For the fourteenth consecutive year the Federation of Indian Chambers and Commerce and Industry (FICCI) hosted FRAMES 2013, a convention on the business of media and entertainment in Mumbai. It was the same venue, same people, same entertainment industry report release by KPMG, the only difference being that this time around the crowd was much less and in the last two years the presence of film and media students attending the convention has become prominent.
For the last couple of years for all those (including me) who have been religiously attending this convention the feeling was the same this year. For me it honestly this convention is like a home coming. I don’t if I don’t attend it for year I think I will start getting palpitations or some kind of a withdrawal symptoms I think ..i am not sure. As usual there were complaints all fronts from food, to bad tea and coffee to bad sessions blah blah… Certain section of Media was also unhappy with the organizers because they did not get the backpack that was given out to journalists. No idea why they did not get that backpack but as I understand one journalist actually wrote a petition against the guys who were handling the media desk and you will be surprised that he had lots of journalists (probably all those who did not get the backpack even signing the petition). This journalist apparently also called the sponsors of the bag to complaint to them that some of the media guys have been discriminated and not given the backpack. But Sadly, all his efforts I believe went futile and nothing came out of it.
Over all the conversations were no different that this convention was not going anywhere. It is not moving head and can we do something about it please. Surprisingly, compared to last year the global and Pan-Asian presence was also seemed minimal this year. This year there was the Korean delegation
The theme of the conference this year was ‘Engaging a Billion Consumers’ and to begin with the FICCI-KPMG report on the entertainment industry titled- ‘The Power of a billion: Realising the Indian Dream’ is always optimistic of its growth rates and there is no doubt that the M&E industry is on a growth trajectory. The report forecasts that the industry is expected to grow as a CAGR of 15.2 per cent to reach Rs 1,66,100 crore (INR 1661 billion) by 2017 and the largest contributor to this growth will be the television segment followed closely by the film segment.
The future of the Indian entertainment industry is extremely bright. These numbers overkill by the FICCI reports every year and which is considered the bible by all and mores so the media (Journalists) has not changed in anyway in the last couple of years. It’s as bulky as always.
The FICCI Frames convention happens to be a good networking ground and definitely there are no take away from most of the sessions. As usual the Bollywood sessions were most attended by people and some serious sessions like Public Broadcasting for Kids’ and The Power of Data had skeletal presence.
The amazing aspect was that the Public Broadcasting for Kids’ session was interesting with the eminent panelists like filmmaker Amol Gupte, Monica Tata of Turner International, Ram Mohan-The Father of Animation discuss the urgent need for a kids’ Public broadcasting channel in India but unfortunately their viewpoints went unheard both by the media as well as by the government officials. There was no official from Prasar Bharti present on the panel or in the crowd for this session. There were precisely 37 people in the Lotus room for this session.
The third and final day of the convention was no different. To entice the crowd to stay back till the end there is one celebrity who is also always invited for a short interview. This time around it was Karan Johar in conversation with Kajol. The valedictory session was delivered by Ronnie Screwvala, a media industry stalwart and the man at the helm of the activity as the MD of Disney UTV. In his address he made some valid points such as the M&E industry growing at 12 per cent is not enough as it is considered among the sunrise industries but yet its growth is lower than most of the Sunrise Industries. He also believed that the industry as a whole needed need to fill in the gap between the phenomenal talent to grow content and match it with the commerce. Screwvala was happy that finally after waiting for almost 20 years digitization has been finally implemented and that’s fantastic news for the TV and Broadcasting industry. Although he still believes that it will take 2-3 years for revenue monetisation. He acknowledged that the gaming and radio have become viable businesses and the regional market has grown phenomenally. However, he had a few concerns such as lack of unanimity with the M&E sector and lack of innovation and cinema needs to make consumers come out of the house. Finally, he concluded by adding that a combination of data, bandwidth, and content is going to be more valuable than oil in the next decade.
Uday K Varma, the Secretary of I&B Ministry said that there are plans to give out 839 radio licenses. He suggested that ministry would be more than willing to come out with guidelines if so necessary for setting up a body to do ratings. With regards to the tax issue, he said he was willing to work with the film industry to develop a case for the industry when GST comes into play. Later in his address, he added that, “I hope to make India the digital hub of the world, not just in terms of teleports, but digital production. We the government and the industry need to align our efforts and thinking. “
The crowd at Frames 2013 seemed absolutely scarce and the enthusiasm was low key.
With the M&E sector on a growth trajectory path wonder when this convention will really start making sense to all stake holders and media attending this event.
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