'Creativity, tech & regulation the keys'

At FICCI FRAMES media executives say creativity, technology and regulation will drive the growth

The three pillars of creativity, technology and regulation will drive the growth of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry to reach to a billion viewers. This was the consensus derived here during the flagship panel of FICCI Frames, moderated by Uday Shankar, CEO, STAR India.

The panelists included Ravi Dhariwal, CEO publishing Bennett & Coleman Co Ltd, Punit Goenka, MD, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Siddharth Roy Kapur, MD - Disney UTV – Studios, Sudhanshu Vats, CEO Viacom18, Rahul Johri Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific senior VP and GM India and Shailesh Rao head of global operations Twitter Inc.

The panel discussed that creating a balance among the three could lead to an effective mechanism for capitalizing on the one billion population plus of the country.

The panel also discussed the emergence of new media as a means of providing a thrust to the M&E industry in terms of reach and effectiveness. Everyone was, however, in accordance that reaching a billion consumers is a double edged sword that presents a challenge as well as an opportunity.

Dhariwal said that at BCCL, the trick is to recognize and capture small audiences and then retain and nurture so as to monetize them.

“We have a creative team that has the full freedom to experiment and come up with engaging ideas and a marketing team that understands the consumers and acts as the bridge between the creative team and the target audience. What is really crucial is the sync between the marketing team and the creative minds,” he added.

On the point that India is a vastly diverse country, Vats said that the key to sustaining in such a diverse environment is to sharply segment the audience and target it. “We are already doing so in many of our practices, but we need to do it more and more in the days to come,” he added.

Goenka, however said that the industry has only just begun to take baby steps in the creation of content for a diverse audience and has a long way to go. “Fragmentation of audience is the order of the day. It is time we stop seeing ourselves as broadcasters and instead consider ourselves content creators and aggregators,” he noted.

Kapoor, meanwhile, said that in case of movies, it is the creativity that has managed to increase the reach of the cinema. “The challenege as far as cinema is concerned is the infrastructure, or the lack of it. We are a country that has a very low screen density and this hampers the reach to a large extent,” he said.

In his opinion, the trick is to expand the footprint and grow as an industry. He suggested three ways to do so – ensure content syndication on theatrical and non theatrical platforms, use the smaller screen to get content distributed and explore new markets to encourage people to watch movies legitimately.

According to Johri, localisation is of the essence that will drive the industry to grow exponentially and involve a billion consumers through multiple interfaces.  He said that works in connecting to a lot of untapped viewers.

On technology front, Rao added, “It is important to match the creativity of the medium with the audience. TV and print have been PUSH mediums and new media gives the opportunity to talk to the audience that that can go a long way in reaching out to more people.”

 The panel agreed that regulation in various media needs to be looked at as more often than not, it has been found to discourage the growth of the medium.