McCann Erickson bags Indian Broadcasting Foundation's digitisation campaign

The agency won the creative duties of a consumer awareness campaign on the importance of implementation of conditional access system (CAS), following a multi-agency pitch held in Delhi.

McCann Erickson will handle the creative duties for the Indian Broadcasting Foundation's (IBF) consumer awareness campaign on the importance of implementation of conditional access system (CAS), including the need for self-implementation and the benefits of digitisation. The agency won the project following a multi-agency pitch that saw participation from other agencies including Lowe Lintas and Partners, JWT and Ogilvy, which was held in Delhi.

McCann Erickson bags Indian Broadcasting Foundation's digitisation campaign

Confirming the development to afaqs!, a senior representative of the industry body IBF, says, "While we do not have a specific agency of record handling the duties, we call for presentation of ideas each time we intend to launch a campaign. The campaign, in this case, will be an eye-opener for television viewers, who still rely on local cable operators."

The campaign is scheduled to go on air in mid-February, 2012, and will run on all genres ranging from news, kids and general entertainment channels, to regional channels. The campaign will specifically focus on the metros, as according to the Cable TV Act, the sunset date for complete digitisation of cable television in the four metros is June 30, 2012.

For the record, CAS stands for conditional access system, which is a digital mode of transmitting channel signals through a set-top box (STB). In November 2011, the government gave a nod to the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Bill 2011 in the Lok Sabha, to pave the way for mandatory digitisation of cable television in India. The bill, piloted by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, seeks to digitise the cable sector in the country by December 31, 2014.

While the plan is for complete digitisation of cable television in the four metros by June 30, 2012, the next target will be cities with over 10 lakh population. By the end of 2014, the entire country is expected to have phased out analog cable TV.

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