BBC targets Indian business executives through ‘India Business Report’

The objective of the show is to present India in the emerging global order and offer international investors a deeper insight into the growing Indian economy

In August, BBC World launched a show ‘India Business Report’ for the Indian business executives. However, it’s only now that the channel has decided to promote this programme aggressively.

The objective of the show is to present India in the emerging global order. The show aims to offer international investors a deeper insight into the growing Indian economy and provide a platform for Indian companies to reach out to the global consumers.

The first print campaign for the show, created by VGC, was launched last week. The idea behind the campaign is to provide Indians with specific insights on the economy so that they can stay ahead in their respective businesses. The campaign is currently being run in metros such as Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi. The print ad reads – ‘30 minutes on Sunday. The only overtime you should be putting in.’ and ‘Become a part of India’s growth and accelerate your own.’

The current campaign is in line with BBC World’s ‘What affect’s the world affects you’ campaign, which ran early this year. This campaign highlighted the relevance of global news to Indian audience. Now as the relevance has been established, the current campaign is urging business professionals to look at India growth story from a global perspective through the programming.

The TV promos for the programme will start airing from next week on BBC network channels and Discovery Network channels. Apart from TV, the show will also be promoted through internet advertising.

Since over a year, BBC World has been featuring other business shows such as Asia Business Report and Middle East Business Report in the respective regions. But a specific show was designed for India looking at the enormous business and growth prospects here. When asked why BBC World has not forayed into a bigger economies China with such a show, Karishma Vaswani, presenter, India Business Report, says, “Although Chinese economy is larger than Indian, the freedom of press is better prevalent with the latter. There are certain constraints with China not being a fully democratic country. BBC World always had business correspondents in India. This was just the right time for us to properly structure and expand our operations here.”

Vaswani highlighted some of the topics the show has already covered in the last three months. These include Indian stock market boom, US$ depreciation, property development, Dharavi sale issue, impact of interest rates on Indian economy, retailing in India and British students doing internships in Indian IT firms such as Infosys.

Peter Eustace, editor TV, economics and business centre, BBC World’s business programmes, said that the Indian Rupee has been appreciating against the US $. The reason is India’s economic growth and downturn in American economy. Because American banks gave out huge loans to people, which have not been paid back yet, it is estimated that $ 500 billion have been lost in the last five years. The interest rates have gone up in the US market and the middle class is finding it hard to get loans. Therefore the exports have become cheaper but the import of raw material automatically became expensive.

However this hasn’t had an impact on the Indian economy as it is not dependent solely on the US for trade. But if the situation aggravates further, it may have an impact on the Chinese economy because major part of the Chinese trade is linked with the US. Most of the good in the US supermarkets today are ‘Made in China’.

By next year BBC World plans to expand its operations in India across cities including Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata among others. BBC World will also be foraying into China at the same time next year.