Things Finally Turn Positive

Corporate accounting may have suddenly come under the spanner and the thought

that media might get a whiff of accounting misconduct might be sending shivers

to the most transparent of the companies, but the media, till some time back,

did not seem much bothered about these issues. A quick look at the tonality of

financial news that appeared in print during the nine-month period between

October 2001-June 2002, and we are convinced.

Amongst the Top 10 in the FINDEX list (Financial Index: DQ rankings on the

basis of seven financial parameters), SSI received the maximum flak. Out of the

total 75 financial reports published about the company 34 were negative in

nature–a huge 45% of their total visibility on financial front. Interestingly,

94% r 32 of these reports were about its dismal financial results triggered by

the downtrend in the IT education industry in general. However, not many

negatives were written about the other Top 10 companies. While Satyam Computer

Services was the next on the firing line, only 12% of its total reports on

financial affairs were negative. Wipro was the next with 10% followed by HCL

Technologies and Infosys Technologies with 6% and 4% respectively. The other two

companies on the block–Moser Baer and Digital GlobalSoft passed on the test

unscathed.

Overall, Infosys tops the Image index both in terms of total number of

article (363) and visibility on the front-page (65). Wipro with a score of 273

was at #2, while Satyam was at #3 slot with 187 reports. The two occupied

exactly the same position in terms of front-page visibility–Wipro getting 49

front-page insertions while Satyam managed 42. However, in terms

of contribution of financial points to the individual Cirrus image point (CIP)

Moser Baer, thanks to its solid growth of 102%, was much ahead of the others

with a 79% share of financial reports. Of this, 74% were related to its results,

while the rest came from the ‘other’ financial news. The company could

manage to get just two write-ups on Page 1 and that in the ‘others’

category.

In terms of break up between financial results and other financial news, a

majority of the companies, except Infosys and SSI, got more share of news pages

from the former. While 72% of Satyam’s financial news were related to its

results, it was 71% for Digital, 69% for HCLT and 58% for Wipro. Despite the

lowest 43:57 ratio between financial results and others, Infy was just two

articles behind Wipro to emerge #2 on in terms of sheer volume of stories on

results–157 as compared to 159 reports on Wipro. On the others category,

however, it managed to leave Wipro much behind–206 as compared to 114 of Wipro.

The two were followed by Satyam, which got 134 reports on results and 53 on

others.

SHUBHENDU PARTH in New Delhi



(For more information on Cirrus, contact: sandeep@agencyfaqs.com
or srinibalram@agencyfaqs.com)

METHODOLOGY

Cirrus uses two measurement tools to arrive at the final scores. The first

measures the visibility of a company, while the second interprets the exposure

tonality. The model assigns quantitative weights to factors like readership,

article space and prominence of coverage, the summation of which gives the

visibility point. To measure exposure tonality, each news piece is interpreted

for its reporting tone (positive/neutral/negative). Once the tone level has been

established, the visibility score is overlaid with the tone to arrive at the

Cirrus Image Points (CIP).

To understand the competitive position of DQ Top 10 listed companies we

decided to add another parameter–coverage of financial news. Also volume–number

of reports that each of these companies got on their financial affairs and

practices–and not the CIP was taken as the measuring stick to decide DQ-Cirrus

Top 10 index. We also decided to check out the relative importance that each of

these companies got in terms of positioning of their news and hence a separate

list of front-page coverage. Also, financial matters were divided into two broad

categories–financial results and other financial issues.