Within a year, online media has moved from a position of huge potential and strength to one of stretched finances. That is not preventing many new outlets from making a debut every week but that is not preventing new outlets from facing huge problems either.
The market is saturated with old and new entrants but the robustness is going dim. It’s not a crisis yet but the surefire success that many foresaw for online media as the emerging alternative to professional media appears overestimated now. What exactly is going on?
The investor angle
Media investment is notoriously high investment and high connection based. Even crores aren’t enough, it’s about several hundred crores which means you have to be part of the internal network. Because you can’t make that kind of disposable money unless one is part of that network. And having made that kind of money you have to know the really big ones and have the trust of the PM no less. Which means ownership of a TV station or a newspaper is very restricted even in these days of network capitalism. Big media is not for everyone but the chosen ones of every regime.
That doesn’t mean that there is o shortage of rich people belonging to the second level. Many are very rich and want to own a media outlet but can’t handle 200 crores of black money. Others want or are capable of investing a few crores and a few are entrepreneurs who are able to bring together several investors with money looking for prestige. And so the rich but not hyper rich or connected that are fuelling the online media boom.
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