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Home » OOH News » Railway media packages run out of steam

Railway media packages run out of steam

By Bhawana Anand - April 18, 2018

Advertising rights will likely be handled by the various commercial divisions all over again

Indian Railways’ grandiose plan to grow its advertising revenues four-fold has seemingly come a cropper. Some two years ago, in May 2016, the Government created the Non-Fare Revenue Directorate under the Railway ministry to boost its non-fare revenues that include advertising revenues. In January 2017, the Railways also launched its Non-Fare Revenue Policy. EY worked with the Railways in architecting the policies and processes and the consolidated media packages were handled by RITES. Despite the efforts to craft large media packages aimed at drawing major investments, there were hardly any takers for them, apparently as certain components of the packages were not financially viable for the interested media owning firms and investors. Besides, there were also issues relating to overlap of jurisdiction of different authorities on certain railway media assets.

As it stands now, the railway media packages launched under different zones have been put on hold, after all the road shows that were conducted. An EY source told Media4Growth that “currently all tenders have been put on hold and the different zones have been given the instruction to handle their respective divisions’ advertising charges where they will invite tenders under sundry category”.

A senior official in the Non-Fare Revenue Directorate when contacted for comments on the current development declined to speak on the matter.

Media4Growth had reported in the past that unviability of certain components of the packages, lack of clarity in the bylaws and huge tender cost were some of the reasons that prevented media firms from investing in the packages. Another big hindrance was the lack of clarity on sharing revenue with local municipal corporations of different cities which was a major concern for the media owners’ fraternity. 

Instead of generating hefty revenues, the entire procedure has caused a huge dent in Railways’ non-fare revenues. As reported by a national daily, the non-fare revenue department of railway has managed to collect only Rs 1.5 billion in ad revenues up to January 2018 out of the set target of Rs 8.5 billion.

The OOH industry has also lost out on the revenues opportunities from railway media in this period.

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