Ficci appoints KPMG for second time to prepare report on media

Consultancy firm KPMG will once again prepare the 2009 report on the media and entertainment sector for industry chamber Ficci, the second time since 2003. This comes after the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) terminated its relations with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the wake of Satyam Computers’ accounting fraud after PwC’s audit arm came under fire, sources said.

KPMG has now got just about 30 days to prepare this report, that took PwC alomost eight months every year to prepare, said an industry source. The forthcoming Ficci-KPMG report is likely to focus on the performance of media and entertainment sectors, specially amid the global economic slowdown.

Ficci has so far come out with eight such reports, of which PwC prepared it for a maximum of four times (2005-2008). In 2001, Anderson did the report for Ficci, while Ernst & Young partnered Ficci in 2002 and 2004.

The Ficci report on media and entertainment gives immense mileage to the consultancy firms that do it, industry experts say.

Besides co-branding, the report with projections for various media and new-media platforms is almost accepted as an official report by the government. It is even quoted by the information and broadcasting ministry while preparing any note on the media sector in the country.

“Of course, in the international markets, these reports are available at a significant price tags. Some of such reports carry a price tag of between $550 and $900,” an industry source said.

Currently, at least 10-12 such reports on media and entertaiment are released throughout the year, but the Ficci report gets the maximum significance among all.

Sources say PwC was giving the final touches to its fifth report that would have been released on February 17 in Mumbai during Ficci-FRAMES, the annual convention on media and entertainment industry that is attended by domestic and international delegations.

“We had informed our decision to part ways with PwC at the highest levels some time ago. For 2009, KPMG will prepare the report for us. We choose them because they presented some innovative ideas to us,” Ficci Secretary General Amit Mitra told Business Standard.

On its part, a spokesperson of PwC said: “We will not be partnering Ficci-FRAMES this year.”

On the short notice period given to KPMG for preparing this report, Mitra said: “Be it KPMG or any other consultancy, most have clients in the domain of media and entertainment sectors so they are always ready with their preperations. I am confident that only a minor tweaking to its numbers is required by KPMG for which one-month is sufficient.”