Arnab Goswami looks to disrupt the digital space; bets big on Digital +TV to fuel Brand Republic’s growth momentum in the year ahead
Talk of an enterprise built sans the ubiquitous e-mail communication of today, and you have Brand Republic. Arnab Goswami, Managing Director, Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Republic – part of the ARG Outlier Media Private Limited – says he and CEO Vikas Khanchandani may have exchanged as few as one or two mails in the entire year since the launch of Republic TV on May 6, 2017, preferring to communicate through WhatsApp instead. But that did not deter Republic TV from consistently gaining top ratings in the English news genre since its launch. Now, for the company that says it has “more than achieved” its first year targets, it will be interesting to see the strategy it adopts to fuel that growth momentum in Year 2 of its existence.
What Goswami is betting on is “Digital, Digital and Digital” to take the company forward. “I am very excited about Digital, and I am steadily moving there,” he says.
But operating as it does in a niche genre, it remains to be seen how Republic’s Digital+TV strategy pans out. One challenge will be driving engagement and appointment viewing, as a media planner who did not want to be named mentions that the average time spent by a viewer on an English news channel is only 3-4 minutes per day.
BUILDING ON PARTNERSHIPS
Republic has been dogged with controversies since its inception, be it the name of the channel or its investors or the potential of conflict of interest and what not. Post its launch, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) called out Republic TV for allegedly using “tactics to claim a high viewership” and sent a plea to the Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) to delay the release of its viewership data. Much drama followed in the days to follow, with all English news channels, except Republic TV, pulling out of BARC, only to return a week later.
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