Now in my series on doing deep learning specifically for people interested in health care related problems But for anyone who really is interested in deep learning and really struggling just to get to grips with What this all about what the mathematics is all about. I just want to make this video I'm gonna make another one as well this one that about just about Let's just call it a video about tensors Now a tensor we're going to build our framework of deep learning or we're gonna build our deep learning models on the framework Called tensor flow from Google. So what is this tensor now tensors come in ranks?  Those are all numbers. That's a rank zero Tensor now we move on to a rank One tensor and a rank one tensor is nothing other than a vector now. Let's think about vectors this for a minute vectors can represent many things One way to to visualize this representation of a vector is to think of a plane Most importantly, we have these two axes and they are orthogonal In other words, they add a right angle to each other and that represents can represent two dimensions And I can have a point in two dimensions and I can represent that by this arrow With its base here and its head there Representing a vector and that vector in these two dimensions will have a very specific You can say an address for instance And that would be this x axis value and this y axis value in other words this vector Let's call this vector V. I put a little line under it to demonstrate that it's a vector It has these values for x and y and there's different ways that we can write this for instance I can write vector in this format an x value and a y value and this is called a Column vector and you know from from spreadsheets. This is a column and those are rows So this column this column vector will have a size. It has a size of two rows Times of one column. It's a two times one always row first then column. So it's a two row one column vector Well, we'll call that a matrix And we'll get to that now, but a Column vector has size two one. We could also just what we call transpose this And if we transpose this it becomes x and y and that we call a row vector This for you to become slightly familiar with these terms That will be one row and two columns wide and we say we transpose We just turn the rows into columns and the columns into rows. That's not what it's about We're representing a vector as this point in here. It's two-dimensional space So a vector here a rank one tensor will be a vector and that is a vector and Vector depending on how many elements they are can represent points in space if it's One-dimensional space that will just be a point on the line. That's two-dimensional space in three-dimensional space Which we usually draw like this. That's orthogonal. So I mean for instance, that's on the floor that's standing up So we usually make that the z-axis the x-axis and the y-axis by convention and Any point in space here will have this these values here and This value there and remember it stands out It stands it can be in the in the y z plane there But it can also stand out in other words. It will be some point that stands up in Inside of the three-dimensional space and it'll have a z component to here making it a three by one column vector and Depending on how many elements they are we can represent multi-dimensional space much more than we can just perceive in our three-dimensional world By just adding more of those Then we get a rank Two tensor Ring two tensor and that's actually just a matrix And that's a very interesting thing We've seen matrices before just think of all the rows and columns in a spreadsheet So I can have values three two minus four one six seven two minus three four and I can put it like this and that is a matrix a matrix here of three columns So I can see this as three column vectors Combined as many ways these matrices are so useful. They can present so many things again I count the rows and columns which makes this a three by three matrix and then we get a rank Three tensor now becomes really interesting because all I do now is I add layers behind this one so I would have This representing here and then be behind it another one and behind that another one This will make this if that was three by three as well a three by three by three rank Rank two tensors a matrix in the rank three tensor is Where I have these multiple layers of these matrices behind each other and so I can go on to rank in tensors and It comes very complicated, but you can just add in more dimensions More spaces what I don't want you to get confused with though is how many elements you are gives me how many dimensions in space That is different from what we have here rank two tensor Rank one tensors a vector that can live in multi-dimensional space. That doesn't mean that's one dimensional This is just the rank of the rank of the tensors and That is what we're going to work with our data is going to be represented in the way that we Manipulate values the way that a deep learning network learns these Parameters that we're going to look at they are all going to be inside of some other rank of of a tensor I'm going to clean the board and we're just going to do a few What we call linear algebra operations on Specifically these two rank one in the rank two tensors to so that you become familiar with it Now the first thing we're going to look at is the systems of linear equations. Let's put that here systems of Linear equations not strictly necessary for deep learning, but it helps us to understand some of the concepts So we are going to deal with systems of linear equations now linear equation Remember those of the three simple algebraic things. Let's let's construct our own one. Let's make it Let's make something like one and four. Let's put in Let's put in Minus two and one there and let's make this three and three And so that's a plus and we make this let's make that Let's make that two and two and three and three Let's see where that ends up Let's say that is two That's going to be two minus six that equals negative four and we're going to make this that is eight Plus three That's eleven So I'm just cheating here. I'm creating my own system of linear equations now Let's imagine that these that we know the answer for we know that's two and that's three Let's change those into two unknowns. We'll call that unknown x unknown y. So what we have there is one x minus two y and That is minus four and we have here four x Plus y and that's going to equal 11 That's why I mean by a system of linear equations a system because there's more than one and I can get a Solution for both of these and that solution it will satisfy both of those It will satisfy both of those now How can we solve that that we get values for x and y that? That solve both of these by the way, this is linear because I don't have x squared or x times y It is some constant multiple of x and some constant multiple of y and this instance four times x in this instance Negative two times y this is constant multiples of that and I know if I plug two in there And if I plug three in there it is correct, and if I plug two in here, and I plug three in there it is correct So let's try and solve this what what are things we could do well one of the first things we could do We can just swap these two around. Let's have that four x plus y is 11 and I have x minus two y equals minus four So I've swapped these two around. That's one thing I could do I could multiply this throughout by a constant So let's still have four x plus y equals 11 And here I'm going to multiply this throughout by negative four So that gives me You know if I multiply throughout I'm not changing it I'm multiplying this side by negative four and that side by negative four nothing has changed So I'm going to have negative four x I'm going to have positive eight y And I'm going to have 16 So here I swapped out here. I have a constant multiple of one And now what can we do remember these are equations meaning this side equals that side So if I do something to this side I must do exactly the same thing to that side So let's do something to that I'll stay with four x plus y equals 11 in my first row But in my second this second bit I'm going to add this to that But this is also equal to this so I can also I can do this to that That still means I did the same thing to either side because these two things are equal So if I were to do that if I were to add this to that That's going to cancel out. This is going to become So that makes it a zero x and this makes it nine y and on this side we're going to have 27 I have these now. Let's carry them on here. So I have four x Plus y equals 11 And I have this but I can simplify this one by just dividing throughout by nine zero divided by nine is still going to be zero x Nine divided by nine is going to give me y And 27 divided by nine gives me three nine times three is 27 And lo and behold, I have a solution for y and we know we write because we cheated in the beginning and we constructed it that way So that gives us an a solution for y which I can now plug into that. So I have four x And I know y equals three So four x plus three equals 11 So four x equals 11 minus three which is eight and x equals two beautiful But look at what we've done. There's three very elementary things. We call this elementary row operation. So we did we swapped things around We multiplied throughout by constants here. We multiplied throughout by one over nine And we added this constant multiple of one row to another one Remember these two things are exactly the same. That's why there's an equation sign So if I took this side and I added that Then I can take this side and add to that then I've done both things The similar thing on both sides of the equation sign because these two things are equal to each other So let's clean the board and let me just show you if we use Rank if we use rank two tensors How we can also do that So let's use this and write this as what we call an augmented matrix. So an augmented rank two tensor So I'm going to just have x there. Remember in minus two y Let's write that just the coefficients So I'm going to have one and a minus two and that side a minus four And on this side, I'm going to have a four and I'm going to have a one and I'm going to have 11 and that is An augmented matrix. I'm just short hand.  We just swap these around for 111 technically I didn't have to do this but I just wanted to show you there are three And I'm going to write this one down below But I'm also going to multiply it out by a constant which was negative four which was 16 And it's just short hand for what we did before. Those are the elementary row operations So I can stick to the first one And for the second one I can add the first one Elements of the first one to the second one So four plus negative four is zero one plus eight is nine and that gives me 27 I can multiply this through out by one over nine Which gives me four one eleven zero One three And that's how we got to read off that The y value remember this is x this is y so one y equals three y equals three Now I can multiply this through out by negative one So that'll give me zero negative one three and I can add this to the first one four plus zero is four One plus minus one is zero And eleven minus three is eight and I can multiply through this through out by negative one again So I'm back with zero one three And then I can multiply this first one through out by a quarter that'll give me one zero two zero one three There's my solution It is what in what we call row reduced echelon form In other words, there's just leading ones And below and above every leading one there is a zero so that I can finally Get my solution one x equals two and one y equals three Exactly what we have there so elementary row operations So they have shown you the system of linear equations. Let's just get back to some simple things Let's just add Let's just add rank one tensors rank One tensors so to add rank one tensors. They must just be in a similar dimension So I can have a three dimensional rank one tensor for three minus one And I can add to that second one. Let's have a zero one four And that's very simple. It's element wise operation. So it's three four plus one is five negative one plus four is three And there I have my solution very easy to do rank one tensor which are vectors A vector addition. They must just have similar dimensions Now let's multiply Let's multiply a matrix times a vector Now there's various reasons why you would do that. We can call this an operation on a vector if we look at physics Doesn't matter what we do. We just want to do and I want to show you that there's just Something that must be kept in mind and this is very important when we get to tensor flow and when we get to To designing our thinking about at least our deep neural networks If I have a matrix three one, and let's make it two two So what size is that that's two by two matrix two by two rank two tensor And I'm going to multiply that by a vector Two one and I'm going to put that down there and that is two one The reason why I put that because it makes the actual doing it on paper very easy But what I'm doing here is I'm multiplying a matrix by a vector very important that this second value the column number And the row number of that one they must be equal if they're not equal you cannot do that multiplication These don't matter. It doesn't matter what these two values are But if I have this matrix and let's call this matrix a and we call that vector v if I'm doing a times v The matrix comes first the vector can technically also come first but There's something else about that But the second number here must equal the first number there So the column number of this one and the row number of this one must be equal Otherwise you cannot and the solution will be what is left the solution will be a two times one tensor And you know depending on what what rank it is all these things from a single number to all these multi-dimensional things Yet the bottom they all tensors. So this is called everything a tensor So the result is going to be a two by one tensor and what we do is very simply I've written it like this because it makes it simple. I'm going to look For this space we've already seen it's going to be two by one So those are the two values and it's very simple because I can look along this one And along that one to get to this one. So it's going to be three times two is six Plus one times one is one six plus one is seven and two times two is four Two times one is two four plus two is six and there's my solution seven six That is a matrix times a vector Very important and very important that you understand That that number and that number must be exactly the same Otherwise you cannot do this multiplication and that is going to be a very important first step in In a neural network By the way, if it sounds like the world is coming down right outside my office They're building new neuroscience center and it is very very noisy And really driving me nuts So a very important thing this matrix times a vector I can also have two matrices like to multiply them with each other And as long as say for instance, this one is of size four by five That means this one must be size five by whatever it makes that seven It doesn't matter those two must be the same in that order the result will be a four by seven Tens the result will be a four by seven tens and as I say that those are very important things So that's a brief recap of what we call linear algebra There's a very basic concept in linear algebra And we know that this is very important for us in In designing neural networks now, you don't have to know more than that if we write the lines of code Using tensor flow or keras as long as you have these basic concepts in the back of your head You really don't need this full understanding of this just in case you didn't have not done this before You did it a long time ago Just a little bit of a refresher of what these things are all about We're going to make another short video just on partial derivatives because it is linear algebra Is the one important part of deep learning And the other part is just derivatives You've got to be able to do derivatives once again We're just going to write a line of code in the derivatives are going to happen automatically But I think it's it's still important that you just have some basic concept of What happens with linear algebra specifically this and what derivatives are


Moving your head, just pretend like you're looking straight ahead past the camera, like you're trying to look at something far away. Now look to the right. Or towards the camera. Now look to the left. Now look to the right. Now look up. Now look down. I'm going to hold your eyelids. Look straight ahead. Now I want you to focus up here on my fingers best you can.  Now look straight ahead. Look to the right. Now look to the left. So it does seem to dampen when you look to the left. I think it's this. Oh look there. I'm told it dampens the most. Look where you think it dampens the most. It's kind of hard but I can't see nothing. Yeah. Flurry. That's pretty good. Okay, that's actually really good right there.


als with higher education at the doctorate level and finally respondents with annual incomes of $100,000 for more were more likely to have bet on sports compared to those making less than 50,000 so that's just a little peek at what we knew what we found out about sports betting back in 2013 and 2014 it aligns very well with what we know from the international literature on the demographics of sports betting as well this table presents information about gambling participation from the baseline general population survey compared with the baseline online panel survey and I just want to draw your attention to the fact that these are unweighted data so this is not representative of the population but what it does show you is that past year participation in sports betting was higher among the online panel respondents compared to the general population respondents for every type of gambling except raffles so these were all quite significant differences they were entirely expected because we know that online panels tend to include large proportions of heavy gamblers this table provides a comparison between the baseline online panel survey that was carried out in 2013-14 and the follow-up online panel which the survey was completed in April of this year and you can see that the rate of sports betting was significantly higher in 2022 while the rate of pathological gambling which is the most severe category of our typology of gambling was also significantly higher in 2022 now the differences between these two surveys in addition to time these differences can be partly explained by differences in the wording of the questions we used about sports betting in general another potential reason for these differences is the use of different survey companies for the two surveys and some of the difference likely reflects the introduction of legal fantasy sports betting in massachusetts which occurred in 2016 so the question of whether these differences are real or not will be very much informed by the analysis that we'll be doing over the next six months or so of the follow-up general population survey this chart focuses on data from the 2022 follow-up online panel survey and it shows that problem gambling rates so this is problem gambling rates amongst people who are engaged in specific types of gambling but controlling for the number of other types of gambling that they're doing so we know that sports bettors tend to be heavy gamblers and the question is whether whether it's a particularly risky type of gambling in and of itself or if it if the higher rate of gambling problems amongst sports bettors has more to do with the amount of with the other types of gambling that they're also doing so going across this this graph shows problem gambling prevalence so that's the percent among people engaged with a particular format so for this would be table games and sport spending is this red dotted line here and you can see that the rates clearly converge when people are engaged with five or more types of gambling but what really stands out is that casino table games clearly represent a risky form of gambling when people even when people are not involved with other forms of gambling whereas sports betting is much more in the middle of the pack finally I have some data on gambling participation across the five waves of the cohort study that was conducted from 2013 to 2019 again while it's not representative of the population the results do provide insight into sport spending behavior over this time period so we started with a cohort of 3139 Massachusetts residents they were selected from the baseline general population survey and stratified and selected on the basis of their gambling behavior with oversampling of risky gambling so this chart is actually not based on the full cohort but it's based on the gambling behavior of the 2087 individuals who participated in all five assessments so this is lottery participation by the same people over five assessments between 2013 and 2019 what you can see is that lottery participation and sports betting so lottery participation and sports betting here remained pretty stable amongst these individuals whereas out of state casino betting gambling dropped after the opening of Plain Ridge Park Casino while Massachusetts casino gambling so these are our new casinos increased particularly after 20 or in 2018 excuse me after the opening of MGM Springfield and this is also an interesting change here although it's small online gambling did rise amongst our cohort members in starting in 2016 when daily fantasy sports were legalized Dr. Boeber could we go back to just that distinction sports betting versus online gambling yes any overlaps there in that definition of online gaming the definitions that I this is always a little bit confusing when we say eye gaming sports betting yeah there there is a significant amount of overlap between sports betting and online gambling but in this case and Rob I'm going to ask you to clarify here because you're more a little bit more familiar with the questionnaire than I am I don't think we the casino play online and that would be illegal in Massachusetts but is it casino play online is it casino games online yeah it in in my recollection I believe we asked about casino games played online online we also I think we asked about these sports these sports these sports okay yeah we actually it's probably I'm sure we actually asked about any type of online gambling sports betting online casinos online instant scratch tickets online horse racing any type of online gambling so I was a bit puzzled by the the increase in in 2016 but it may simply be coincident with the general increase in online gambling that's occurring throughout the western world in the last several years so it's okay so it's a whole gamut all right that's really helpful thank you but it it is a weird increase isn't it Rob thank you wouldn't say it's weird it's certainly discontinuous I mean those rates are now much more similar to what you would expect in other North American jurisdictions the jump from two to seven is a bit unusual for sure and I'm not sure what accounts for that thanks sorry to interrupt okay I just want to make sure we have time for a few questions so the when we look specifically at economic and social outcomes in the literature the the outcomes identified to date with respect to economic outcomes there does seem to be mixed evidence regarding the question of substitution or cannibalization of other types of gambling although I have to say I was I was even more struck by the notable lack of research that exists on any economic impacts of sports betting I literally we we literally only found two articles related to substitution or cannibalization and nothing on any of these other economic impacts which we believe would be very important to understand in Massachusetts job creation recapturing gambling dollars from the illegal sports market or from neighboring jurisdictions that have already legalized sports betting all of those are empirical questions for which we have no data at this time and another sort of caveat that we included in our review of the economic impacts is that there is a potential for economic harm in Massachusetts if sports betting does cause high rates of problem gambling or if a significant portion of revenue from sports betting operations leaves Massachusetts turning to social outcomes there is a very singular focus in the social research on problem gambling as the main negative impact arising from the legalization of sports betting so at this point we are estimating that sports betting participation in Massachusetts based on the baseline general population survey is somewhere between 13 and 20 percent of course and as I've mentioned we know that or we'll know more precisely what that is once we have analyzed the data from the follow-up general population survey over the next few months but we we were able to compare Massachusetts state data from the Engage survey that was conducted by the National Council on Problem Gambling to both the national data from that survey as well as a number of other states where sports betting has been operational and we were quite struck by the evidence that sports betting in Massachusetts in 2018 and in 2022 that rate looks quite similar to what's happening at the national level in terms of the national surveys Don Feeney and Keith White gave a presentation at a webinar back I think it was in March where they discussed that the fact that there was some evidence of increase in gambling harms in their national data and we have noted that problem gambling rate is higher among sports bettors than it is among other types of gamblers but that primarily seems to be because sports bettors tend to be involved with quite a number of other gambling activities so there is the potential that legalized sports betting in Massachusetts could lead to an increase in rates of gambling harm more broadly as well as problem gambling but we think there's an opportunity here to as as we had with the casinos to try to minimize and mitigate based on information that we have already available to us in Massachusetts so getting to the end the maximum economic benefits which are different from revenue maximization but maximum economic benefits for Massachusetts will depend on the sports licensees in Massachusetts capturing a substantial proportion of the illegal sports betting market there is also the potential for some job creation and of course there are tax revenues so the we believe that the the benefits will be obtained by recapturing money that is either leaving the leaving Massachusetts because people are betting on sports illegally or in neighboring jurisdictions and the benefits are most likely to occur if we can generate substantial Massachusetts based jobs and of course the tax revenues so just to finish up here there is a significantly higher rate of gambling problem gambling and at-risk gambling amongst sports bettors in Massachusetts based on all of our Sigma data however the relationship between sports betting and problem gambling is not straightforward and again this is because sports bettors tend to be such enthusiastic gamblers on a variety of other things so that said there are groups in the population that are of particular concern as state sanctioned sports betting becomes available in Massachusetts and we have specifically identified adolescents emerging adults women immigrants college athletes and individuals in recovery from gambling problems as groups that are of particular concern here in Massachusetts based on a broader international literature so there are quite a lot of recommendations included in the report but I want to focus my final remarks today on our recommendations related to research and responsible gambling we do think it will be important for operators to be required to provide player data to the gaming commission to allow a full assessment of the impacts of legal sports betting in Massachusetts another advantage to having access to player data is that this could potentially provide early warning signs of emerging issues and it is very much our experience over the years that the gaming commission has much better success than we as researchers do in getting the licensees and operators to provide that level of information there is good international evidence that in play betting is disproportionately utilized by problem gamblers and we believe the gaming commission would be wise to give careful consideration to whether and how to permit this type of betting in Massachusetts and then finally with respect to responsible gambling we do think it will be important to require operators to provide RG features on all of the online sports betting sites in Massachusetts I know this is a not a very popular position but we believe that this that these RG features should be opt out rather than opt in they should include limits on deposits losses and time spent betting there should be readily available information on cumulative money losses and time spent on websites automated alerts for patterns of betting that predict future self-exclusions this is a type of study that's been done by in a number of different international jurisdictions and seems to have provided some interesting information but we'd like to very much see if those patterns of betting also predict self-exclusion in Massachusetts another idea we have that is a little bit innovative is to provide bonuses and rewards for responsible gambling actions rather than or in addition to rewards for increasing expenditure and finally we think it would be wise to restrict sports betting advertising and celebrity endorsements to the extent possible in order to in order to prevent use in particular and emerging adults from getting into difficulties and that is all I have thank you and this is in addition to the gaming commission's research web page we also have all of our reports posted and you're welcome to come explore and be in touch with us if you have questions thank you I guess that recommendation first of all thank you very much this is I mean it's like voraciously taking in any information on sports betting so it was great to get this in one spot and I like a lot of the ideas but some of them I wonder how we implement so something like banning celebrity endorsements I mean you know I'm watching TV last night and you know when New Hampshire thing comes on and they've got all sorts of ads for stuff so do you know of any other jurisdiction that has implemented that kind of thing or how they did it Rob correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Australia and is it Italy have actually banned advertising is it just during just during play playing time or is it more general I can't remember the details but certain jurisdictions have banned advertising all together and other jurisdictions have banned celebrity endorsements those are mostly European countries I don't know logistics of how they do that but they have done it and then your idea about the sort of getting the benefit for doing the responsible gaming what's the model for who pays for that I mean is that an incentive that you get the licensees to buy into or is that who would pay for that kind of incentive well I think it would be it would be incumbent on the licensees or the operators to provide those incentives but like you know there there's so much that is that is provided as incentives to individuals to bet more or to bet longer and Rob and I have had this discussion about you know how could you incentivize people to you know to behave you know in in ways that are sort of more aligned with what they may want to do I to be honest I haven't really thought about how that would be paid for but perhaps it could be a partnership between the the operators and the gaming commission and I'm sure that that mark could probably come up with some good ideas as well if I could thanks Rachel we incentivize enrollment and play my way which is a responsible gaming tool as you know so that that is incentivizing a response use of a responsible gaming tool we have kicked around and we'd love to explore ways that we would incentivize that going forward obviously you'd need to be careful about about what structure that takes and I'm not putting any of our licensees current or future on the line but there is a commitment to responsible gaming that I've seen and I think new and innovative ideas are always on the table to to accomplish that Commissioner O'Brien I was also you know there's even the the American Gaming Association on their responsible gaming code of conduct calls out celebrity endorsements or entertainments that would specifically appeal to you and so this is that is that is a pretty commonly accepted practice however how it's employed and to what degree with what success I think is a different question but I think generally speaking that is that is common and that is a good practice now I mean I like the idea of it but when we have a market that you know people are talking about billboards you know you have the other out of state casinos they're not subject to the same rules in terms of what goes on a billboard even in the Commonwealth and and now you've got potentially ads with celebrity endorsements coming in out of from out of state it might be hard to do but I like the idea other questions also want to say excellent report excellent report thank you commissioner thank you so we have um we have the report and of course we've gotten we received the report um the draft form Dr. Volberg and you know that we passed on to the legislature right before they passed the bills they had the benefit of it um we'll continue to use it as a reference as we do our work and um I guess uh uh our next not sure what was next for your projects for us perhaps these two important studies are going to be priorities for you so yeah well um at the uh just the general population sorry the general population survey I know that that's on your oh yeah yeah so um we anticipate receiving the data from nrc which collected the data um we we were out of the field in I believe late March of 2022 um but because of some spending uh issue or resource issues we have not yet received the data so we are um in the process of amending their subcontract so that we can get the data and then there's going to obviously be a period of cleaning the data and analyzing the data we have a report on the follow-up general population survey as one of our uh deliverables in FY23 I believe it it'll be coming to you in uh first draft uh somewhere around uh March or April I believe so that's very much um in the front of our minds we also have uh the data use you got a little taste of the follow-up online panel data that we collected in 2020 in April of 2022 we have some more work to do with that as well as a small technical report that we're going to be submitting to the commission in early 2023 and uh oh and then at the end of the fiscal year we included a report for the commission on gambling advertising so that's going to be coming up but um further down in the list of deliverables excellent excellent well thank you don't don't imagine that our lack of inquiry is anything but it's been a long day but all of these topics that you've been on are so critical and and we have been thinking about them and this has been a great resource for us so thank you um a long day for you too we want to I just want to express my appreciation for your patience today on the timeframe shifted you know honestly so thank you um if I can just um just make one final comment uh manager uh several of the commissioners are are new to me um I can introduce you I'm sorry that's all right um but I just wanted to emphasize that you know between us Rob and I have about 80 years of um gambling research under our belts uh we are um always uh interested in um questions that the commission may have and we will always do our very best to be responsive to uh questions that you might want to send us by email so um let me formally introduce you um I don't know if you've met commissioner hill my apologies I feel and so you must have presented in front of commissioner hill then of course we have commissioner Nikisha Skinner who joined us in March right my memory's right that's right correct correct and commissioner Maynard just joined us on the day that the law was the bill was passed uh August 1st uh so well he was appointed officially then so um Dr. Volberg and Dr. Williams my apologies nice to virtually meet you Dr. Drs. Volberg and Williams and as the chair said our lack of questions at this point is no indication of our lack of interest it has been a really long day and and we are just about headed into the evening so I for one I for one I have you know kind of mush for brains at this point absolutely I understand and commissioner Maynard well I I also echo uh commissioner Skinner um as far as it's a pleasure to meet you both um we did review um the document that you um just went over and um again our lack of questions I think is no indication for how we're going to use this data when we make decisions going forward on this important matter there's pleasure to meet you both and if there's anything um that we can do uh same please reach out absolutely thank you okay mark thank you thank you Dr. Williams we didn't hear much from you but you are right there thank you so much for all the work and Dr. Volberg it's always great to see you mark anything else and everything right anything and everything but um enough for right now thank you chair yeah thank you all right then you know we just have a little bit of business done for the official record I don't think I'm making any um grand announcements to the public but um we do have um we've got plans for which we're doing uh round tables coming up and one is uh suspect we may see Dr. Volberg or one of her um representatives that will be on the the 12th correctly if I'm wrong on on these oh no the 13th is the round table yeah thank you very Rachel thank you Crystal um that's on the 13th and that's on responsible gaming we'll have experts from the field who will be looking precisely at the statute and giving their thoughts so I suspect we'll be hearing from our friends at UMass again and get you know even more clarity on these matters and then um we are looking forward to the round table that's yet to be scheduled for the uh mobile operators and that will come um later in this month we'll just keep on monitoring our website if anyone is still on okay is there anything um I haven't addressed right now September 15th we uh have another public meeting we have actually a public meeting on the 13th with respect to the first basing application on no oh I'm sorry I'm losing I need a calendar Monday Monday is the application for the horse and what day is that that's Monday the 12th oh thank you I I thought I heard no so that's the 12th 13th is the round table then we have the 15th which will be on temporary licensing so we're keeping this the other one thank you um anything else okay can I just one thing I wanted uh do you mark an opportunity to mention the play my way on Monday oh my good thank you just one one quick comment thank you so on Monday um play my way the uh slot machine-based budgeting tool will go live at Encore Boston Harbor um it's been uh in place at Plain Ridge Park Casino since 2015 at MGM since um earlier this year in March and so um having it launch at Encore Boston Harbor represents a significant milestone that at every casino there is a consistent budgeting tool for for patrons to use so thank you very much to um all of our licenses really for their their work their partnership and and creating this and offering it to patrons are you having a kickoff and if so what time um I can get you there will be a press release going out there um is an opportunity for anybody from the press to uh come take a look and test play my way um I believe that's around 10 o'clock commissioner thanks and commissioner hill there is a conflict for us because we have a a meeting and that was what happened with MGM so mark and I were lamenting that but I I don't know if everyone we see I think if all of us received the video that was done by Encore Boston Harbor and we look forward to their partnership and hope that they continue to you know but they also join in promoting um but I know that mel's is working on the press release and we will certainly lead a mark on the 12th our meeting um with a play my way update okay if it's at 10 o'clock then we can announce at that very time so can I have no problem uh adding that to our agenda informally um and if we wanted to amend our agenda actually um best that we could do that too uh tomorrow to play my way at the beginning of our our meeting on certainly good okay for an announcement okay um mark you'll be over Encore I assume I will be at Encore Monday morning at seven o'clock yeah so just make sure to get a coordinated statements from you and do caring okay yes all right so it'll be uh it will be uh our efforts will be going on uh announcing we just can't be there with you I understand which is a rats and by the way uh Jordan and I got to see how the play my play my way works the MGM so next time you visit uh one of the facilities that Burke can arrange to have that opened now I mean have someone use their card to show you how it works pretty pretty smooth nice job mark okay um again it's been a long day focused on one subject matter we've certainly done that before on uh under 23k now we have only 23 and here we are I just appreciate everyone's efforts on all the work that we do every day and all the efforts on this new uh responsibility so um move to adjourn madam chair pardon me move to adjourn yeah can I just say push a meaner please enjoy the rest of your day um thank you it almost looks like the sun is set on you I have I have plenty of sunlight left in park city so um that's one benefit to starting this meeting at 730 um this time so I plan on using it good have a great rest of the day um there's a motion on the table thank you um commissioner Brian hi commissioner hill hi mr skinner hi mr mainer hi and I vote yes thank you for thank you Todd and thank you all


Paradoxes don't exist, but they can teach us something about our ideas. Whenever we discover a contradiction in our beliefs, we're forced to make revisions. Paradoxes can help us elicit nestled contradictions in our worldview that we wouldn't see otherwise. Some of the most famous and oldest paradoxes in the world are Zeno's paradoxes. They came up with several, but I just want to focus on the most famous one and defend it. Usually paradoxes need to be carefully resolved. They bury subtle logical errors within them, but with Zeno, his logic is actually sound. What isn't sound is his conclusion. He thought he proved that motion is impossible, but instead he proved something unique about the physical world. I think his arguments are brilliant, and they revolve around the difficulties that infinity presents us with. Modern philosophy frequently overcomes Zeno's paradoxes by saying, ah, calculus solves the problem. But this is mistaken. Logic actually solves the problem, not mathematics. I've written extensively about some of the problems that I see in modern mathematics, specifically the presupposition of Platonism and the treatment of infinities, in set theory in particular. So before I explain the paradox, I want to commend Zeno on his commitment to philosophic rigor. I agree with him. We must follow logical argumentation wherever it leads, as he did, regardless of how unintuitive the conclusions appear. We do not gain insight into the world by believing what appears to be true, rather what necessarily follows from what, with logic as the final judge. So the paradox goes like this. Let's take two examples. In the first, consider a train traveling to its destination. It has to travel, let's say, 100 feet. Before it completes its journey, it must first pass the halfway point, the 50-foot mark. Then it must travel through the next halfway point, leaving 25 feet remaining. Then again, it must go through the next halfway point, leaving 12 and a half feet remaining. Then again, and again, and again, and so on, just down to inches. Then half inches, then half, half inches. This can continue ad infinitum. There's no possible distance which can't be divided in half, and the train must pass through each point. Because it is impossible to fully complete a non-ending or infinite set of tasks, the train will never arrive. So work through the logic of this argument. It's broken down into four parts. One, it is necessarily impossible to complete an infinite set of tasks. Two, at every point along the path, there is always a halfway mark remaining which must still be crossed. Three, an infinite amount of halfway marks cannot be crossed. Conclusion four, therefore, the path can never be fully completed. If one and two are true, then three and four necessarily follow. So Zeno concluded, and therefore, motion is impossible. He went even further than this, in fact, outright rejecting all divisions between things and claiming that the most logical position is mysticism, that all is one. So one more example, and then I'll present my alternative resolution to the paradox, consider a race between Fred and Mary, where Mary has a small head start, but Fred is much faster. Zeno argued that Fred can never actually win a race between them, because he'll never catch up to Mary, and it's a matter of pure logic. So in order for Fred to overtake Mary, he must first pass the point, which Mary started from. Then in the time it took for Fred to do this, Mary has moved a little bit forward. Fred must then again make up that new distance. But when he arrives, Mary has again moved forward in that period of time. Each time Fred arrives at Mary's previous point, time has elapsed, which means Mary has covered new distance. Because there's an infinite number of points which Fred must reach, where Mary's already been, he cannot overtake her. Again, work through the logical power of this argument. Before Fred can overtake Mary, he must cross every point that she has crossed. Two, in order for Fred to reach Mary's previous point, time must elapse. Three, every time that time elapses, Mary creates new distance. Four, Fred must then cross that new distance, which also takes up a certain amount of time, creating new distance to cross. Five, no distance can be crossed without time elapsing, and therefore, conclusion six, Fred will never be able to get ahead of Mary. These are profound arguments, concluding that, well, motion must be impossible is not actually as ridiculous as it first sounds. But the modern response is to lazily say, oh, calculus solves it. And sure enough, calculus gives us incredible precision in predicting events like Fred passing Mary, it conforms to our daily experiences, as we witness motion all the time so we don't treat it with much skepticism. But mathematical calculations, in this case, do not have the final say in matters of logic. An infinite series of events cannot be completed by logical necessity of what we mean by infinite. It doesn't matter how well the calculations work, and in fact, it points to a problem with how people think of calculus. Calculus is about the asymptotic relationship between quantities which are never allowed to be equal. So where does that leave us? Fortunately, I have a resolution which preserves logical necessity, preserves a sensible understanding of calculus, and it clears up a definition of infinity. So the answer is very simple. The reason that motion is possible is because physical reality is not infinitely divisible. There is a base unit. Revisit the train example. As the train is nearing its destination, it has to travel over the half-inch point, the half-half-inch point, the half-half-half-inch point, and so on. But this doesn't continue infinitely if there is a base unit. When there are, say, two base units remaining, it still has to go halfway and travel over one of them. Then there's only one unit of distance left. Since there's no meaningful half-a-base unit, at least such a concept cannot be represented in physical reality, the train could arrive at the station without having to cross any more halfway points. This means that dividing a base unit in half is merely a mental exercise. It's word play. It's not something that's possible in physical reality. In fact, this must be true by virtue of what we mean by the term base unit. It can't have some parts. So when looking at the four-part breakdown of the train argument, the mistake is with premise number two, quote, at every point along the path, there will always remain a halfway mark, which must be crossed. Now that premise is simply not true. At some point, you are one individual unit away from your destination. Therefore, conclusions three and four do not follow, and we eject infinity from the argument. Now let's revisit the race between Fred and Mary. It too gets resolved by a base unit in physical reality. Infinity is harder to see, but it's buried in premise number three, quote, every time that time elapses, Mary creates new distance. Now this premise presupposes that space and time are infinitely divisible. If we reject this idea, then we can see there must be some amount of time in which Mary would not move even one base unit. If this is true, well, that's all that's required in order for Fred to pass Mary, assuming that he's moving faster than she is. You can think of it this way. Instead of their speeds being calculated in MPH, miles per hour, imagine they were in IB UPS, iBUPS, individual base units per second. Fred might be moving a trillion iBUPS while Mary only 100 billion. Well, then it becomes trivially easy to see that Fred will overtake Mary in X seconds, depending on how far away he is. So this idea of a base unit is not something exclusive to philosophy. In physics, these are sometimes referenced as plank units. There's plank time, plank length, et cetera. And to the extent that motion is possible, I'd say that their existence is necessary for the reasons that Zeno pointed out. Though, of course, I realize there's subtleties with plank units in physics, but that's beside the point. In this view, calculus is also preserved perfectly while avoiding infinities altogether. A base unit explanation of calculus allows us to purge all infinities, in fact, from our calculations. If we think of the train needing to cross an infinite series of points in order to arrive at its destination, well, we've already doomed that train to never arrive. With a base unit, we needn't deal with any kind of infinitesimal distances or such nonsense, infinite limits or anything like that. Instead, we're left with concrete, smallest required numbers for all of our calculations. There's only so many decimal places you need to go in order to be perfectly precise. I'll offer one more theory which can explain motion while preserving Zeno's logic. I call it the pixel theory of reality. It requires that we tweak our idea of motion slightly.  It's a fixed structure containing a zillion little spaces for tiny pixels. When you see your mouse cursor move across the computer screen, you're not actually seeing motion as we think about it. You're seeing a kind of progression of little dots that are firing in succession. It's like one of those LED signs with ticker symbols on it, something you might see at a baseball game. When you see the letters move across the sign, you're actually just seeing individual light bulbs firing in a particular pattern. There's no letters moving at all. So motion could simply be the firing of little pixels in succession, based on particular inputs in the world. In fact, if you think about it, this is precisely what happens whenever you're watching a movie on TV. You see what appears to be regular motion in the physical world, people moving around and such, but it's actually not that at all. It's just a motionless screen giving you the illusion of movement. You might even say, motion is the transmission of energy across the screen of physical reality. The pixels just pop in and out of existence. They don't move anywhere. So this explanation also preserves logical sense, explains the phenomena we experience, it avoids infinities, and in fact, Zeno himself might like the conclusion. As far as I can tell, either scenario is logically possible, but they both require the same thing, a base unit of physical reality either fixed or in motion. This should not be controversial, however, when you think about it. Imagine an empty container. Does an infinite amount of space reside within it? Of course not. But if it were true that physical reality were infinitely divisible, it would mean that infinity resides within the finite. It doesn't matter how little the particles are. If there's an infinite amount, there's a non-finite amount of space occupied by them. Take two points, A and B, and draw a line between them. Are you looking at an infinitely long line? Of course not. You're just looking at two finite points being joined by a finite line, all of which are divisible down to their fundamentals. Now, if you respond, oh, but mathematical points do not take up space, then I would respond, then your point is a concept. It's not something within the line. You cannot meaningfully reference a point which does not take up space. If it doesn't take up space, it has no spatial existence and therefore cannot be used as a unit of length. This is a confused way of thinking about the nature of space which comes from Euclidean geometry, my criticisms of which are a topic for another time. So all of these conclusions follow from simple premises. You cannot progress over an infinite distance in a finite period of time. You cannot add up infinity to get a finite number. You cannot contain an infinite amount of space within a finite amount of space. You cannot complete an infinite series of events because an infinite series is necessarily non-completable. From my perspective, Zeno correctly understood the logical power of infinities in argumentation even though he got his ultimate conclusion wrong. His reasoning was sharp and he inadvertently proved to the extent that motion is possible we necessarily live in a finite world. Logic requires it.


Hello and welcome to the second edition of our webinar series on news is undervalued brought to you in association with ABP news. In these times of distress and a complete lockdown, it's news that is our ears, eyes and hope. And when we talk of news, it is not what we get through forwards or posts but authentic, factual and credible news that comes to us through reliable sources. That is being put together by journalists and editors, sometimes we're putting their lives at risk. So the question we need to ask ourselves is, do we value it enough? And to answer this and many other questions that live audiences will throw at us, we have Mr. Ashish Prasheen, CEO, APAC Dan and Chairman Dan India. Welcome to the webinar, sir. Happy to hear, Nazia. So sir, we've been doing these series of webinars to understand the news genre which has seen almost 200% hype in its worship in the last seven, eight weeks that we have been at home. Do you think despite these unprecedented numbers that have come up, news is getting the value and the price it deserves? So first, let me begin with the disclaimer that I'm an interested party in this and the reason being that not just in COVID times but I'm a very voracious consumer of news. Even on normal days, I read at least four newspapers, I watch lots and lots of news channels and I'm constant. So as a consumer, I'm a news freak, you can say in that sense. But having said that, so therefore I personally do find news very, very valuable. I think the times that we are currently going through are very strange. You mentioned two things, you mentioned value and you mentioned price. To my mind, those are two very different things. Does news bring value? Of course, it brings tremendous amount of value and particularly in uncertain times like these, where there's a high level of anxiety, everybody wants to know. As a consumer, you want to know. When Lavagarwal, the health secretary, every day comes and talks about what happened the last day all over the country, I'm glued to try and put it between my calls and try to find out what's the latest update. So the value that news brings is undeniable. I can't imagine how people don't watch more of news even in normal times in that sense. Price is something which is entirely different. Price is a function of market forces. Price is a function of supply and demand. We are currently in a very strange scenario where the viewerships are significantly going up on news. Like you said, 200%. I don't have the latest figures, but significantly going up. But there isn't enough advertising to cover it because the markets are closed. Markets are shut and other than few brands which are active, the universe of advertising has significantly shrunk. So therefore, there isn't that much of advertising. So I'm not sure if it will directly result immediately in price. But in the long run, I absolutely agree with the fact that it is a genre that brings in a hell of a lot of value. Not just in television, even in newspaper and even in some of the digital websites. And it is definitely hitting below its potential in my view. Sir, I have two questions. One, you said that because a lot of production is shut and brands are not advertising. But despite that, if you compare news genre right now with other genres, I think news is still doing far better than others. I mean, one of your last three person was telling me that news is still getting like 40-50% of the inventory is going into news. That is expected. I don't know what percentage is going in, but that is expected because that much of your ship is going in there. And if I were an advertiser, I would also want to put my brands on news on that. But by news, I presume you're meeting television news because in newspapers, there's another issue is that distribution is now slowly coming back, but the distribution of newspapers itself was impacted in many cities, including continuous to be even today in parts of Mumbai. So as far as television news is concerned, it is a great time. If you have to advertise, it's a great time in my view to advertise in general and specifically to advertise on news because it's not only viewership, it is the level of engagement. I mean, today, it's almost appointment viewing. You're almost waiting for the 9 o'clock show or the 4 o'clock press conference or something. And with everybody at home and everybody anxious and anxiety level so high, the level of engagement with news is extremely high at the moment. So yes, whatever advertising is there, a good portion of that is coming in on to news. But I wish there was a bigger universe and more would come on to it. My second question is like you said that these are the times that not a lot of people are advertising. But if you look at news genre throughout 2019, we had looked up elections and we had back to that state elections and there was a lot that was happening throughout the year. Even in that year, pre-COVID days, do you think that news was getting its due? I mean, people were still watching news. No, absolutely not. I think it deserves more and I think there are various reasons for it. One of the reasons, of course, is that I feel there are too many channels. I mean, my own thinking is that in any genre, not just in news, in the long run, there'll be no more than 3 to 5 players that will survive. Because there isn't space for that many. There will be consolidations. Some will occupy niche spaces but main players will be 3 to 5. I think in news, the number of players first of all is a bit too much so it does get a bit fragmented. Quite apart from that, there is a general perception that news is more a male skewed genre, etc. And some of these are factual and some of these are just deep-seated perceptions. I don't think news genre has done a good enough job to market itself. They're too busy competing with each other. If you watch any news channel, since I am an avid viewer of news channels, I can tell you that we have 16 number one news channels in India. Because every news channel that you put on, you can cut and slice and dice every data and you'll be number one in something, right? I'm the best male in... You're all breaking the same story as exclusive story. And everybody is breaking news, everybody is in that. So I think that whole focus unfortunately has been how to cannibalize or how to fight with, you know, I'm better than you, my viewership is bigger than yours. I just wish that as a genre they had taken a slightly different view and that view would be that we are a genre that gives you consumer engagement like no other genre can, right? When you're watching news, particularly if a serious event is going on and it's not necessarily COVID related like you said, it would be the budget, it would be elections, it would be anything, the level of engagement is so, so high. I think if that were marketed well enough and substantiated by facts, it would and it should get much better than what it is. It's actually detrimental to this genre that everybody is bickering with all the players on it. So if there are news associations and news bodies and that also is now fragmented. I believe there are two of them instead of one, I'm not the expert on that. But I think it would do them well for their common cause to come together and educate clients, media buyers and planners, as well as public at large that what is the importance of news in your life. I think that will eventually lead to more eyeballs and whenever there are eyeballs it leads to more advertising. Also what we have seen in last few years, there's a sudden search in the number of mediums giving out news. You have so many forwards. So does that also make now traditional news houses like print or newspapers more important because you at least can rely on these, on the sources they... In my view, it definitely does because I think the biggest generator of news is the University of WhatsAppology these days and you never know which of that is fake. In fact, you do know most of it is fake in that sense. But it's very difficult, half of the time it's very difficult to figure out. I mean at least to... It sounds so credible, right? And as a consumer, you're not even sure whether it is right or wrong. But I think the biggest trick news is missing. What is news as biggest USP? News as biggest USP is credibility, right? And presumably the bigger television houses, the bigger publications and some of the... Not bigger but I mean the well-established publications, well-established news houses, television centers and some of the digital news players, they should bring in that credibility so that the non-credible news gets filtered out. That's their biggest strength. Unfortunately, they don't play on that strength. The fact that it is... And the reason why they are not playing on that is they're busy saying the other guy is not credible, right? Instead of saying that news that comes to you from certain set of television channels, certain type of publications or certain digital is really credible. This is real information. This is not what you will get on the Institute of WhatsAppology. Instead of saying that, they're saying, I'm the right guy. This other guy has got it all wrong. That's all rubbish. They're biased, etc., etc. And you know, I'm also not... I also don't buy that argument that you only watch news for news and you shouldn't have views. That's for the consumer. I watch some channels for views. I know clearly that they have certain biases on certain topics but I watch it to get that point of view and I watch another channel which might have a diametrically opposite point of view to get their point of view. So the news houses not only today give you news but also give you views which as a consumer are important for you and important for you to have the balance. I think if you can bring in credibility instead of trying to dice data to show that you're the best because that fools nobody in the end, I think it will do the news genre a lot more benefit in the long run. And in times like these, I mean, from a news perspective, I don't... viewership perspective, I don't think you'll ever get a time as good as this. So what I've understood so far is that first they need to stop competing within themselves and position themselves better to the clients and the marketers as what their real USPs are. I mean that they have eyeballs, they are in position to give credible news and what else do you think they can do to prove their... I'm not saying they should start competing with each other.   It's like a common minimum program. The news channels need to come together and evolve that for the industry, for our genre, this is like the base which all of us will do. Of course they have to compete, it's a business establishment, it's not for profit, it's not, you know, so therefore I'm not against the competition. I'm just saying that collectively if they can... Shift the focus. Shift the focus and agree on a certain minimum thing which is of interest to everybody. That might just help in that process. Sorry, I interrupted your question. We have some 10 minutes left and I would want viewers to now send us questions from Mr. Basin. Sir, one last thing I want to understand from you is how do they address this fragmentation issue? Because it all started with print, you know, more additions, more ads, then it came to television, you start bringing in a regional channel and too many channels. So are they competing with within themselves? Is it helping? So if you can elaborate on the fragmentation issue. Look, it's different in print in my view and different in television. I think having district-wise additions or more and more additions is not a bad thing because today a consumer wants local information. If I'm sitting in Bareilly, I want to know what is happening around me in addition to what's happening nationally or globally. So it's not a bad thing and that's of much higher interest to me. You also get your local advertisers. Well, I mean, I'm going the other way round. I'm first saying that from a consumer's point of view that does make sense and therefore there is a need for it over there. Of course, if you have it then you will get your local advertisers, your retailers, etc. who may not need to advertise nationally but in that area they might be big enough players and therefore you can. So I think that's the right thing for print but you can't overdo it. You cannot go on fragmenting it and then trying to fill that by coming. So it's that balance that has to be found. As far as television is concerned, I think there will definitely be a consolidation and that will happen across the industry, partly forced by digital and partly forced by the fact that there just isn't that much space for so many players. Many of them have their business model based almost entirely based on advertising. There isn't that much of advertising going around. In general, news in India has to start valuing itself and has to start charging for itself. Our newspapers are the cheapest in the world. Today, thankfully, Seba of India was very gracious and he's sending me newspapers from the physical copy because I feel very incomplete without it. I tweeted that and he was kind enough to send that. But today, if I weren't getting my newspaper, if somebody said, will you pay 50 rupees to get your newspaper, I would pay 50 rupees to get it. There is no reason why my newspaper should be charged at 50 rupees. I mean, you have to have confidence in your product and you have to start charging the right price over a period of time and not rely solely on advertising. I think the universe there is limited and in fact is not going to grow for a while and it could do news well to start believing in itself and charging for itself to the consumer who's consuming it. You've almost answered the question asked by Raguna Thais. When masses are subscribing to a number of oddity platforms by paying substantial prices, what's your advice? Should print raise the cost of subscription to rupees 15 to 20 a copy and be a credible medium? I don't know whether 15 to 20 or what's the right price point but I definitely feel they should raise it but before raising it, you have to add more value. Otherwise, why as a consumer will I pay that? Also, it's something that the whole ecosystem will have to do. If one person raises it and all the other players don't it's not likely that person is going to be able to sustain it for long. So if you value your product, if you are adding more value to your consumer then I think you have a right to charge a little more for that value and gradually over a period of time get it to a right level. You cannot keep it artificially suppressed forever because if you are relying on advertising, the advertising universe is not growing. A lot of questions are coming to us for print media. I'll clap the questions. One is how the print media will compete in the existing circumstances and there's another one who wants to know what should print do differently to get back to the younger readers. I think both the answers are in some ways connected. This is a very difficult time for everybody but for print it is particularly a difficult time because there was already a trend. English newspapers particularly were under pressure even before the COVID situation happened. The original press was still, regional readership was still doing okay and that ties in with what I was saying that you want your local news etc. However, there is a big opportunity. Print players in my view have missed an opportunity. They still have a chance to do it. They cannot fight digital, they have to adopt digital. If I am getting my news, today for example when you weren't getting the newspaper, when you aren't getting the newspaper you are reading a digital version of that. Either through a PDF or through a website etc. Over a period of time, I think they have the best ability to distribute news. They have the best ability to gather that news. They have to stop this that this is print and this is digital and digital is impacting print and print is dying because of digital. They have to adapt it. They have to have their strategies together and they have to start monetizing that as well. That is the way the consumer is going. That is the way the young reader is going. If they keep ignoring it, I think it's at their peril. They have to see digital and print together in my view. We have discussed this question in brief but you can give a detailed, elaborate answer also to this because this is also the theme that we are discussing. Credible news comes at a price. Shouldn't the ad also follow the credible news channels and the print media, whatever medium gives you the credible news. Is this how the ad should be driven or should only be driven as per the eyeballs? A lot of news channels have also started giving you too much of entertainment kind of stuff. The fact is that advertising follows eyeballs. It depends on the context in which you are advertising. This makes a big difference. The key primary thing is that I am paying so much. How many viewers am I getting at what price? That is the basis on which... Viewers in my target audience are eliminating the base stage. Fortunately or unfortunately, the people who do what some people call not credible are the ones who get maximum eyeballs. If you get eyeballs, that means viewers are going there. If they are going there, advertising will start flowing there over a period of time. I think what's important is that there will be different niches that different people can occupy. There are some channels that can become more premium, more credible. For example, the positioning of Hindu as a newspaper is different from the positioning of Times of India as a newspaper. It's different from positioning of Hindustan Times as a newspaper. Somebody stands for something, somebody else stands for something. So I think over a period of time, they have to start evolving their positioning and their strategy, their monetizing strategy should be according to what suits their positioning. I think that will be the long-term direction. A question that Mr Chaudhary has sent is also a little similar to what we were just discussing. Do you also agree that digital news publications will have to go behind the paywall because they need to create differentiated content as readers need value? It will have its own strategy, but in general, yes. However, in India, I've also noticed that people don't want to pay for content. Everybody assumes that if it is on the internet, it is free. The only people who first, I think, kind of burst this to a small extent is Netflix because that's one place where they started charging for content and have got people in substantial numbers to do so. I would still be keen to see how it expands because it's easy to get the top 1%, 5%, 10% in the market in India about how it expands down the pop-strat upward, but at least they've made a beginning. By and large, people are very averse. Other than a small band of people, they're very averse for paying on that. So every digital news channel will have to strike that balance. How much do they put behind the paywall and which they will be serious readers or will want to pay for that? And how much of it do they keep it free or get more traffic and therefore subsidize it through advertising? So I know you have to log out by 12. I'll take up this last question. It has been sent up by Mr. Sundeep Nagwal. How does a news channel or the genre as a whole establish its ability to engage? After all, it is so intangible and that too relative to other genres. Do you suggest that news channels conduct their own research individually or syndicated? I think it is... So as far as the viewership research is there, there is a common accepted currency which is Bach and I don't think there is a need for doing a separate research on that. But on qualitative factors, it's very easy to establish engagement. It's not very difficult. A little bit of research if it is done and it might vary from player to player. But let's say if the news players got together and if they did a study, I'm pretty sure what they will come out with is that in times of crisis, in times of events, in times of elections, in many, many, many times the engagement level will be many, many times higher with news than it will be with any other genre. So yes, there needs to be that research and more importantly, even if that is a research, it has to be used for educating both the readers, the advertisers and the advertising agencies. There's no point in just doing the research if it's not going to be used. Yes. The last question I want to ask you is we have seen that there is surge in the viewership during the COVID-19 time for news channels. How do you see the future? Like going ahead once this is settled, I mean this will take very long to settle. But do you think overall the genre will benefit and this viewership surge will continue even after this lockdown is over and things start to get back to normal. If you can give me some example from China because that's one market to understand and better than most of us because you're heading that market as well. What has been the trend there for the news channels? I can't say to be an expert on China. But in general in China, digital is far more stronger and prevalent than it is in India, both in percentages and so on. But coming back to India, I don't think these kind of viewerships will be sustained after, I mean just how people are in lockdown. So it's not just news. Every genre is benefitting, digital is benefitting because people are at home, they have nothing else to do. They are going to watch TV or are going to be online. So I think one of the growing genres is going to be news. Generally advertising will not do well and you're absolutely right for most parts of this year. Presumably around Diwali is when we might start in the first signs of upturn but until that time it's not going to be great. But on a relative sense, I think the growth of news as a genre will be more and a lot of it will depend upon the news players themselves. What are they able to do? Just now the difference scenario, it's an emergency situation. This is not going to last forever. Whether it is 18th May or 18th June, one day it will open up and things will start going back to normal. It is then what they do and then how they behave and then how they act which will determine how many consumers come back, how sticky are those eyeballs and how long they are able to sustain this growth. But by and large I'm optimistic. I feel the base of news is low in India and it can only grow. Yeah, five minutes. Can I take one more question? There are so many questions coming in. Credibility is a subjective analogy. Media bias attached how much of importance on this parameter? Because a lot of the way media planning and buying is done today is done based on data, based on facts. But wherever, and there are enough examples of this, wherever you are able to convince the media planner or the media buyer. And remember that a media planner's job is a very, very difficult job. They've overworked and they've got hundreds of channels and newspapers and digital sites on which they are A, relying on data but B also on their own instinct etc. Wherever over a period of time a channel or a genre has been able to convince that look we are more credible than the other person. There is some premium you've always been able to attract. You can see it in programming as well even within a channel. If the program is credible in that sense or is of a higher order, higher quality as far as consumers is concerned there is a little bit of a premium gets attached but that happens over a period of time. That is not a substitute for getting numbers. Finally, advertising will follow eyeballs. So it's not a substitute for that. It is in addition to that. Before we close, if I can just sum it up the discussion that we have had today. Correct me if I get anything wrong. One what I've understood is that news genre is likely to perform much better than other genres throughout the year and it's likely to evolve better because of various factors. And one of the things, couple of things that it must do to evolve which Mr. Basin has suggested is that position itself better to the marketers and clients more as someone who's as a medium that is engaging and giving you credible news then competing amongst themselves. And they also need to address the issue of fragmentation how do they address the issue of fragmentation because that's not really in their own control. That market forces will address over a period of time they will be weaker, stronger players will buy over the weaker players some will merge, some will close down etc. So that you cannot do but I think the biggest message I would like to leave is that the biggest strength of news is credibility. Every news channel, every newspaper, every digital source of whatever is the credibility which is most important. That credibility itself is coming under question. And because it's coming under question for a lot of players it's actually now coming under question for the whole genre itself in some ways. That's their biggest asset. They need to build on that credibility. Everybody today understands that news coming from WhatsApp is not to be relied upon. Everybody is looking for a credible source of news. More that you can build on credibility and position yourself on credibility and hear your lab to walk the talk, not just put a slogan that I'm credible. I think the better it will be in the long run for the players as well as for the shop. Thank you so much Mr. Basin for joining us. I'll repeat that the session was brought to you in association with AVP news and we have three more parts to this series. We'll be back next week with another very senior industry person. We'll give you more insight on the news genre. Thank you so much Mr. Basin for joining us. Thanks a lot for all the audiences. I couldn't take so many questions because Mr. Basin has a very hectic day and we promised him that we would close the session by 12 o'clock because he has too many things to attend. Thanks everyone. Thank you very much.


Welcome in Vienna we do welcome. Did you see what Taylor Swift did? So Lizzo's getting ripped to shreds this one. Oh, yeah She's getting sued But Taylor because she's coming to the end of her her US leg She not only gave each of the drivers of the big rigs that lug her gear End of tour bonuses of a hundred thousand dollars, but the total payout bonuses She's given to people involved in the tour in total is I think it was Was it was either 15 or 15 for regardless? Millions of dollars that she's given to them. So I think actually she should be voted in as the President of the amp tp because she knows exactly what to do with the money that she's made to give it to the people that help her Make it. Well, I'm pretty sure I saw a figure that said she's gonna make over a billion dollars good for her She's she's someone that's Go right ahead and I'd rather her have it than anybody in the amp tp millionaires shouldn't be Existing million millionaires unless they're me You can follow the Instagram Twitter for juicy content. Thank you. Thank you for some Yes, I'll just try to count and scribe like button. There should be no millionaires unless they're me. That's true Enough billionaires. I agree. I don't have a problem millionaires. I have a problem with billionaires Well, it depends on the millionaire. I might not like that person. That's true. That's true That's very true Today we got a very special one. This will be our first-ever VJ film 2001 film not I was gonna say I don't think it's that old. No, it's not very old at all Yeah, doesn't want to want to one film master Directed by low cash, which is very exciting not part of the universe. Oh, okay, so this is not but obviously Leo is coming out which is part of the universe and has VJ And so I wanted to get to something of VJ's before we get to that a lot of people suggested this one because oh No, the music's by Ani. I know it's gonna be so bad But it I've been just so we're aware in the headspace They said this is kind it has like 50% low cash 50% VJ style. So they say massive class. Oh Interesting, so think of it almost like as what we would normally give superstar Rosh Nikon like if we saw a film like Though that's not physics, but it right happens because I think right right Which we've come to understand when we first got introduced to Indian cinema, particularly South Indian cinema It was it let's just say to coin a phrase. It's strained credulity, especially for me and I've become far more Grace extending like what people did say this one is a lot more of a more of his grounded performances. Okay and But I think somebody also said that They he agreed to this with low cash and they made like a 50 low cash film a 50 VJ film and then if it was successful Leo VJ would sign on for Leo now to be a hundred percent a low cash film Okay, so it was kind of like let's test the waters and see if we because obviously we know VJ fans expect a lot From VJ in terms of when you have a when you have a brand of course if you're working with somebody I'm assuming it's the first time he worked with low cash. Yes. Yeah, you're gonna say look. It's my brand. It's my film So I don't want you to put something out there. That's not gonna represent my brand Yeah, I think this was successful. It has on we have heard some of the music and it was fantastic Yeah, and no no shock, but it also has the other VJ VJ So the potty which a lot of people like this is a really good Hey character and performance from VJ. The name is the name is synonymous with thespian. So exactly Yeah, so I'm very excited. I'm looking forward to finally seeing something from VJ And if you're watching this on YouTube, obviously, you're gonna see a very cut-up version If you'd like to see the full uncut version you can head over to patreon. We got this we got other watch along So you can thank you.  Thank you so much very much Because obviously you'll get to see the cover if you'd like to see the full uncut version You can head over to patreon up with the link in the description below and the pinned comment And let's just get into this shall we? Forgive me if you find it rude that someone's eating or drinking it's Just after eight in the morning here.  I'm assuming this is Sada Pathy. Yeah Yeah, great lighting yellow and blue Okay, we'll see that again. It gets you immediately drawn in right from the start.  I don't think so Yeah, man a good slap so disrespectful Nice oh great stun. Oh, bro. You touched his shirt I Scentuate the balls. He's so good. I love a disrespect. Oh, yeah It's so much more disrespectful than punching somebody.    He's deeply insulting them as he does it He also has incredible style. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, everything has a Everything I've heard about obviously him Some of them talk so fast I know Sippin on beer. Yeah, come for me man, right here J.D. Student Elima professor what Dean of student affairs So fast We reacted to this yes, yes, we did thought about the wakes up I feel like yeah normal day His entire the entire time on adieu wakes up and celebrates Reminds me of how I was welcomed at harvest every time you had an assembly true. Yeah. Oh for split second I thought that was the same shot. Yeah That's not what I thought would be under the covers We're wondering how these stories we're gonna connect. Yeah, me too It's impossible he's gonna go pay the driver now Or just like 80 year old leaders Rajasthan was better Too hot there How do you like them apples I'll take the girl not gonna work out well for you. I don't think my bro girl Nice touch. Yeah college.  You don't see that very often. You know education Baby, I remember this one. I think it was just a lyrical video though I was always short and unbar. Yeah, I just noticed that thanks balance Good tea and Hindi means dog. I guess I mean something different here. I Think it means a little little I'm thinking it means little. I don't know that for sure It was a nice song You remember rechendra vaguely it was a lyrical video. Yeah vaguely. You don't see a four-door. No convertible often Oh, definitely wasn't a non-bar that did that And that'll be a number part one reaction to master it was masterful It was so masterful that it made me want to master. Oh, don't do that here If you saw this on YouTube you always have over here cut a version If you'd like to see a full-on cut version you can head over to patreon I'll pull you in the description below in the pinned comment on a part two