Hyderabad media operators stressed due to COVID-19 pandemic !!

To cope up with the outspread of COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Government announced a nationwide lockdown for 21 days. The lockdown started from March 25, has already gripped the Hyderabad media owners in grave concern. This has disrupted the usual norm of the licensing of the media operators for the advertisements.

Under normal circumstances, the media operators get their annual licenses renewed with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) before the end of a financial year. However, the current situation poses a challenge to all the media owners of Hyderabad. The lockdown has convinced the major companies to cancel their major campaigns and events indefinitely which has caused a severe cash crunch among the media owners. So, the Telegana OOH body has come together collectively to plead with the GHMC to seek some relief in the license fee payment.

The President of Outdoor Media Association of Telangana, H V Surendra Nath, has requested the concerned municipality to understand the gravity of their plight and to postpone the renewal of the annual contract by a month at the least. This will buy the media owners time to pay the required renewal fee to GHMC. A few of the media operators like Surendra Nath, the COO of Prakash Arts, have also requested the local governing body to implement some kind of relief or relaxation in the payment of the annual fees.

As the major brands have ceased OOH branding activities in the city without any prior intimation, there is a severe revenue loss in the market. The media owners, therefore, hope that GHMC will be considerate with them as they chipped in to help the government to spread awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic by lending the media options in the city.