ITV

Category: Ficci Frames

  • FICCI – Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas releases FICCI Frames ‘Entertainment Law Book 2020’ Report

    FICCI – Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas releases FICCI Frames ‘Entertainment Law Book 2020’ Report

    Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, today released ‘Entertainment Law Book 2020’ report. The report highlights regulatory developments in the field of TV broadcasting and distribution, music, radio, filmed entertainment, and other segments in the Media & Entertainment space. It also includes several thought provoking articles on diverse topics, dealing with the issues in the Media & Entertainment sector. The report was scheduled for launch at FICCI Frames 2020, however due the given COVID -19 situation, the conference has been postponed to a later date this year.

    Mr Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General, FICCI said, “The report touches upon some vital aspects that are playing an influential role in charting the way for the future of the Media & Entertainment industry. The issues lay strong foundations of the possible framework and solutions to developing the laws that will in time, govern the Media & Entertainment industry, in our country. On behalf of FICCI, I express our appreciation to Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and the members of the FICCI Media & Entertainment Committee for working with us on the 2020 edition of this Report.”

    Mr Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas said, “It is an honour and a privilege to present this report on the legal and regulatory issues impacting the Media and Entertainment sector. This report gives a bird’s eye view of all important and relevant developments in the past year, encompassing the entire gamut of the Media & Entertainment sector. I would like to thank FICCI and members of its Media & Entertainment Committee  for choosing us as a knowledge partner for the second consecutive year and all those who have contributed their time and valuable insights in making this report a possibility.”

    Mr Bharat Vasani, Partner (Head – Media & Entertainment), Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas said, “I am very delighted at the release of FICCI Frames Entertainment Law Report 2020. It was great experience to meet the key players in this industry and get their practical insight into the future of different verticals of this industry and the impact of digital revolution.”

  • FICCI FRAMES 2020 postponed

    FICCI FRAMES 2020 postponed

    MUMBAI: FICCI has decided to postpone its annual conference FICCI FRAMES 2020 in view of the public health concerns over coronavirus and the recent advisory from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, which has recommended to avoid mass gatherings.

    The three-day global convention was scheduled to be held from 18 to 20 March 2020 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai. It was to cover the entire gamut of media and entertainment segments such as films, TV & radio, print media, digital entertainment, advertisement, live entertainment events, digital and new media.

    A release said that FICCI will soon announce the new dates for the event.

  • Pre-school kids content’s monetisation and viewership challenges

    Pre-school kids content’s monetisation and viewership challenges

    MUMBAI: Animators have long contemplated the complexity of producing pre-school content for the ages of two to four years. On the third day of FICCI Frames 2019, executives from the industry spoke about ‘Catching youngest viewers: Powering the kids network and advertisers ecosystem through data’. It had panellists BARC India senior VP business development partnerships Elbert D’silva, Sony Yay head programming Ronojoy Chakraborty, DDB Mudra Group executive director Sathyamurthy Namakkal, GroupM business head entertainment, sports and live events Vinit Karnik, Viacom18 head content kids TV network Anu Sikka and Graphiti multimedia co-founder Mujal Shroff. The session was moderated by Punaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni.

    Sikka threw the limelight over the issue that the industry had been facing since the start and the reason why the kids genre is under-indexed. She said that at first it was a question of finance and so the industry depended on acquired content and later realised the need to produce home-grown content. Parents also exert some control over what the kid watches. A kid may have no issue with Dora being Indian or not, but it is the parents who demand local content. They would want their kids to watch localised content. “Kids from age five demand local content, but in case of kids from the age group of 0-2, the parents are the gatekeepers,” she concluded.  

    She further added that now is the time that we need to cater to specialised content. “If you look at our Nick Jr. channel, it has grown three to four times this year. But unfortunately, if you look at the overall programming, we don’t get viewership of the two to fourteen years age group. And that is why there is a lack of pre-schooling content,” she said.

    On the other hand, Shroff said that there is also a placement issue. He said, “If you look at the viewing pattern, as the child evolves these days, it is on multiple devices. But some age groups still prefer TV.” Kids aged 5-6 or 9-10 tend to consume content on their parents mobile phones or any other device but a 2-year-old kid still watches TV.

    Chakraborty explained that pre-school programming is only justified if it can be monetised. “If you look at our category, one-fourth share is GECs but the revenue share for kids category is one-tenth. Hence the revenue here is very less and therefore, broadcasters are not creating content,” he said. If BARC were to provide some viewership cuts for the pre-school audience rather than keep it as a part of the entire kids genre, broadcasters will be able to curate better content.

    Agreeing with him, Karnik said that it would be difficult to strategise programming for the pre-schooling kids as the category as a whole is under-indexed in terms of advertising. Despite witnessing a hike in ratings, revenues are increasing at a snail’s pace.

    Namakkal chipped in with a different standpoint. He said that the industry shouldn’t get greedy about data because there is already information overload. “One-third of kids consume one and a half hours of video on TV screens. But while we talk about advertising revenue, it will never be equal to viewership share,” he explained.

  • Gazing into the Crystal Ball – Sustaining Growth in Uncertain Times

    Gazing into the Crystal Ball – Sustaining Growth in Uncertain Times

    MUMBAI: In an interesting session titled “Gazing into the Crystal Ball – Sustaining Growth in Uncertain Times, that was held on day 3 of at the 20th edition of Ficci Frames, Shri Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Goverment of India gave a keynote address.  

    While in conversation with Mr. Ashish Pherwani, Partner, Advisory, EY, Mr. Sanyal spoke about how Indian content has found resonance globally. 

    “Few of the successful writers like Amish Tripathi and Chetan Bhagat are writing in the languages that are Indian but are relatable to the audiences internationally. Similarly filmmakers are making films that have indian stories but are attract audiences globally. Dangal for example was not written with an international audience in mind but the story was true to our roots and we succeeded”

    “We have a lot of talent in our country and India has great stories. The time is to reinvent those stories and tell them with top class technologies. We definitely have ability to create global content.” He concluded.

  • Monetisation is the biggest challenge for regional industry

    Monetisation is the biggest challenge for regional industry

    MUMBAI: The growth of the regional sector in the media industry was discussed on the third day of FICCI Frames 2019. Experts from the television sector discussed on the topic ‘Regional: is it the giant waiting to be awakened?’ It had panellists Viacom18 head regional entertainment Ravish Kumar, Reliance Broadcast Network Thwink Big country head Sunil Kumaran, Discovery communication VP head of advertising sales and business head of regional cluster Vikram Tanna, Westland Publications head language publishing Minakshi Thakur, Network18 CEO languages Karan Abhishek Singh and Google industry head media and entertainment Sandeep Ramesh.

    Talking about the challenges in the industry while creating the content as against monetisation, Ramesh said that the latter depends on macroeconomic conditions which are the GDP, per capita income, advertising or subscriptions coming in as a source of income.

    Tanna highlighted that looking at the overall scenario of English as against regional languages, perception is bigger than performance and that will change over a period of time. “If you look at pure regional form in TV or digital, there are two markets of monetisation—one is coming in from the regional local businesses and the other is coming from the national advertisers. If you actually add the pricing of both these buckets in any medium, the indexes for regional are quite higher and the reason is that this hyper looking market can calculate ROI much better beyond a simple measurement ROI system,” he added.   

    Singh chipped in and said that it is also incumbent upon them as content creators to do what it takes. “We need to create an environment where regional content formats are not seen as ‘long tail’ for media planners,” he said.

    Meanwhile, an interesting observation was put across where a homogenisation culture was happening, such as the influence of Diwali, Holi and other festivals are witnessed in the Bengali culture these days, which in reality are not so famous in these cultures. Speaking about the trend, Kumar said, “These festivals are actually making the culture larger than life. Of course, there is homogenisation in these cultures, consciously or unconsciously, but it’s the desire to be larger than life because people want entertainment and we look at it very differently.”

    Though Baahubali is one regional movie that has travelled internationally the question still remains as to why we can’t make more such innovative content. Kumar replied that we are lazy. He added that we are very good at learning the markets or develop from the ecosystems but not as good as putting out originality. “I would love to see Indian dramas like Turkish content and these are not just working in one market, they are working in multiple markets. We need to come up with something new and innovative and way bigger than what it is.”

    A major reason why no content is created for the north-eastern part of the country is budget constraint. Kumar added, “But we can’t put the blame just on budgets. Give us four to five years to offer the content of your choice.”

  • Ad industry not kept pace with consumer and digital changes

    Ad industry not kept pace with consumer and digital changes

    MUMBAI: The last decade has been disruptive for media, advertising and marketing with the evolution of digital. However, Sam Balsara, the veteran in advertising industry, feels that media buying has not been able to keep pace with that change. He also said that the currency that really should be looked at from marketing point of view is cost per unit of brand outcome rather than CPRP or CPT.

    Throwing light on the magnitude of the change, Balsara said that the advertising market has tripled in size in the last ten years, moving up from Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 61,000 crore in 2018. He also added that the growth came on the back of digital while the share of the digital medium itself has reached 19 per cent from merely four per cent ten years back. According to him, digital will replace print as the second largest medium in the next two to three years.

    “The only thing that has not changed, I will say regretfully, is the way media buyers and media agencies buy media. It has, probably, not changed as dramatically as the media scene has,” Madison World chairman Sam Balsara commented in a session “Advertising, Media, Marketing: #10yearChallenge” on the third day of FICCI FRAMES 2019 while highlighting all the changes in the last decade.

    Ultratech joint executive president, marketing head Ajay Dang also expressed his concern on the same. Dang seemed sceptic about whether the industry, including creative agencies, marketers, content generators, has been able to keep pace with audience evolution. He also expressed his concern about the industry’s understanding of the needed change in storytelling and measuring the reach of the story to the final audience.

    “We are constantly in a phase of catch-up, we are falling behind. That’s my take. Because of our lack of putting it all together, at the end of the day our return on investment that we are supposed to deliver to our organisations is suffering,” he commented.

    Balsara also spoke on the “democratisation of advertising”. While the top 50 advertisers accounted for as high as 43 per cent of total adex in 2009, the number came down to 35 per cent last year thanks to the huge growth of regional brands.

    “We have to look at efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. I think today we are in a scenario where there is democratisation of data as well and data is threatening to become a deluge to drown companies if they do not do something about it. That’s largely becoming a priority for us to take up now,” Marico media and digital marketing head Ankit Desai said.

    BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta also pointed out the lack of talent in terms of media analytics tool. While sectors like BFSI and telecom have data analytics talent but in media finding people who understand the media domain and the big data tools of analytics is a big problem.

    It was also noted in the session that the FMCG brands are ever-inclined to TV despite the rapid growth of digital growth. On the issue of bias towards TV, experts think as the communication journey of many companies has been built around the medium over all these years, TV still plays the role for audience aggregator for these brands. However, it has also been said that the shift towards other mediums like digital has started.

    Viacom18 Hindi Mass Entertainment & Kids TV Network head Nina Elavia Jaipuria concluded the session calling for unity among all three parties including the media owner, advertiser and the media agency. She said that there is a need for all three to come together as the common goal is to drive market share for brands but sometimes a conflict of interest is good for the growth of the business.

  • Mr. Sunil Gavaskar launches the So Sorry Gully Cricket app by India Today

    Mr. Sunil Gavaskar launches the So Sorry Gully Cricket app by India Today

    MUMBAI: A cricket app of India Today called So Sorry Gully Cricket was formally launched in the presence of legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar on day 3 of FICCI FRAMES 2019 in a session moderated by Vikrant Gupta. Apart from the Mr. Sunil Gavaskar, Present were Mr. Sam Balsara, Mr. Shashi Sinha and Mr. Jaideep Trivedi.

    Sunil Gavaskar spoke about the memories associated with Gully Cricket, “There used to be very narrow space between the two buildings and if you hit over the top of the 1st floor, you were out. We learnt only to play straight. You sort of leant to adjust your bat speed and you learnt to either play forward or back. The best part or the worst part according to the way you saw it was that the umpires were all from the building so if they liked you, they would say not out they didn’t like you, you were given out.” He said laughingly.

    Mr. Sam Balsara said, “There is nothing big in the country right now that cricket and politics. You are giving both these things to Indians in form of a game, you should hit jackpot with this.”

  • Industry experts discuss OTT growth, need for measurement system

    Industry experts discuss OTT growth, need for measurement system

    MUMBAI: To measure or not to measure? Despite the humongous growth of OTT in the country, experts still can’t seem to agree on this question. While some of the experts believe a TV like measurement system will bring more transparency in the ecosystem, other players think third-party tools are already serving the purpose.

    A session on Dual Screen Addiction saw panellists Star India Hindi GEC president and head Gaurav Banerjee, ZEE5 CEO Tarun Katial, Network 18 COO, A+E Networks MD Avinash Kaul, media veteran Raj Nayak, Netflix partnerships director Abhishek Nag, Hooq India MD Zulfiqar Khan, Vuclip country head Vishal Maheshwari and moderated by Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sunil Lulla.

    Speaking at a session in FICCI FRAMES 2019 Banerjee emphasised on the need of a unified measurement system. “As we have entered into digital, we have not thought of putting in place a measurement system which is extremely robust,” he said. Banerjee thinks it will make assessments of watch-time easier for the advertisers.

    Katial strongly disagreed and argued that there are robust third-party tools in the market. He also cited the example of YouTube and Facebook’s strength in digital advertising. According to him, if there was no credibility in measurement, advertisers would not have put so much money.

    “In the case of TV, when consumers now exercise their choice some channel may lose its base of 198 million and drop to 20 million but that also shows the affluence of the customer who can pay Rs 20 a month. Otherwise, channels on DD Free Dish would have retained revenue three times greater than Star Plus,” Kaul commented.

    Nayak said that advertising money is going to get fragmented and it’s going to get worse with more players coming in. “In the OTT space, the number of players will shrink. I predict that in the next 3-5 years there won’t be more than 10 players in this space. I think then the realisation of value will happen both in terms of subscription and advertising,” he added.

    Talking about monetising on OTT through advertising, Katial said the volume of content on the platform is a necessity. He added that when ZEE5 was launched it kept the faith on three ‘v’s – voice, vernacular and video which worked. According to him, CPM is also rising on the contrary to popular belief in the industry.

    However, the experts agreed to the growing subscription model in the country. Netflix partnerships director Abhishek Nag said this is a great time for subscription business in India. The use of credit cards for online payment without fear of fraud and mobile wallets especially the ones with low bandwidth has opened up revenue channels for the platforms. Nag also thinks bundling of telco or broadband plans with live TV and OTTs can make it stronger.

    ZEE5 CEO said along with B2B2C, the B2C model is growing. According to him, proper bundling and pricing play a major role in B2C revenue. In the case of B2B2C, he said partnerships with e-commerce platforms like MakeMyTrip will add value to the model in future.

  • Broadcasters need to relook at content to cope with OTT platforms

    Broadcasters need to relook at content to cope with OTT platforms

    MUMBAI: With the upsurge in demand for OTT platforms in India, the future of broadcasters has been debated much. TV still has enough headroom to grow thanks to underpenetrated households. While the players in the ecosystem firmly believe that TV is not going to die soon, they also think broadcasters need to rethink their content.

    On the second day of FICCI Frames 2019, experts from the television and OTT industry discussed on ‘Dual Screen Addiction –Disruptive or Addictive! Will Broadcast and VoD Co-exist?’ It had panellists Star India Hindi GEC president and head Gaurav Banerjee, ZEE5 CEO Tarun Katial, Network 18 COO, A+E Networks MD Avinash Kaul, media veteran Raj Nayak, Netflix partnerships director Abhishek Nag, Hooq India MD Zulfiqar Khan, Vuclip country head Vishal Maheshwari and moderated by Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sunil Lulla.

    Banerjee said they are in the business of curating stories where making purposeful stories is important. He thinks it should be left to consumers what stories they want to watch together and on which personal device.

    Agreeing with Banerjee, Katial said, “It’s good to tell stories, eventually you have to make money and yes, we are all trying to monetise content in different formats. What OTT brings to the table is totally different from TV which is a high degree of personalisation and segmentation, and the ability to discover content at your own convenience. That’s not going away. Consumers are going to want more and more of that. I think we all say linear TV should stay, the convenience aspect of digital is huge.”

    Lulla raised the question of how broadcasters should defend their turf with all these changes. Media veteran Raj Nayak said that he is a big believer that television is here to stay. He added that families in small towns, even today, sit together to watch TV in the evening. According to him, OTT and TV will co-exist in India at least for another ten years.

    Banerjee also echoed Nayak’s view that OTT is not going to kill linear TV. According to him, three generations watching TV together and having a conversation is very important in Indian society. He added that TV consumption is only on the upward side in the country.

    But Nayak also reminded the fact that amid ongoing changes in the ecosystem, consumers now compare the quality of TV and OTT content. Hence, Nayak thinks TV channels will have to course correct to give content on linear TV which is as compelling as OTT.

    Hooq India MD Zulfiqar Khan added that streaming services have a direct connection with consumers which helps them to have great knowledge of consumer choice. On the other hand, linear TV has been a consumer facing brand but not consumer facing business. Hence, he said that at a content level as well as business level there has to be a rethink.

    “The households not yet penetrated by TV will continue to be the main stake of linear TV. Most of it is coming from the northern and eastern parts of India. OTT and TV will obviously co-exist. The question is how they will compete with each other and take best practices from each other,” Kaul said while adding that OTT ‘s biggest advantage is its one-on-one relation.

    Vuclip country head Vishal Maheshwari said India is the only country where broadcasters are so well organised on their OTT businesses. According to Katial, broadcasters created a catch-up content environment in the early days and went slow on premium content compared to platforms like Netflix.

    The industry experts agreed that rather than having a debate about TV content and OTT content, the debate should be on linear and non-linear consumption and the need for compelling content.

  • Need to focus on self-regulation and less regulation: Amit Khare, Secretary, I&B at FICCI FRAMES 2019

    Need to focus on self-regulation and less regulation: Amit Khare, Secretary, I&B at FICCI FRAMES 2019

    MUMBAI: The 20th edition of three-day global convention covering the entire gamut of media and entertainment industry, FICCI Frames 2019, saw its inauguration today at Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

    Mr. Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, delivered the keynote address.

    “One should encourage co-production so that content could be greatly enhanced, joining more countries, that will lead to better viewership.” Said Amit Khare.

    “We have taken an initiative of having a national broadcast policy. One should consider self-regulation and less regulation if we want the system to grow.” He added talking about the regulations in Media and Entertainment industry.

    While Mr. Uday Shankar, Vice President, FICCI took to stage for opening remarks, where he mentioned how the media and entertainment industry and FICCI FRAMES is growing by leaps and bounds. “India is one of the most exciting markets for the Media & Entertainment industry. The great Indian media story has just begun,” he said.

    Mr. Ronnie Screwvala in his ‘Media Mastermind Keynote: An Indian Entrepreneur’s Journey’ said he had seen the industry and FICCI FRAMES for so many years and was happy to note that business people were at the centre stage of the conclave.

    “The companies of tomorrow need to be more consumer companies and not just media companies. The Media and Entertainment sector cannot just function with passion, we also need leaders, founders and entrepreneurship,” said Mr. Screwvala talking about how the media and entertainment industry needs to focus on consumers.

    “Learning is story-telling,” Mr. Screwvala concluded.

    The other speakers in the opening session were Mr. Charles H. Rivkin, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Motion Picture Association of America and Mr. Gary Knell, Chief Executive Officer, National Geographic Partners. 

    FICCI-EY 2019 report on Media and Entertainment was also unveiled along with the law book of Cyril Amarchand Mangalda,s and Odisha Film Policy by Dr. Nitin Bhanudas Jawale, Managing Director Odisha Film Development Corporation.

    Apart from the 2nd edition of content market, an initiative to bring together content creators and content buyers from across the globe, another new initiative call 'Frame Your Idea' has been set up this year to help promote script writers in the industry. While the fraternity has been talking about the importance of stories and scripts writers within the industry, FICCI FRAMES will provide a platform as an opportunity for writers to pitch their content to various renowned production houses like Aamir Khan Productions, Balaji Telefilms, Dharma Productions, Disney Studios, Eros Now, RSVP, Kabir Khan Films, SPE Films India Pvt Ltd., Viacom18 Motion Pictures and Fox Star Studios to name a few.

    The pitching sections will be divided into Films, Television, Web shows and short films to make it smoother for the writers to book appointments and to pitch their stories to interested production houses for fruitful associations.