Category: Specials

MUMBAI: As the global economy eases, the recruitment and retention of good employees will become a primary concern for the media and entertainment sector.

Employees with flexible or multiple skills (within different sectors of media) as well as in-depth knowledge of each sector will have a cutting edge. The rise of new media will also lead to niche and entrepreneurial skills.

The scope of convergence of two or more media into one entity is gradually increasing. The changing complexion is evident from the growth of podcasts to IPTV, Wi-Max and newspapers with online editions. When the line separating the boundaries of each media becomes invisible, media organisations and their existing organisational structure are likely to undergo a massive change, depending on the need of the hour.

The quality of talent especially at the entry levels requires much focus. What industry players can come together to do is to help hone young talent by aligning with major media schools and providing specialised courses sensitive to the actual needs of the industry.

Furthermore, it is likely to help develop a better talent pool from which new candidates can be recruited, thus reducing the need for hiring people from other industries, particularly for managerial, sales and administrative positions. Media players could well afford to learn to
identify staff with a high potential and retain them.

Managing emotionally-charged talent and keeping them engaged with the overall organisation priorites requires that the talent management initiatives are customised to individual employees, a KPMG report said.

In an industry where the talent pool remains relatively small, hiring from other industries is also being followed by many media players. Whether it is such talent coming from other industries or new hires from media schools or lateral hires from competitors organisations, the companies who have met with success in customising talent and retaining them over a period of time have focused strongly on ensuring detailed and customised induction programmes for new hires.

Active participation in supporting different media schools and hiring from them is increasingly growing. The practice is starting to pick up but more media houses can afford to participate in it and make this a stronger custom by which the right talent for the right job gets effectively recruited.

Many of the top media players do have some kind of an HR Information System in place although the extent to which their HR practices are followed online or are standardised is still disparate. Appraisals usually do not take place online.

The development of HR policies and practices leaves much to be desired and it is likely to take sometime before the industry can have a fully automated system in place for all their HR functions and processes. There is a clear consensus among media organisations on following a well-structured HR policy framework and more importantly sharing that transparently with employees.

The talent management needs for the creative and sales teams have proven to be very different with both working with completely different career anchors and motivations. The nature of their work being opposite ends of the spectrum, many of the HR departments try to maintain a fine line between the creative vs. the sales teams. Showing too much inclination towards any one team could result in difficult situations. This is especially true while dealing with a dynamic and spontaneous industry like media, where creativity stems from thinking “out-of-the-box”. The HR heads of media organisations are increasingly developing talent management and retention programmes customised to the varied orientations of different employee groups.

The other issue regarding compensation in the M&E industry is the compensation benchmarking issues. Barring a few specific sectors like broadcasting, the M&E industry has still not adopted formal benchmarking of compensation and benefits which is a standard practice across other industries. By and large, there is a general tendency to be hesitant about sharing information, especially regarding compensation, so the salary structure setting comes from a general understanding of the industry and the informal ways of sharing information, the KPMG report said.
 

MUMBAI: The Indian gaming and animation industry has a long road to cover before it matures.

Creating a sustainable IP in India is not easy due to a lack of understanding and value for Intellectual Property rights. Manpower for mobile gaming technology is another issue that needs to be sorted out, said Synqya Games CEO Abhijit Jayapal.

India had traditionally been an outsourcing country, but this was now changing. The need was to find stories palatable to the rest of the world just as Disney and Pixar were doing, Krayon Pictures co-founder and CEO Nishith Takia said

Benjamin Grubbs, Regional Director of Turner Interactive Entertainment Network (Asia Pacific), said growth opportunities were growing in south Asia for gaming and animation, but the need was to come up with good stories.

A positive development has been the joining of hands by broadcasters and producers for making animation films.

According to Graphiti Multimedia COO Munjal Shroff, the time has arrived for animation filmmakers to move away from tales from mythology if they are to sell abroad.

Answering a question later, he said parental control and involvement of child psychologists was important as far as violent animation films were concerned.

Ranj Serious Games (the Netherlands) Managing Partner Michael Bas said games could be used for teaching, as it had been proved by some award-winning games introduced by his company. But new ways had to be found for distribution.

Children’s Film Society, India, CEO Sushovan Banerjee said it was unfortunate that for far too long, children had been seeing software not meant for them. The CFSI had, therefore, taken some children’s films to rural areas where these had been liked very much.
 

MUMBAI: The last ten years may be remembered as the glorious years for the Indian broadcasting industry, but concerns like creaking infrastructure, pressure on profitability, flawed measurement system, and the low level of innovation remain.

Star India CEO Uday Shankar said while speaking at the Ficci Frames that he believes the broadcasting industry will touch $10 billion in advertising while subscription revenue will be $5 billion by 2020, depending on how fast the industry cleans up.

Shankar started his keynote by citing a statement by the Supreme Court in 1995 on airwaves being public property. “Most people obtain the bulk of information on matters of contemporary interest from the broadcasting medium. Television is unique in a way in which it intrudes in our home… TV is shaping food habits, cultural values, social norms and the society in many ways,” the Court had said.

Shankar added that there are some positive factors that will lead to the growth of the industry, including the hunger for content, C&S penetration and DTH.

He said the viewing of Hindi general entertainment channels had increased 25 per cent in the last two years with the launch of four new channels and the average time spent had increased from two hours in 2007 to two hours forty five minutes in 2009. Though the figures are promising, these are still below the global average of 3.7 hours per day and US average of 5.1 hour per day.

“Approximately 50 million viewers from the D and E towns have been added in 2009. We have to know these consumers and cater to their needs,” Shankar said.

Shankar said gender myths are coming apart and more men are watching Hindi GEC, while more women are watching sports and convergence. 

On the DTH front, the industry has seen tremendous growth with 17 million subscribers being added in the last three years. The competition will push the cable to digitize faster and broadcasters will have non-linear and targeted delivery platform.

Summing up what the industry must do in the next 10 years, Shankar said investments should be made in innovation and differentiation across the value chain; scale should be build but not at the cost of loss-making monsters; direct connect should be created with the consumers and value unlocked in distribution; and industry should work together with the government to build a robust media environment.

MUMBAI: Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni today announced that a National Heritage Mission was proposed to be set up with a budget of Rs 6.60 billion which will plan the celebration of one hundred years of Indian cinema in a major way.

Addressing the valedictory session of the three-day Ficci Frames and answering questions later, Soni also announced that a sum of Rs 520 million had been set aside by the Planning Commission for the National Centre for Animation, Gaming and Visual Effects.

Soni also announced that every effort was being made to complete the Museum of the Moving Image being constructed in Mumbai by 2013 and steps had already been taken to approve the architectural plan.

Regarding Phase III for FM radio expansion, Soni said that the draft guidelines drawn up by her Ministry had already been placed before the Union Cabinet which was expected to been taken up shortly.

Even as she promised to come down on pirates of software with a heavy hand, Soni said no one could be permitted to ‘hijack the law of the land’ and prevent the screening of any film.

Ficci Entertainment Committee Chairman Yash Chopra, tennis star turned Hollywood filmmaker Ashok Amritraj, actor Vidya Balan, Dutch Consul General Marijke van Drunen Little, and Ficci Secretary General Amit Mitra were present on the occasion.

She agreed that it was unethical to charge VAT on the input and Service Duty on the output, and therefore had stated as much to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. However, she promised to accompany a delegation of the film industry to meet him on the subject and expressed the hope that he will accept the demand.

In a clear reference to the attempts to stop the screening of Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘My Name is Khan’, the Minister said ‘self-styled moralists do not get legitimacy’ merely by using illegal means to put pressure on others. She said that the visit of Rahul Gandhi to Mumbai and taking a local train was meant to give a symbolic message in the same tone.

Soni said law and order was a state subject and therefore checking such forces or stopping pirates was a matter that could be looked into by the state governments. This includes preventing the pirates from getting hold of DVDs easily.

She said the Government was also moving towards amending the Cinematograph Act 1952 and the Copyright Act to help check piracy and bring laws in tune with changing technologies.

She claimed entertainment tax had been reduced in most states and it was not more than 40 per cent in any state.

She admitted that pirates took away the rightful earnings of filmmakers and she was committed to stopping that. A task force set up within the Ministry had been asked to give its report within six months, and a Group of State Information Ministers headed by the Andhra Pradesh Information Minister Dr Geetha Reddy had also been set up for this purpose.

She said that the entertainment sector had continued to grow even at the time of the recession and had, in fact, contributed to the growth rate of the economy.

At the same time, she said the Government was keen to expedite digitisation in the country to curb piracy, and the approval of Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) policy was a step in that direction.

She said though Indian cinema had taken huge strides, it was still to make a major impact on the world stage. She said technological innovations and creativity needed to move together towards this.

She applauded Indian filmmakers for continuing to deliver social messaging through their films, and many like Vidya Balan also taking time off to do social work such as working for HIV Positive patients.

Earlier, Chopra in his welcome address raised the issue of service tax, piracy, and amendments to the Copyright Act.

Little said the Netherlands had set up Media and Entertainment India to collaborate with Indian entrepreneurs, since the Indian film industry was the largest growing in the world. She said the growth of creativity was unstoppable and there was immense potential for collaboration between the two countries. Fifteen Dutch companies had come together to form ME India, she said.

Amritraj called for giving the script writers – ‘the unsung heroes’ – their due if the film industry had to thrive, tackle piracy strictly, and put in more money to promote films overseas.

MUMBAI: Traditional media owners need to form a partnership with user generated content (UGC) sites to serve their consumers.

This was a point that came out at a session at Ficci Frames that looked at User generated Content: Seizing the Opportunity.
 
The speakers were Viacom 18 senior VP corporate strategy and business Anuj Poddar, NDTV Networks and NDTV Convergence CEO Vikram Chandra, Anand and Anand head of copyright and entertainment law Jagdish Sagar and Intel Software and Solutions Group director Asia Pacific Narendra Bhandari.

Balika Vadu, for instance, is one of the top viewed videos on Youtube in India, demonstrating how traditional media can pull new media.

Copyright, however, remains a challenge and there is a lack of value flowing back to content owners. Solutions, though, are evolving. UGC has set across norms, including the filtering of content that has a copyright. 
 
There is no distinction being made between user created and user generated content, notes Sagar. In the first case, the content creator surrenders all rights he has when he puts it up on a site. Many things can be done to that content like translation which the owner cannot control. In the second instance, somebody else uploads the content which the content owner may not be aware of.
The key to get out of this quagmire is to find a user friendly way to empower copyright owners. Sites like YouTube promote copyright infringement, Sagar notes. Getting an injunction is not a complete solution as it can only work for large content owners. One could look at a copyright society or having a licensing mechanism.

Dwelling on the opportunities and challenges of UGC for traditional media, Chandra said traditional media companies can get feedback and have user engagement which is what NDTV Social enjoys. There is also citizen journalism where news channels get tip offs and photos from disasters. But the challenge lies in finding a business model, Chandra adds.

NDTV has a channel on YouTube and there is revenue sharing for ads. However if NDTV content is uploaded outside this channel, then there is leakage that happens.

Bhandari noted that new media devices like the mobile would get smaller and smarter in the coming 24 months, allowing for HD level video to come from phones. UGC sites could benefit from an open source model technologically, he added.

MUMBAI: Ronnie Screwvala, the founder-promoter of UTV, believes in an integrated business model that is highly scalable. He also thinks addressing the youth will bring in big advertising monies as India is on the right side of the demographic shift.

The man who last year forecast that only one-third of the films produced would be released, spells out his 10 ‘game changing‘ commandments at the Ficci-Frames 2010 summit.

Mobile: 3G and 4G will be the game changers for the industry. The 80:20 revenue share arrangement between the telcos and the content providers, however, has to change.

Broadcasting: Screwvala said that keeping focus only on a single channel and not on a 360 degree approach would result in declining revenues. Such business model needs to be changed, he added.

Competition: Citing the example of movie business, Screwvala said that the industry needs to constantly analyse competition. The film industry will also have to counter the IPL window every year.

The dual approach of shortening the release window on DTH and PPV and home video can be some of the steps for tackling piracy, Screwvala said.
But he affirmed that there is huge potential for increasing revenues from movies as seven out of 10 viewers watch them on small screens.

Cable: There is lack of adequate investments into the cable industry and the last mile operator has been a problem since the last 20 years.

DTH technology has certainly changed the rules of the game as far as India has concerned. India will soon become the biggest DTH subscriber market in the world.

Youth: Mentioning the fact that youth constitutes the biggest section of the Indian population, Screwvala said that any offering has to be targeted towards this population.

Games: Gaming is still at a nascent stage and still not understood very well in India. Though it is a $40-45 billion industry worldwide, Asia, particularly Japan and Korea, have shown tremendous growth. He believe that with more serious efforts, gaming will be an important game changer.
 

Consolidation: A more liberal FDI policy would attract investments into the sector.

Scale: With only 3-4 big players, the size of the industry cannot increase. So scaling up will be a challenge as well as a game changer for the overall industry.

Subservient approach: Players need to change the submissive approach and work aggressively towards achieving their goals.

Consumer DNA: Indian viewers still don’t have the DNA to pay for the channels. This has come from 20 years of heritage. For the betterment of the industry, this has to change.

MUMBAI: The data revenues for mobile operators are bound to grow in the years to come with media consumption devices that are technologically consumer-friendly. However, operators have to find a way to monetize this.

This was one of the points that came out during a session at Ficci Frames. The speakers were Nokia India marketing director Vineet Taneja, Intel Global content and policy manager Gary Mittelstaedt, Turner International India director – wireless and interactive content development and distribution, (South Asia) Troy Lobo, Dolby Laboratories marketing director (Mobile) Rolf Schmitz, Tata Teleservices’ Pankaj Sethi, and Comviva VP (mobile content solutions) Milind Pathak.
 
Sethi said his company had just launched netbooks with high speed net access. “We are seeing more net led content being consumed and not just operator generated content”.

Lobo claimed that 10 per cent of Turner India’s revenues come from digital devices. This covers net, mobile and retail. The company is planning to launch SMS based alerts for CNN later this year. It is also looking at a news application. “The challenge is to fix standards for different devices. We adopt a multiple system of content distribution.” A deal was recently struck with Tata Photon+ for Pogo and Cartoon Network. Nokia, Samsung and Sony are some of the mobile device manufacturers that Turner works with globally. 
 
Mittelstaedt said that at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, Intel had introduced the 32 nanometer product which offers more power to high end mobile devices. A point made at the session was that content for the mobile has to be contextual and relevant. It would be useful if there was a system through which someone could buy a film song for the mobile after seeing a film rather than just having a memory card. Intel also set up the App Up so that application developers have access to a broad product category.
It was felt that content publishers often do not understand the intricacies of what goes into building an app in India. There is not much expertise at the moment in terms of how one can publish TV content as widget in India. Some investment has to go into app developers. The lack of quality content is a reason for low Vas revenues at the moment.

Pathak said the depth of mobile consumption has to grow, and a buyer should be able to get Vas like music for a year along with the device. One should build apps that are exclusive. The mobile market should also be segmented according to spending and SEC. Even phones with a 2 GB camera, Facebook connectivity etc. could be considered.
 

MUMBAI: Structural development and incentives for digitisation of cable are necessary if the Indian television industry is to mature according to international standards.

Channels also need to reduce their dependence on ad revenues as some of this may migrate to online space in coming years. Greater investment is also needed in content and non linear services.

These were some of the points made during a session on ‘Through The Looking Glass: Has Indian television matured?’ at Ficci Frames.
BBC Worldwide Channels MD Darren Childs, Turner Broadcasting System International President Louise Sams, UTV Global Broadcasting CEO M.K. Anand and Absolutely Independent CEO Patty Genesis spoke at the session moderated by Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO and editor in chief Anil Wanvari.
Childs said many channels had to pay carriage fees due to the analogue structure and so broadcasters were being forced to divert budgets meant for content.
 
In the US, the broadcaster gets around 40 per cent of the subscription revenue while in India it is only 15 per cent. Indian channels have to find a way to reduce their dependence on advertising. In the US, 20 per cent of ad budgets have been diverted towards new media. That could happen in India as well in a few years.

At the same time, TV channels have to develop brands that can travel to non-linear media as well as catch viewers who have migrated. Childs felt that the BBC could have made a bigger push in the previous decade when there was a boom in Indian television. Now it is trying to find the right place for its channels.

Genesis said TV formats have to think beyond the idiot box if they want to make money. Anand said it was easier for niche channels like Discovery and MTV to own non-linear content and build a brand that is bigger than what is being seen on television, and this will help them make better ad revenue as compared to mass channels. 
 
He reiterated what Childs said about ad leakage happening for traditional media. “The key lies in branding media experiences. This will allow channels to move from the TV to the net to the mobile. In the future, the distribution pipe owners will be the movers and shakers. Broadcasters could become a part of distribution companies.” He noted that Indian TV had not matured as very few channels were making money. However, they are more likely to morph than mature, he added.

Channels that are making money include Cartoon Network and Pogo, claimed Sams who said Turner’s largest investment last year was in India. At the same time, she felt foreign media companies needed to have patience, persistence and flexibility to succeed abroad. She was bullish on Imagine TV, recently acquired from NDTV. As far as the Indian TV industry was concerned, she said there was need to keep an eye on technological developments in the West. While online video platforms are growing, there is a question mark over how they can generate revenue. She said this was because the youth were used to getting free content online in India unlike in the US.
 

MUMBAI: Makers of animation, visual effects, gaming and comics (AVGC) today regretted that the central or state governments had done very little to help the industry which could prove to be a major foreign exchange earner for the country.

Speaking at a session on ‘Government Intervention and initiatives for AVGC industry,’ the makers said that the government could give a start by giving greater importance to art and animation in the education system and giving a tax holiday to this industry for at least ten years.

Apart from three persons involved in the making of AVGC, the participants included West Bengal Information Minister Debesh Das who said his government was working to produce a talent pool and resource. For this purpose, the government was planning training centres.

Emphasizing that the Government’s aim was to facilitate and not make money, Dr Das said there were also plans to put AVGC industries in the Special Economic Zones. However, he indicated that few entrepreneurs had come forward to set up industries in this field.

Balkrishna Maddur, who is President of the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI), said the state government had responded very positively to suggestions made by ABAI to developing the industry in Karnataka. The state government had even offered land for an AVGC Park, and help to establish a finishing school for graduates in AVGC. In addition, a proposal for setting up post-production facilities in Karnataka had also been accepted.

To get greater inputs, he said a summit of creators of AVGC had been organised on 23 April which will also see the participation of the state government. A demand will be made to put AVGC in SEC and give incubation facility for a PPP model.

Shambhoo Phalke who had earlier worked on a project under which an animation film ‘Legend of Buddha’ was made for Singapore said that it was the Indian government that was sensitive to people, sensitive to culture, and also sensitive to business but had still not taken any tangible step to help the AVGC industry.

Relating his experience about working with Singapore, he said the government of that nation had set up training institutions soon after the completion of the project which had cost $ 6 million in 1995.

He said seven animation television channels were being beamed into India but none of them had local content despite the fact that Indian mythology and culture was full of good stories. He therefore emphasized that content production had to be increased.

Big Animation CEO Ashish Kulkarni said the mindset of the government has to change towards AVGC and stressed the need for more recognised training institutions and a tax holiday for this industry which was still at a nascent stage.
 

MUMBAI: The biggest 40 hits in cinema all over the world of all time have been those with special visual effects or animation and, therefore, this is an industry that has a very bright future.

This was the general consensus during a panel on ‘Visual Effects: A Global Perspective’ at the ongoing FIicci Frames 2010, where participants who were mostly from the United States said they were open to collaboration with Indian entrepreneurs since this country had a vast trained resource. 

Tim McGovern who is Co-chairman of the Visual Effects Society in the US listed some of the top hits of all time including ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ and said all these were visual effects-driven.

But he admitted that VFX was no use without a good story or good actors, which was why the films by James Cameroon had succeeded.

Noting that VFX techniques had proved that nothing was impossible in this field, he also said some of the films that had succeeded in 2009 had used a mix of technologies including animation and VFX.

Speaking about the Society, he said it was an educational forum with chapters in many countries. He said any country which could put up 50 or more members could open a chapter.

He said the VFX industry was growing and needed a lot of trained people, and so Hollywood was coming to India in search of talent.

Bruno Sargeant who is Film and TV Industry Manager (Media and Entertainment) in Autodesk Inc. said there was a huge market for VFX in India and the country was no longer just an outsourcing model. He said there had been a lot of consolidation in this industry and Indians were investing in US companies and vice versa. He also spoke of increasing convergence of games, films and TV.

Kerner CEO Eric Edmeades said the US was open to working with Indian partners in the field of VFX and animation.

EyeQube Creative Director and CEO Charles Darby who moderated the discussion agreed and said there was a huge market in this field.