In the interview below, Abdul Majid Khan,COO & Vice-President – Global Revenue discusses his thoughts on New distribution models and monetisation strategies and to take NKN Media to new heights.
1.Hi Majid Khan. Thanks for joining us at MediAvataar MENA. Can you tell us more about yourself and NKN Media?
Hi Ashima, I am delighted to be here, thank you all for having me at MediaAvataar.
NKN Media has always believed in diversification and have indulged in various platforms naming Travel Media, (Inflight Magazine, Airport & Airline advertisements), Television, Digital, Radio, Cinema, and OOH right from its inception in 1999. I have joined the group in 2020 with a massive responsibility of generating revenue across the group’s media spectrums, and thereby successfully grown managing offices across the globe. New distribution models and monetisation strategies are evolving across both large and small screens, and keeping in line with the steady growth pattern, my role is to take NKN Media to new heights.
2.What has been your experience of pitching during the pandemic?
Firstly, let me pass on the credit to the highly organized and motivated team that I have been leading, we have sailed through the challenging times and look forward to the exciting times ahead.From businesses to individuals, we have all been affected one way or another by the pandemic. While we know that many businesses have had an extremely difficult time, some segments have managed to turn their fortunes around.
The Indian media and entertainment (M&E) sector fell 24% in 2020. The ₹436 billion fall, however, comes on the back of diminishing revenues from the filmed entertainment, print, and television segments. The only two segments that witnessed growth were digital and online gaming from 16% in 2019 to 23% in 2020 adding a whopping ₹26 billion to the industry. While television remained the largest segment with 40% of the ad revenue, digital media overtook print, and online gaming overtook a disrupted filmed entertainment segment in 2020.When it comes to the key segments, television—which is the largest one—saw a 22% fall in advertising revenues due to highly discounted ad rates during the lockdown months. However, News Broadcasting on the contrary has seen a steady rise.
On one side, we all as a consumer or a common man were overwhelmed and bombarded with fake news and information available more abundantly now in this age of Whatsapp university, it is a challenge to differentiate what’s true and trustworthy, we saw this challenge as a responsibility to act as what we stand for – reliability, trustworthiness, and responsibility towards society. This naturally turned the tides in our favour and what we saw was tremendous rise in audience traffic.What we did is quite obvious by reaching out to our clients and educating about making the right investments in advertising & branding, pulling in revenues, with GECs in the portfolio extremely impacted, we balanced our growth by quickly recognizing and capitalizing on those sectors which had the potential.
3.You have had a diversified portfolio of leadership roles in TV and Print. Can you tell us a bit about your journey?
Being through diverse segments of the media engineering such as Digital, Events, Conferences, inflight publications to Linear TV which eventually landed me to NKN Media, it is a fulfilling journey I have been . Graduated from Madras University, post my graduation , I started my carrier from yellow pages leading their South Division, working on establishing the digital footprints. Soon after landed EA Water PVT LTD, as Regional Sales Manager driving in revenues from launching industry’s top accredited seminars and exhibitions, to initiatives such as Regex.
Spenta Multimedia gave me an opportunity as General Manager to work on leading Inflight magazine for Jet Airways called Jetwings. That soon became a doorway to lead revenues for Maxposure Media Group as South India Head & GM International, acknowledging my efforts for the promotion due as AVP – UAE & GCC. That was my exposure to this beautiful, established yet potential country – the UAE as the regional Media hub.
My hunger for more has always kept me on the move, with prospects shaping my career as a very well written saga. Soon thereafter I landed up the renowned India Today Group to lead their South India and UAE markets heading profit centre operations for a portfolio of Print, Digital & TV.
I was never shy of exploring, inquisitiveness yet brought me another game, where IN10 Media Network asking me to lead revenues for similar market size in addition to the business in Colombo. In 2020, the year which will be looked at negatively for years due to the pandemic, was in fact a positive catalyst for me directing to NKN Media Group, where I joined as VP of Global Business Development, soon after to become the COO and now most recently with another recognition as the CEO. The focused and strategic vision of the owners – Mr. Deepak Agarwal and Mr. Rajesh Lodha, has led to where NKN Media is today.
4.Content for television must evolve and keep pace with the changing taste of the audience. Your thoughts on this?
The media landscape is ever changing and evolved incredibly over the past years. How we consumed content historically was completely different from how we do it today. These changes demand adaptability and that too on a rapid pace. One of the most challenging decisions a company can confront is whether to diversify, the rewards and risks can be extraordinary, while being relevant in current times.The key here is to understand this vividly that it’s not what your audience consume, but to know how they consume or how they would like to consume. I think it is our job to reach out to the audience in the best ways that eventually will credit the marketers.
5.The Best Businesses Are Built Around Passion. What are your views on this?
Essentially the word Passion means – “a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something”
While in business also, you work for a passion – either yours or your boss’s. I have been fortunate enough to work with the best bosses in my career. Here @ NKN, my leaders – Mr. Deepak and Mr. Rajesh have been quite influential in making their passion ours, by instilling great values of ownership in each one of us.I strongly believe leadership is something that is built on a legacy, and for me it doesn’t matter if the goal is set my me or my leaders, what matters is achieving by making it mine.
6.NKN Media FZC has been appointed as an exclusive ad sales partner by Republic TV in the UAE Region. How has been the response from the clients?
It is a proud moment that Republic TV, India’s leading English news channel has appointed NKN Media FZC as an exclusive ad sales partner in the UAE region. This partnership offers advertisers & brands in the region an opportunity to partner with one of the most viewed news networks for the discerning South Asian Diaspora in the region.Bring in strongest media network and sizable media company – Republic TV network to UAE makes NKN Media an honoured representation among its rich portfolio of TV Channels, and undeniably the leading providers outside India, UAE in particular and Mena in general.
7.What are your future plans going forward.?
One of my key objectives is to explore opportunities for revenue across markets. We have successfully established ourselves in India, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, UK and Srilanka. The journey has so far been satisfying, having said that we will keep the adrenalin high with continuity at the forefront. Our channel partners, key stakeholders, clients, employees as well as our audience have shown immense trust in building a road map leading us to where we are today, as we are growing, we indeed have a long way to go.
8.Could you share your marketing plan or mix for the UAE market?
With new media cropping up all the time, it can be difficult to know which channels to jump into and which to scale back on. But if you organize your brand’s media mix effectively, you’ll be able to achieve well rounded brand awareness and communication that reaches the people you’d like to engage with. Channels a brand uses to reach its audience and achieve its marketing objectives include online and offline media, such as websites, email, social networks, billboards, newspapers, radio, television and direct mail.Going forward we will make use of each of the platforms that enable us to reach out to the media planners, marketing professionals and brand strategists effectively.
9.On a personal note, one thing that you do every day that recharges and motivates you?
In our scope of business, I am highly influenced with a great team of motivators we engage, interact and brainstorm with on a daily basis. No idea that passes our minds we let go without sharing, discussing, enhancing or scrapping (if need be). Communication is the key and we truly believe that success will follow the one who believes in teamwork.