ADC goes. Calls may get cheaper..

With the Access Deficit Charge for local and STD calls being finally put to an end by the TRAI, the call rates may once again be cheaper. Access deficit charge (ADC) was the price that operators other than BSNL used to pay to BSNL so that it could provide subsidized service in rural sector.

But with the number of mobiles increasing at a hopping speed, there seems to be no more a need of such a thing. Hence, it's a welcome move that will surely remove a lot of burden from the private operators and is expected to help their customers too.

BSNL used to get almost 5000 crore as ADC from private mobile operators until 2 years ago.

The ADC for ISD calls is also brought to a half from Re 1 to 50 p per call.

All for money

Doing things for money is fine. But doing things only for money is not. And BCCI certainly is doing things which confirm that cricket, people, morals, gratitude, all come second. First comes MONEY.

The board has this time done a thing that doesn't even cost it money. It's not about money in a direct way this time. This is about the fact that those who come in the way of money, whoever they are, whatever they are, whatever they do or have done, for the Cricket or Country or BCCI itself (as team India does not represent India, it represents BCCI actually), they will not be tolerated. Rather they will be done all the bad that can be done.

Well, this is the story of Kapil Dev and Ajit Wadekar. The two former Indian captains that were not invited on the celebration of Anil Kumble's 600 wickets' celebration. Other than Kapil and Ajit, all the captains were invited to the program. But these two were not invited because they are related to ICL, the rebel league.

The interesting fact is that India has won the Cricket World Cup only once and the captain of the World Cup winning team happens to be Kapil Dev. But this fact seems to be easily ignorable to BCCI while compared to his joining the ICL.

Any other reasons than money?

No.

On the other hand, 3 players from the West Indian Cricket team are unable to confirm their commitment to their national Cricket team due to a probable IPL clash. These players include veterans like Chanderpaul.

We shall also see a great deal of interesting things happening in the IPL matches. For example, there will be Ricky Ponting playing under Ganguly, a news that shocked even my 9 yr old niece who hardly has an interest in Cricket. I wonder what SRK thought.

Sometimes I wonder what has money make these people do.

Sometimes I think how much more is remaining.

SRK vs SRK?

We used to see such headings when two movies of a film star had a clash and released on the same date. But the new Don of Indian film industry is not going to have any such clash of his movies.

This time it's different. It's business.

As you must be knowing, Star is all set to start its super hyped show 'Kya Aap Panchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?' hosted by Shahrukh Khan. On the other hand, Sony Entertainment is betting on the Indian Premier League, the Karmyudh of cricket, and Shahrukh has a complete team owned by him playing in the league. The Kolkata Knight Riders of Khan's team, led by Ganguly are all set for a 'karbo, larbo, jitbo re'.

Both, the quiz and the league matches boast of heavy investments and are big money things. Both are going to start in the second half of April as per the information received yet. And both are eagerly awaited.

The question is, "Will these two not affect the viewerships of each other?"

I think they will.

If at all both the shows (Let me address them as shows collectively, though it is not so) clash in their timings, the viewerships will be badly affected. Generally when there is a matter of viewerships concerning cricket matches, the simple funda with the one dayers and T20 is that if India is playing, people will see the match. Else, the other program will also get almost equal or more viewers. But in case of IPL matches, there will be no team like India or Pakistan. But all the Indian players will be playing in every match. So, what will the viewers be doing?

In case there is no clash in timings of the two shows, only days clash, which is highly likely, there will still be some effect of matches on the quiz show.

It will be also interesting to see how the words 'Panchvi Pass' affect the Indian viewers and how many children prefer the show to the matches.

Still, there is doubt that if the programs really clash, the quiz will be able to save its TRPs. And both the shows will be affected as people with the remote power will be surfing the other way round whenever there are advertisements in between, giving the advertisers a bad deal.

Anyways, all we can do for now is wait and watch. And pray that there is no clash.

New faces. And old.

We have heard the phrase 'ad mad' so many times. Probably because advertising is a mad people's business. You have to do all the mad things required to attract public. And that's what is our ad world also is doing.

In last few days, many changes took place in the advertising. That is, a few old faces vanished and some new ones came. But it's not always that the faces that vanished were old. And not always the ones that came were new.

To start with, we see Big B. The one time king of the new advertising industry is now losing many ads. Sometimes to others, many times to Shahrukh Khan. But that was something normal. Something that was going on in process. And then there was a blow. When Pepsi declared its intention to drop biggies of Cricket, Dravid and Dada, and taking up the likes of Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma.

Almost the same time, as Pepsi was launching its 'Ye Hai Youngistan Meri Jaan' campaign, Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Kapoor were taken in. And the one to find the way out was Priyanka Chopra. It is be only the ad world that can find Priyanka too
old to campaign, or less efficient in anyway.

But it's not that the old always give way to the young. Sometimes it goes the other way too. For example, Samsung, going with John Abraham, found John wasn't enough and roped in Aamir Khan as the brand ambassador for its phone range.

Advertisers bring in everything that they hope will work. Advertisers have tried all sorts of combinations from Sachin and Big B (kite flying ads of Pepsi) to real life couples like John Abraham-Bipasha Basu to the elegant brother-sister combo of Saif-Soha Ali Khan. In fact, even Amitabh-Abhishek have also worked for an ad together. (think think)

But its not always necessary to bring in some celebrity to make an ad work. Fevicol and Bajaj are example of such advertising. In fact, sometimes even ads make celebrities. Remember Cheeka, the Hutch puppy? The boy-puppy combo also made themselves a celebrity.

Anyways, the celebrity and non-celebrity ads will keep on going. I hope in a few days we'll be seeing even Darsheel Safary selling some products. After all, he's the youngest Indian celebrity for now.

On the wrong path

Economic Times recently told that the prices of movie VCDs and DVDs were going to be increased again. Companies that had brought down the prices to Rs 145-160 a CD, will be back to Rs 200 again.

In one sentence, if the prices go up, so will the piracy.

Yes. I have seen Jodhaa Akbar on my laptop on a pirated print and I was thinking who would be buying CDs if the pirated versions become so good.

Companies that are relying on the fact that the general Indian public is not aware of e-piracy (movies available on Internet for downloads) cannot do this for long as people are getting more educated day by day and getting what can be the options in the flat world.

The article written by K Muthukumar and Sonali Krishna tells that companies are thinking selling VCDs and DVDs for the same prices won't be able to bring them enough profits and so they should increase the prices. But the fact is that, seeing the low cost of manufacturing, if the prices are brought down, the sale can be increased a lot to get profits the way they want. In fact well designed DVDs can be sold at higher rates to those who want more. Thus there can be profits both ways.

In fact, as far as the article is concerned, there seems to be a lack of homework as the rates of some VCDs and DVDs are wrong as the article quotes the price of Moserbaer DVDs as Rs 49 whereas it starts at Rs 34 itself. Even T-Series is told to be selling discs at Rs 45 that is the price of DVDs only, where the market sells more of VCDs, that are actually priced at Rs 38 only.