A veteran in media industry, Prashanto Das has 19 years of experience in broadcast operations for some of India’s leading networks and media companies. He has set up and launched brands like Times Now, Bloomberg TV India and the UTV Network. In his last stint as Network Head for Creative Services for UTV, he led India’s largest media brand transformation exercise.

Prashanto has set up many large creative teams delivering thousands of hours of creative output and has worked with international, award-winning design houses while executing large and complex brand projects. In an exclusive interaction with India Digital Review, he talks about his digital venture Ping Digital, its uptake and future plans.

You have a vast experience in television medium. What prompted you to venture into online video space and launch Ping Digital Network?

Having been part of large television startups, it was clear that the next venture would be as big or bigger. It was pretty apparent back then too that mainstream television would always be challenged in allowing viewers to be more engaged or would ever have true interactive formats. It completely contradicted what one was seeing the world move to.

We felt that there were huge content opportunities, which were not being addressed or could be addressed in newer formats for audiences which are increasingly consuming via the digital pipe. We spent some time studying the market closely, mostly in the United States and concluded that there was a clear opportunity to build an enterprise here. The difference we realized had to be scale, at a level not demonstrated before, which is also our challenge. 

Today after Google, YouTube is the next largest search engine. Through the social media phenomena in the recent years, there is an obvious need for increased interactivity, higher levels of engagement and a more personal way of consuming media. The internet also provides you with a huge advantage of global audiences.

Content - anytime, anywhere - your desk top, your laptop, your iPhone, your smartphone, your iPad  to even your 42” smart TV seems to be the obvious mantra. This reality is what promoted Google owned YouTube sometime in December 2011 to announce the launch of 100 premium (professional) channels, each of which would carry original content further ratified our belief. With an initial investment of $100 million, the internet giant had  tied up with original content developers to create new and experimental programs, in an effort to make the service more TV-like and also compete against video-on-demand (VoD) services while increasing viewership and getting more advertisers on board.  

This move by Google further ratified our own belief in this model. This is the era of re-imagination of almost everything. Technology is just about changing anything- small is beautiful and broadcasters or television or otherwise will need to re-align themselves to this reality.

How has been the uptake of Ping in terms of subscription, user no and traffic?

To be honest, we always knew that being in this medium would certainly be very exciting but we never expected the level of engagement and views received. Clearly our content appeals to the cross section of viewers we cater to, it’s a level of engagement where we actively get promoted on social media and also receive comments and emails.

In the 10 months of operation, the time spent on PING content has already been watched over 13 years  now. Views have grown by an average 50% month on month while the subscriber base grows at 100% month on month to now over 23,000 subscribers across  the network. The content also extends beyond our You Tube channels and now engages with an active community of over 42,000 fans on the Facebook platform and  we are already feeding this community with over 60 minutes of original content created every day across the various categories that we are present in.

What is Ping Digital’s business model?

We are a multi channel infotainment network focused on offering premium original content in the digital space. Our content is high quality, high value and has a high shelf life  that caters to a global audience. While providing Content - anytime, anywhere is important, we are also focused on building conversations and communities around our content. As with any broadcasting operation, PING also engages with advertisers to create revenue opportunities. With digital marketing spends increasing and content becoming a part of brand strategy, PING  is looking to capture a larger market share.

What type of video content do users consume the most in India? Share with us some recent trends observed in online video consumption space.

As per the latest comScore report  released on Aug 22nd 2013, at 73.9 million home and work internet users, the Indian online population currently ranks as the third largest in the world after China and the U.S. The Indian blogging audience grew 48 percent in the past year to 36 million visitors, while 54 million internet users in India watched online videos on their computer, representing a 27 percent increase over the past year. 3.71 billion videos are currently being consumed per month in India alone. These are mind boggling numbers. While Bollywood still dominates consumption in the Indian video market, the rise of video and it being the chosen alternative to television is only growing. Consumption patterns are changing and within the digital space, new categories will emerge. The growth of retail and the various categories within that especially food, lifestyle, and healthcare as per this report is only indicative of the change.

Tell us about the new categories that you are planning to launch?

Ping intends to be the leading content source for premium infotainment content. We continue to expand our presence in the knowledge and utility space with new channels being launched on beauty, fitness and health driven by experts like Nitya Arora for fashion accessories and Jaishree Sharath for skin care. We are also excited by our foray into Bollywood with channels like TheMJShow driven by RJ Mihir that combines the chattiness of radio with visual appeal of video allowing the viewer to take a sneak peek into a star’s veiled life. Our Bollywood dance channel gives you easy lessons on how to do the jhatkas and matkas on the latest Bollywood groove.

You have been funded by Ashwin Dhamera, former Founder of Travelguru and Ankur Daga, CEO of Angara.com. Any plans to raise another round?

Having now got the recipe to churn content like any television network would, we  are now focusing on building the brand and increasing our viewership base. Our content library also continues to grow and we continue to move to newer distribution platforms. The pace and growth has been exciting so far and we will soon get into marketing our content. We would look to raise growth capital to propel our growth to the next phase.

Do you believe that videos are being utilized optimally as a marketing tool by Indian marketers and brands?

To use the headline from the latest adweek report to  answer your question “Forget Amazon. YouTube Is Where Shoppers Do Research". According to this report more and more, users are flocking to YouTube over Amazon for all of their pre- and post-purchase discussions and this shift is not just about the volume and depth of YouTube reviews; it’s about the quality and the experience. The platform allows potential buyers to live vicariously through the reviewer. With a first-person vantage point, now every buyer can imagine them self with the product before actually making a purchase.

These video reviews get viewed, commented on and shared (and sometime even go viral) on YouTube more than any other platform, which then sparks immediate discussion and product buzz for brands. Are Indian marketers and brands leveraging this. Not as yet but this trend is too hard for a brand to ignore anywhere in the world. 

What are your thoughts on online viewing of content hurting television? How the relationship of both these mediums will change or brands in future?

Content has to be device and platform agnostic. It needs to be available anytime, anywhere for it to be seen, liked, spoken about and shared, Kevin Spacey a double Oscar winner underlined this fact at the Edinburgh Television festival  about 10 days back where he highlighted the  growth of the cord cutting revolution. He said and I quote “today’s new generation of viewers don’t see a difference between watching YouTube on a TV, “Game of Thrones” on a computer or Avatar on an iPad." It’s all content. It’s just story, and the audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them. They’re rooting for us to give them the right thing. And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, Facebook, make fan pages, silly GIFs, and God knows what else about it.

Engage with it with a passion and an intimacy that a blockbuster movie could only dream of. And all we have to do is give it to them. The prized fruit is right there, shinier and juicier than it’s ever been before. So it’ll be all the more shame on each and every one of us if we don’t reach out and seize it. Brands will need to adopt content that is device & platform agnostic and its creation on a sustained and engaging basis as part of their strategy. They will need to tell good stories, not once in a while but almost every day to just be relevant. Can television do that - with its limited geographical reach and an inability to have a two way communication, well the answers are  right in front of us.

Mobile is being talked about as the ‘next big brand communication and marketing tool’. How can marketers leverage mobile videos as a marketing tool?

With greater smartphone penetration what changes are you witnessing in consumption of online videos? The latest comScore report says the strong swelling of mobile audiences, devices and consumption habits have shown us that consumers have become more platform agnostic in their digital media consumption and happily switch devices throughout the day and into the night to stay up to date on email, news, social media etc. This behavior is in line with the PING strategy. Content is content and it will be device and platform and device neutral.

Mary Meeker in her report on Internet Trends predicted the advent of the asset light generation, the rise of the sharing economy. As per this report (Mary Meeker-Internet trends 2012) Q4 2012 Mobile Internet in India overtook desktop internet  and this when smartphones form only 4% of the subscriber base. The rest of the world is starting to follow this trend, with smartphone penetration increasing and bandwidth improving the future for both mobile and content look extremely promising.

Also, what is future of digital television in India and also ventures like Ping Digital?

The digital media is a dynamic and exciting space to be in. It allows you to not only create original content but build communities and engage with viewers closely and instantly, which we find very interesting. We would go so far as to predict that the next big media network will emerge in the digital  medium. Will it be PING- well keep watching this space.