Govt will firmly support media, entertainment industry:Sinha

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said that government acknowledges convergence between telecom and broadcast sector and will provide all possible support for growth of the media and entertainment sector dependent on it.
"In present era of convergence, boundaries between telecom, IT, media and broadcasting sector is getiing blurred. Content , communications platforms and technology are increasingly becoming integrated and one can't survive without other in reaching out to consumers," Sinha said at a CII event on media and entertainment.
He said that taking note of convergence Indian telecom industry is migrating from voice centric to data centric approach.
"Networks are being deployed which support high data speed download of movies and music on personal devices," he said.

Sinha said that India has 250-300 million screens which includes smartphone.
"As entertainment and media industry widens its reach, it plays critical in creating awareness on issues and building aspirations among billions of Indians. With the growth of broadband and mobile technologies, the sector is poised to take off to new levels," Sinha said.

India has over 1 billion mobile subscribers and 250 million mobile phones accessing media content.
He said that most of the people in India are accessing internet first time on their mobile phones.
"Given the mobile first phenomenon of internet adoption innovative business models with mobile first strategy will emerge. For this tectonic shift, government is standing firmly behind the industry," Sinha said.