used to be a print journalist,
then went into TV broad-
casting and was one of the
core team members of
India’s first 24/7 news
station. But I kept thinking
that I should be doing
something else, so in 2003 I set up
MediaGuru, initially with no clear-
cut idea what the company would
do except that I knew it should not
be a content production company.
I figured out that there was an
opportunity in the market at that
time to help people or companies
set up new media companies, or
revamp existing companies by
changing their focus. I also saw
there was a gap in the market in
this part of the world in that there
was no company which was able to
advise and assist companies in the
entire process right from the
business plan to recruiting and
training, to producing content, to
marketing, to distribution, to
infrastructure. So that became my
focus – building MediaGuru into an
organisation that filled this gap.
The Indian market is growing fast
– what role does MediaGuru have
to play in it?
India has many languages and
there are media companies that are
very large in a particular language,
but are confined to that language.
So MediaGuru looked at print
companies that are big at regional
or national level with a view to
getting them into broadcasting.
Nobody wanted to miss out on that
opportunity of getting into TV or
radio. Now India has close to 1,000
TV stations and of those, 350 or 400
are 24/7 news stations. Every state
in India has on average eight to ten
news stations. MediaGuru played a
major role in that process, either
setting up stations or revamping
them.
Do the companies that want to get
into broadcasting understand
what’s involved in terms of cost?
We were setting up a 24/7 TV
station in Bangladesh in 2006/2007,
and the total set-up cost was
roughly $7m. CNN heard about
this and they couldn’t believe that
this was possible. They ended up
doing a story on that station and on
MediaGuru – about how we had
mastered the game of setting up low
MediaGuru is the name behind many a
successful media venture. With offices in
Dubai, Johannesburg, India and Singapore,
MediaGuru offers media consulting, digital
archiving, system integration, new media
development and media infrastructure &
manpower services. Founded in 2003, MediaGuru
lends its know-how to established corporate
houses as well as new ventures the world over.
We asked MD Sanjay Salil how it all started
MEDIA
I
GURU
