Booming startups not in a bubble, says Subhash Chandra

Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra has said the country's booming startup space is not a bubble, rather it will help expand the overall market in the coming days. "They (startups) are neither a bubble nor a complete game changer. I am sure the traditional things will survive, it (startups) will expand the market," Chandra said last night at the Exchange4media Conclave.

Chandra added that when he started the country's first satellite television channel Zee TV 23 years ago, the film and theatre industry were wary and felt that it would mark their end. "I remember that when I started (satellite) television in this country, the film industry felt we will kill the film industry and theatre industry but the reverse happened. We promoted the films, we partnered with the movie industry and both grew.

Same way the technological startup companies will continue," he said. He said the e-commerce companies have found success as they are able to cater to the needs of people from smaller towns or the rural areas where products were earlier not available due to supply chain constraints. Stating that technology will help in expanding the market and things will co-exist, he debunked the myth that linear television will cease to be around after a decade.

"People say the linear television as it exists today, 10 years from now it will be dead. At Zee, we do take technology seriously. We are ahead at least in Asia in terms of adopting technology.

But I feel this (linear television) will survive but at the same time new media. It will give more opportunities to marketers and expand the market as a whole," he said. Essel Group is in the process of launching an English news channel and Chandra said it will be positioned as a technology company providing news.

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Subhash Chandra

Chairman|Zee Entertainment Enterprises

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"We are about to launch an English news channel. We were discussing the whole technological engine we are going to use. I understood what technology my colleagues wanted to introduce in the news space.

"I said why don't we have a vision that we are not going to be a news organisation but we are going to be a technology company incidentally giving news as a product. That is the positioning we have decided last week, for our English news channel," he said. (MORE) PTI DS ARS MKJ 10091722.