Leading private outsourcing firm, Fourth Dimension Media, has announced the launch of second edition of South India Media Summit (SIMS) at Chennai scheduled in August 2019.
The CEO of Fourth Dimension Media, Shankar and his team are aspiring to make this edition of SIMS much bigger and better in-terms of speakers, session topics and delegate participation. In an exclusive chat with MediaNews4U, Shankar briefed his plans and roadmap for SIMS in detail.
Excerpts:
What’s the objective of South India Media summit ?
The objective is to bring South India in the limelight, I have always evangelized for better representation for South Indian Media and I thought there couldn’t be a better way than launching our own property and we titled it ‘South India Media Summit’. Also the objective is for the media fraternity on the whole to understand much deeper about the 5 south Indian states. Soon, there are plans to take it to smaller towns like Coimbatore,Trichy, Vizag, Trivandrum, Puducherry etc.
What should one expect from this year’s SIMS ?
This year its much larger and bigger as I said earlier. The kind of speakers who have agreed to come on board are industry captains and have been very successful. This year there are some names which will be unveiled soon, who are big retail giants and have made big empires yet maintained a very low profile. When these people talk it will be first of its kind experience for many of them. This year we are expecting a lot of participants to travel from South Asian countries, few have written or called me directly too.
Do you still think the understanding of South is a challenge for the media fraternity?
Would say – Yes and No. Its impossible for the fraternity to keep a track of all the 29 states and various languages, culture etc. It’s the onus of we broadcasters, publishers to make them aware of what’s happening in each of the states. It will be a great initiative to start on smaller towns and invite clients/agencies to come and experience, there can’t be a better than this to explain a state/language.I guess efforts are being made by agencies to understand much deeper. I would say the regional languages are slightly more complex than Hindi, it will take time. In a country that has more than 800 channels and 2000 publications it’s virtually impossible to keep a track.
Recently, there is lot of stuff being spoken on Landing Page – your comments?
Glad you asked me that, we are probably the First South Indian channel to start this issue against landing page almost a year ago. We as a brand represent 2 News channels, which are market leaders in Tamil & Telugu. Landing page is a menace, which has to be stopped, not controlled, we will continue to raise these issues, and we are the most affected.
What’s next for Fourth Dimension?
We are in no hurry! It’s important that we keep our existing partners happy, I firmly believe in ‘ A Bird in Hand is equivalent to TWO in the Bushes’ – that sums it up. We will grow exponentially with existing partners, I feel there is a strong potential to explore.
Do you feel Digital will overtake TV, as in TV will die?
I have answered this at many forums, when people say Digital will take over TV, I’m still waiting for that day. Example our Digital Assets of Puthiyathalaimurai News and V6 News enjoy the highest numbers on any platform, does that mean more business, actually NO. Even today maximum chunk of money goes into FB and Google, so digitally even if you are a market leader, monetization will take a lot of time.
Secondly, you look at Amazon Prime, Netflix etc most of the OTT players still use TV as their lead medium and they say please continue to embrace Digital. The point is we have a lot of learning to do before we may sweeping statements like TV will die and Digital will walk over it.
Thirdly, the content on OTT needs a regulation, its going haywire.
Would you want to speak on SIMA (South India Media Association) and the need ?
Oh, this has been my long term plan, I’m glad its coming to shape finally. In so many years whenever a southern media professional had an issue, he had to depend on the Northern media to take up issues etc. I always wanted to strong forum to take up our own causes, our problems are not the same as them.The kind of response I have personally got from the media community in South its overwhelming. At this point in time am unable to disclose details, will share as and when we have some stuff.
Lastly, what should people expect from SIMS.
As said earlier, welcoming all media professionals and aspiring ones with both arms. Never ever will you get an opportunity like this, it’s a once every year summit. Don’t miss!
