Entertaining business

FREEZE FRAME

We are moving into an age of multimedia consumption. FRAMES only strenghtens this view.

India is the flavour of the decade and it's not surprising that the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry too is getting its share of attention. This was evident at the recently-concluded FRAMES (in its seventh edition) convention, organised by FICCI in Mumbai.

What are some of the key take-aways from FRAMES? First, almost all participants seemed to agree that a paradigm shift was taking place in the industry driven by digital technology. In rapidly-growing markets like India, the change is even more cataclysmic. Many speakers from Tom Freston, the CEO of VIACOM to Subhash Chandra of ZEE highlighted this. The absence of a proper regulatory environment was perceived to be a major impediment in the overall growth of the broadcast sector.

Another drawback is the shortage of trained professionals in every segment. While film producers lamented about the shortage of writers and actors, the animation and gaming sector talked about the shortage of personnel in every department. In spite of the fact that media is now being looked upon as a serious career option by the youth, the absence of adequate training institutions and faculty is a problem. Lack of trained mangers, especially in marketing of entertainment products and services is also a challenge.

Another leit motif of FRAMES this year was technological change and the opportunity it is offering the M&E industry. There were sessions on animation, visual effects, digital theaters, mobile entertainment, IPTV, time-shifted and place-shifted viewing and interactivity. Rajat Jain of Disney India quoted his chairman Bob Iger to drive home this point: "Technology also powers creativity and innovation.We firmly believe in a platform-agnostic approach to distribution. Applying technology to enhance our content and extend its distribution enables us to get closer to our increasingly more sophisticated customers worldwide."

India's own IT visionary Azim Premji too had words of wisdom for the M&E sector: "Entertainment and IT complement each other. There is convergence happening between entertainment, IT and communications industries. This is good as all three can be economic growth drivers."

Among others who made impression at the conference were Stewart Till, UIP chairman, Bob McCann, chairman of Nielsen, filmmakers Ashok Amritraj, Vidu Vinod Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt and Rakesh Mehra, actor Kamal Hasan, Aroon Purie of India today and Sameer Nair of Star. One point, which I made, got reflected in several sessions that we are now moving into an age of multiple-media consumption. For the next decade it is not going to be an either/or situation for legacy media formats even as new ones emerge.

Incidentally, with over 700 million people below the age of 30 and a middle-class of over 300 million, no marketeer wants to give this a miss. Similar is the case with the entertainers. Salivating at this huge potential audience has brought all major M&E companies to India. So you have SONY, Paramount, Disney, Fox and Time-Warner all souping up their operations here.

Amit Khanna (The author is Chairman of Reliance Entertainment and the views expressed are his own)