MSOs flag price hikes, slower infra growth if landing pages stop delivering ratings

New Delhi: Days after BestMediaInfo estimated a Rs 2,000 crore revenue hit after landing pages are limited to purely marketing activities and stop delivering direct ratings, MSOs have flagged that they will be compelled to recover their operational costs through higher B2B and B2C pricing.

Multiple multi-system operators told BestMediaInfo.com that any sharp reduction in this non-subscription income will eventually flow down the chain and show up in the form of higher charges for broadcasters and end consumers.

A top executive at a mid-sized MSO also flagged a potential slowdown in network investment after 15-20 per cent of their revenues are wiped off following segregation of ratings arising out of landing pages from final viewership numbers.

If landing pages cannot influence ratings, MSOs believe, broadcasters will be less willing to pay high premiums for these spots, reducing a major revenue stream for MSOs.

With lower incentives, they argue that MSOs and LCOs will be less willing to put money into last-mile infrastructure, upgrades and expansion in semi-urban and rural markets, which could hurt the long-term growth of the cable television ecosystem.

They maintain that the landing page is the exclusive property of the operator and that its management, positioning and utilisation should remain under the operational control of the MSO as part of its legitimate business rights.

From this perspective, any move that curtails the commercial exploitation of the landing page is being projected as an attack on their business model rather than a narrow tweak to ratings methodology.

To bolster their case, MSOs and allied stakeholders reiterated their stand that the landing page is a legitimate and widely accepted marketing tool, comparable to what other industries already do.

They point out that in print media, full front-page advertisements are routinely sold and used for product or brand promotion. In the FMCG sector, companies have long paid for branded displays, refrigerators and racks in retail outlets. On digital platforms, pre-roll ads that play before content starts are being cited as the functional equivalent of a landing page.

They argue that if front pages, in-store branding and pre-rolls are accepted marketing exposures, then the television landing page should also be treated as a valid marketing surface rather than a distortion.

However, government sources told BestMediaInfo.com that these comparisons do not hold up in the context of the draft TRP amendments, which, in fact, explicitly recognise the landing page as a legitimate marketing surface.

“The government has proactively considered these longstanding contentions while including the landing page issue in the revised draft amendments on TRP guidelines,” said a senior government source, stressing that the proposed framework does not seek to take over the landing page from MSOs or bar them from using it for promotions.

According to the source, the core concern is not marketing per se but the nature of the exposure and its impact on viewership measurement.

“Any marketing does not force a customer to act, unlike landing pages,” the govt source pointed out, drawing a line between opt-in advertising and a channel being auto-played or force-placed in a way that can influence ratings.

From the government’s point of view, this also means that the basic commercial freedom of MSOs over their landing page remains intact.

Since the Centre is neither taking control of the landing page nor blocking its use for marketing, officials believe the current pushback shows that MSOs do not want the landing page to be confined to pure marketing activity, because such a restriction would drive most broadcasters away from paying high rates for that inventory.

Government officials argue that by clearly stating that the landing page should be used as a marketing tool, the draft amendment actually incorporates many of the arguments previously advanced by broadcasters and DPOs themselves.

Broadcasters, led by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL), had placed similar points before the Supreme Court in their challenge to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the landing page issue. That case is still pending, and the government now appears to have borrowed from that reasoning while re-drafting the TRP guidelines.