From rxpgnews.com
Indian entertainment faces challenging times: CII
By Frederick Noronha, Indo-Asian News Service,
Nov 23, 2006 - 6:58:44 PM
Panaji, Nov 23 (IANS) The Indian entertainment industry should enhance activity in newer genres and the players should consolidate their activity rather than remain 'fragmented' in order to grow, says a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) report ahead of the International film Festival of India (IFFI) that opens here Thursday.
The report also says an adult Indian spends on an average less than Rs.2 each year on films and India is the third largest market for cable, after US and China, with 250 channels and 60 million cable homes.
But India also spends only the second-lowest per capita on cable (at Rs.150 per home per month, after China) globally. So, a family of five, which views TV for an hour a day, pays just Rs.1 per hour for this.
The CII backgrounder says that cable has not reached 'even one fourth of India's 200 million households'. Besides, in terms of television, India has among the 'worst skew in the distribution of subscription revenue between broadcasters and distributors'.
On the film industry, it says: 'The 'tried and tested formula' in Indian filmmaking is being challenged. The industry has witnessed how new genre creations have set new trends and reaped rich rewards. However, any new genre success 'formula' is quickly replicated and often so, and often the weak treatment of the 'me-too' results in failures.'
It says the Indian entertainment industry is currently 'fragmented' with a vast disparity between a few large players and multiple small players 'all of whom are competing for a finite market with a finite set of resources'.
It called for an industry consolidating, and suggested larger production houses could enjoy efficiencies in terms of finances, risk management, and resource utilisation.
CII estimated, in its study done jointly with the KPMG group, that India's film and music sectors suffered revenue losses of Rs.20 billion-plus due to illegal copying ('piracy') of movies and music.
'A closer analysis of the film industry shows that the extent of value destruction in mid-budget films (Rs.20-100 million) could be as high as 80-90 percent, in many cases, due to a pronounced lack of process orientation and discipline,' said the CII background note.
It pointed to a possible 'exciting phase of growth' for India's entertainment industry, but called for 'getting the house in order'.
To 'unlock value', said the CII, the Indian entertainment industry would need to develop marketable products 'keeping in mind the socio-economic realities of the Indian market'; improve operational effectiveness through global benchmarking, adoption of best practices, technology and strategic innovation; and leverage the capabilities thus developed in international markets.
One of the recommendations calls for the media and entertainment biz to enhance activity in newer genres.
CII says: 'To its credit, the Indian music industry has constantly looked at new genres to keep it afloat. Indi-pop, Sufi, fusion, re-mix, folk, etc, are all successful genre creations in the popular Indian music space over the last 10 years. The music industry's foray into devotional music partly revolutionised its fortunes.'
It also pointed to the televised Indian epics 'Mahabharat' and 'Ramayan', and religious programmes through independent channels on Christianity and Hinduism, and devotional music (bhajans). 'This genre is relatively unexploited in films,' it added.
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