) is that there is heavy redundancy packed into the movie. Each concept that ties into the main plot of the movie is explained so many times, most times not even through different means, that it is quite easy to miss a part of the movie and still be clued in to the overall plot. Not so with the GoW type, where there is absolutely no redundancy built in, because of which you can’t afford to miss even a couple of minutes of the movie, without losing part of the overall plot.

If you were to read Benoit Mandelbrot’s excellent book on the financial markets (The (mis)behaviour of markets), you would be introduced to this awesome concept of “trading time”. In the book, Mandelbrot explains that markets are not uniform – there are times when there is much more action packed into the markets (like the first and last fifteen minutes of trading every day) than in slower times (mostly around mid-day). Thus, to get a better analysis of the market, Mandelbrot explains, you need to look at it not from the point of view of “clock time” but from the point of view of “trading time”, which “measures time” by way of volume of trade.

Drawing an analogy, a movie like Gangs of Wasseypur is like a snapshot of the financial market during the opening 15 minutes of trading. At every moment in the movie, there is so much happening. Scenes are short, and cut abruptly, and say only what absolutely needs to be said. So you get much more “action” for each minute you spend watching the movie.

(Ok I realize that by repeating the funda in the previous paragraph, this post tends more towards Cocktail than GoW.) Maybe that’s why I don’t particularly enjoy most movies that I watch – there is so much redundancy I get bored. Problem with most mango people is that it takes too much mindspace to be focused through the duration of the movie, so they end up losing parts of the plot in movies such as GoW, and so movies such as these are not as commercially successful as slower paced movies.

Upendra’s Super is a funny movie, in terms of the pace at which it moves. The first two hours are full of theatrics, and unnecessary redundancy that makes you ask why you are watching the movie at all. The last half an hour, both in terms of content and the concept it gets across (property rights, concept of ownership, etc.) packs in so much that you leave the hall feeling satisfied. Maybe the two parts of the movie are aimed at different segments and Uppi seems to have cracked the formula!

MGM Channel

Yesterday I upgraded my Tata Sky package to Annual Mega Pack (with the would-be-ladywife wanting all Kannada and Telugu channels, and all movie channles; and with me wanting all sports channels this was most economical). And got service to this channel called MGM which was earlier part of an add-on package I wasn’t sure I wanted (along with TCM, Lumiere and Warner Brothers).

So last evening I celebrated the upgradation of my Tata Sky package by watching this random (isn’t close to the same league as the dollars trilogy or once upon a time in the west) western called Hang ’em High. Decent movie, but what made it immensely watchable is that there were no ads.

Yes, you read that right. MGM doesn’t show any ads in the middle of movies. Not one. And given the Tata Sky pricing, I guess it charges a reasonable subscription fee to fund itself! The sad part is that they don’t advertise this enough and so probably they aren’t able to collect as much subscription fees as they could. Nevertheless, this is a beautiful model and I just hope they sustain (my assumption is that if they didn’t show ads during a Sunday evening movie, they won’t show ads at all).

Given the surfeit of advertising that plagues most of our movie channels, I knew something like this was going to happen sometime. A channel that subsists on user subscription rather than spoiling the viewing experience by flooding the movie with ads. And what has made this possible is direct to home television, where your choice of channels isn’t dictated by your neighbour’s. And one in which it is easy for the channel to monitor the number of subscribers without the distributor (in this case , Tata SKY) fudging the numbers.

We need to be thankful to DTH for enabling such beautiful concepts like no-ad-movies, and thank MGM for taking a bold step and starting a no ad channel. Now, can sports channels create “plus versions” of themselves where they’ll show uninterrupted sport rather than cutting the first and last ball of each over and showing  the rest of the over in a smaller screen? I’m sure there are enough people who will be willing to pay a premium for it.

And I wish a similar model comes up for radio (Worldspace RIP but you didn’t offer radio in car). Again, too many ads.

Betting as a hedge

Today’s Business Standard reports that ESPNStar and their advertisers stand to lose significantly following India’s early exit from the T20 World Cup. However, the situation now is significantly better off than in the 2007 World Cup where India didn’t even enter the super8. Back then, India had played a grand total of 3 matches out of a maximum possible 11 before they got knocked out. And thanks to India’s exit, interest in the rest of the tournament had also waned, leading to significant losses for SETMax, etc.

The situation this time round is significantly better than the last time – since India has gone out only after the second stage. Given that after today’s games the only games are the semis and the finals, I don’t expect the channel and the advertisers to lose as much.

Nevertheless, my mind goes back to a post that I had written back when India went out of the 2007 World Cup following its loss to Bangladesh. I had suggested the following as an “immoral solution”.

It is clear that Ireland is in the super eight, so nothing can be done about that. However, there is still a ray of hope in group B (india?s group). I know it is illegal, but wouldn?t it make sense for a consortium of say SET, Tata SKY, LG and maybe tourism departments of West Indian governments to offer money to Bangladesh and ask them to lose to Bermuda? ?you have done a fantastic job so far in the world cup. You?ve beaten India. Must be a very proud moment for your country. Can you please take this money now and leave, so that the rest of the world cup can go on? We would be better off without you!?

However, the chance to implement the immoral solution is past us this time around. So let me come to the “one legal solution” that I’d suggested:

By buying broadcast rights for a major tournament such as a world cup, you are unwittingly betting on the results of a few matches. Betting that the country where you’ll broadcast will do well. Betting that there aren’t too many major upsets. Betting that results will follow a certain pattern. You know you can’t affect the results, so the next best thing is to hedge!

Go to Ladbrokes, and take the opposite position. Bet, and bet well so as to limit your losses in case some results don’t go according to plan. Maybe you’re not very good at betting, and after all it?s not your core competence. Not to worry. I’m sure some good investment banker would come up with a product with returns linked to the results of a few matches. He will provide you a product with which all the implicit bets you’ve taken will be hedged. And he will go to Ladbrokes and hedge his position by taking positions there. And charge you a small premium for it. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Betting on sport is not a purely speculative activity. Of course there are a lot of people who speculate on sports, but these people also speculate by buying and selling stocks and bonds. Betting can also be an extremely useful hedging tool. If only it were to be made legal in India, I’m sure a lot of our corporates will end up being better off. And typically taxes on betting are high, and so the government will also have its share.

Can someone please convince the people in the finance ministry, or whatever is the concerned ministry, about this, and to legalize betting? I’m sure there is significant value to be unlocked.

Randomizing advertisements

This 7.5 minute break in the middle of an IPL innings is a bad idea. The biggest problem is that everyone knows the exact length of the break, and can use it to do stuff – like cook, or clean, or crap, or fag, or maybe watch the Everton-Man U shootout. 7.5 minutes is a lot of ad time, but the problem is that absolutely no one will be watching them. So if you were a smart advertiser, you wouldn’t want to put your ad in that slot – you are better off taking an over break slot.

Now what I propose here is not applicable to cricket – at least I hope it’s not since conventionally you can’t slot ads whenever you want to (Lalit Modi thinks he can change that, though). I don’t know if this concept has already been implemented, and I’d be rather surprised if it hasn’t been. The basic idea is to randomize the length of advertising slots.

So you are watching your favourite soap and there’s a commercial break. And you go off into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. But you don’t really want to miss even a minute of the action, so you’ll go only if you know that the advertisements will go on for two minutes. Historical data tells you that the ads will last for two and a half minutes, and off you go. Now what if suddenly tomorrow there is only twenty seconds of advertisements and you end up missing a bit of the action? You curse yourself, and the soap, and the TV channel, and the TV, and Tata Sky, but you make a mental note not to go make tea during this break the next day.

Now, by randomizing the length of advertising breaks, channels can ensure that people actually watch the ads. If you don’t know if the break will last twenty seconds or two minutes, you are likely to sit glued to the TV, watching the same channel dishing out the ads. You are unlikely to go off to make tea, or to crap, or to channel surf, if you don’t know when programming might start next. You occasionally get pained – when the breaks are too long – but on the whole you end up watching most of the ads.

Yes, there is the chance that the viewer gets pained when the random length for ads that gets picked turns out to be really large. Also, if we shorten a few ad breaks, we should also lengthen a few others? Or increase the number of ad slots? Not really – is my argument.

The clincher here is that by randomizing length of ad breaks, you are increasing the TRPs for the ads! Yes your program may have high TRP but does that normally translate to ads? With this randomization procedure it does. And when this gets established, you can start charging higher for these slots. And if on an average you can charge a higher rate per second of advertisement, you can sure continue to run the program with a smaller number of ads?

It’s win all around. Customer wins because he gets more programming time than ad time. Advertiser wins because he gets more eyeballs for his ad. TV channel doesn’t lose since the loss of revenue from lesser number of ads is more than made up by the higher rate charged on the ads. In fact, by “holding” the customer, the channel ensures he continues watching this program rather than go off on a tangent while channel surfing.

Normally, I try to show situations where everyone can win by reducing the randomness in the system. This case is opposite. By introducing randomness in the system, everyone wins! I wonder if there is a fallacy here. Or maybe what I’ve written here is so obvious that everyone is implementing it and I’ve failed to notice since the only TV I see is sport (not american sport) which has fixed ad breaks.