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The offer was too good to refuse. A senior journalist who had been a familiar face at a major Malayalam news channel for years received a call late last year from a channel that did not yet exist. Big TV, an upcoming Malayalam news channel, wanted him in a leadership role.
The package on the table: a salary more than double what he was making. He had watched so many channels come and go that he had learned to be cautious. Then came the sweeteners: a substantial joining bonus running into seven figures. And then a car with a driver. He stopped being cautious.
Across Kerala's television newsrooms, the story is the same. Anchors, reporters, and technicians are leaving established channels for Big TV, lured by salary increases of 50-100%, signing bonuses that would have seemed fantastical months ago, and benefit packages that include unlimited medical insurance extending even to in-laws.
Sujaya Parvathy, a prominent anchor who had become one of Kerala's most visible right-wing voices on television was reportedly offered nearly double her existing salary to come on board as chief editor. Other top anchors have seen their salaries double overnight.
The exodus has made things uneasy for other channels. Another Malayalam channel called Reporter TV, desperate to retain one of its star anchors, Dr Arun Kumar, raised his salary astronomically. He and Sujaya could then be the highest-paid television anchors in the history of Malayalam news so far.
In an industry where delayed salaries were long the norm for many, where channels routinely went months without paying staff, the money pouring out of Big TV has been intoxicating. But in the small, saturated market of Malayalam television, where even the dominant player is barely growing, the spending has prompted a question: how long will this last?
Big TV’s spending spree assumes greater importance against a market in crisis. More players are entering every other year, fighting over what many in the industry describe as stagnant, if not shrinking, revenue. Corruption is embedded in the business model, they say. Behind Big TV is a Telugu businessman with no experience in Kerala, from a Congress-linked family, betting everything on one man. That man is Anil Ayroor, the reclusive operations chief behind many successful Malayalam channel launches in the past decade.
Ayroor, who rarely speaks to the press, agreed to be interviewed by TNM for this article and gave exclusive insights on the economics of launching a new channel in a highly competitive market.
A brutal market
Malayalam news channels compete for an advertising pie that has been shrinking, not growing, according to at least four people in top management positions across channels interviewed for this story. Across India too, television ad volumes fell 11% last year, as per the latest TAM Report, a television viewership monitor. In Kerala, the situation is particularly severe.
There are 10 Malayalam news channels in the market, excluding general entertainment channels that carry news-related programmes and outlets too hyperlocal to count.
Asianet News is the dominant player and the oldest survivor, having celebrated 30 years last September. During that period, at least four competitors – Indiavision, TV Now, Raj News Malayalam and Mangalam TV – shut down. As explained in the story, the finances of the oldest player, Asianet News and 24 News, a relatively new channel, reveal the state of the business.
Asianet News Network Pvt Ltd, which runs Asianet News in Malayalam and Suvarna News in Kannada, shows rising revenue but limited profits, largely because spending has grown almost as fast as income and a significant share of earnings has subsidised its Kannada operations, funded mainly by the Malayalam channel.