Hello dear reader,
It has been a while.
I must confess. I have never felt FOMO of not attending B School. But, after working for decades now, I realise they bring ‘pedigree’, ‘status’ and ‘privilege’ and definitely brownie points at the workplace. This makes me wonder if I did indeed miss out.
However, thinking deeper, it also strikes me - ‘why should this only be the prerogative of a few people’ - everyone has the right to learn and the right to access education - is n’t it?
Infotainment is driving this change. You can now access deeply-researched content on YouTube for free. There has never been a better time to learn.
Do read this piece to know more.
Nisha
B-schools in India have 4.03 lakh students. The top 5 infotainment channels in India — Abhi and Niyu, AevyTV, Dhruv Rathee, Soch by Mohak Mangal and Think School — have 18.5 million subscribers. That is more than eight times the number of B-school students, highlighting the gap and need for accessible and simplified business education.
Infotainment, a combination of entertainment and education, is gaining ground, and while it is not an entirely new concept, what makes it exciting now is:
Personalised content
Increased use of technology such as AR and VR to enhance the viewer experience
High engagement with the creator and their audience - for example taking up an academic course offered by your favourite creator Physics Walla.
“The lines between education and entertainment are blurring and the audience is drawn to infotainment because it offers a unique blend of information and entertainment that is not only engaging but also enjoyable to watch,” says Varun Mayya, Cofounder of AevyTV.
What makes infotainment more interesting is that it is creating a category for serious creators - defined as those who believe in well researched content delivered to the audience in an engaging manner. These creators, in many cases have built their channels and audience, not for ‘personal branding’ but to build a business.
The unique ‘use-cases’ of Infotainment.
Who controls Antarctica| Mystery of the 7th continent - 7.5M views
Pan masala industry needs to stop| Spitting problem of India - 4.9M views
Hindenburg has killed Adani Group?: Decoding Adani’s response to Hindenburg (business case study) - 1.8M views
Who are Indians| Aryan Invasion Theory Explained - 1.2M views
Bard: Google ka NAYA A.I. Ek Sam Hai? - 3.1K views
It takes an average creator atleast 48-56 hours to come up with this kind of well-researched content that is not only viewed by a large audience, but also relayed in business schools as contemporary business case studies. Thereby, slowly evolutioning into ‘content for thinkers/ or an academically inclined audience’. Take Think School for example; Ganesh Prasad, Cofounder of Think School says, ‘we want to make a mark in the Indian education system by imparting world class education that is given in schools and colleges. In India, an average 19 year old is not taught business concepts unless they enrol into a business school and by the time they are 25, their appetite for risk is lost.’
Interestingly, due to its unique positioning (that between ‘influencers’ and ed-tech startups), infotainment is now serving as a gateway or funnel to various educational topics on the one hand and being a customer acquisition strategy for larger businesses on the other.
Physics Wallah serves as a great example for this. Alakh Pandey used his YouTube channel as the main funnel to build out Physics Wallah, the platform. Traditional edtech startups have a more structured approach to education and may offer a more in-depth and comprehensive learning experience, but YouTube infotainment content will be the primary top of funnel medium for all ed-techs in the future.
Martin Noronha, a filmmaker by profession, has worked with several startups. He was always interested in learning new business concepts and increasingly found it hard to access this information through his network that was not so well informed. However, he soon got hooked onto infotainment channels where this information was not only available for free, but was also easy to understand. He says, ‘I got on the bandwagon due to FOMO (fear of missing out), I wanted to know what was happening in the world.’ Apart from Indian infotainment channels, Martin is also a fan of Johnny Harris, a US based filmmaker and journalist turned YouTuber. Martin believes, infotainment is making a change by making complex content easy to consume. ‘People will soon realise that an MBA can be done online,’ he says.
Who are these ‘Infotainers’?
Apart from being solid content creators, infotainers I spoke to are creators with a Founder mindset. They are also people who are extremely passionate about changing the educational landscape in India by making B-school level education available through a ubiquitous platform like YouTube.
Aevy initially started with ‘couple vlogs’ shot by entrepreneur Varun Mayya and his wife, Achina Mayya but as they kept experimenting with different formats, they found success with a unique recipe. AevyTV combines ELI5 (explain like I am 5) content with elements of Vox and Saturday Night Live, and continuously improves its videos using deep research and data. As Aevy grew, the team realised the importance of building a loyal audience. This led them to give away free NFTs, teaching video editing, and even helping their audience land jobs through their video editing cohort.
Think School was started by Ganesh Prasad and Parsh Kothari. Parsh, the CEO of Think School is a graduate from Manipal Academy of Higher Education and Ganesh, the COO is a civil engineer from Pune. They have a burning desire to make world class education accessible to every student in India. Think School covers deeply researched business case studies and geopolitics with an audience ranging from students in the ninth grade to boomer housewives who want to start off on their own. Predominantly their audience is from B schools and their own road map includes providing an 'at-home MBA.'
Soch, by Mohak Mangal is among the top 1% YouTube channels with >1.5 Million subscribers. The channel aims to provide research-driven and visually appealing content and they are also expanding across different platforms (i.e. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). Says Mohak, ‘I see Soch as a valuable asset for my future startup (currently at Stanford, I am working on a couple of ideas). I don't see Soch as the only full-time thing I do after graduation. Instead, I want to start up and use Soch to support the startup in different ways (e.g., Soch could help me get into meetings, hire employees, raise my company profile, etc.)
The future of Infotainment.
Infotainment is a highly sought after genre for sponsors due to its high retention rate and ability to reach serious viewers looking to learn. As there are fewer infotainment creators compared to entertainment, the supply is lower and demand is higher, allowing the creators to charge higher rates. On the other hand, in entertainment, where there are thousands of creators, brands have more options to choose from and can dictate their terms. Companies like smallcase, Kuku FM, Coding Invaders have been early adopters of the concept.
‘Currently, the most prominent creators are Hindi-speaking males of a similar age group with similar video styles. I see newer creators disrupting it because i) there is demand for better quality infotainment that will only increase as more young people come online. The younger population would want creators to be as diverse as they are; ii) costs to create will go down. There are AI tools that improve bad-quality audio to podcast quality using a click of a button. With such transformations, creating quality videos will be democratised; iii) AI tools will reduce the barriers to language. So regional creators may become mainstream; iv) overall content quality would increase significantly. Those creators who tell the most engaging stories would thrive and not necessarily the ones who have the best editing or the most controversial view,’ says Mohak.
Ganesh, COO of Think School adds, “Creators command such a high level of trust from the audience that soon brands will want to leverage this trust to legitimise their name in the market. Creators are more answerable to the audience, and the audience knows that creators take every endorsement seriously. One can already see this playing out as Finance with Sharan was on billboards promoting Ditto insurance. Imagine the ROI a brand gets by working with multiple creators vs. one big star - this is only the beginning.”
Don’t be surprised if B-schools of the future are run by diverse creators.
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As much as I agree that infotainment channels are disrupting the old-school education system. I despise the medium that solely works on audience retention value. I genuinely think a large chunk of the audience is simply getting overwhelmed by excessive information.