Engaging a Billion Consumers : FICCI Frames 2013 Day I

Ms. Preneet Kaur Minister of State for External Affairs, Ms. Naina Kidvai,President FICCI,Dr Soon Tai Park, Minister of Culture, Sports, Tourism, South Korea

Uday Shankar, Chairman FICCI Media and Entertainment, Andy Bird, Chairman, Disney,Didar Singh, Secretary General FICCI

Inaugural session in progress

Ms. Anne Sweeney President Disney ABC in conversation with Manjit Singh, CEO, Multi Screen Media 

Rahul Johri, Discovery,Shailesh Rao, Sidharth Roy Kapoor,Uday Shankar in discussion Engaging  A Billion Consumers in the media and entertainment industry

Suhasini Haider moderating SAARC Minister's Panel Discussion on Forging Enduring Ties 

Karan Johar moderating The Out of Towners in Bollywood discussion

FICCI Frames, the annual media and entertainment forum has acquired the status of Entertainment Media Kumbh in India. It has unveiled the theme - 'A Tryst with Destiny – Engaging a Billion Consumers' - for this year's edition of the event. .

Speaking about the growth of FICCI Frames as an annual event, Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India and chairman of FICCI media and entertainment committee while addressing the august gathering observed , “In its fourteenth year, FICCI Frames has become a platform for everybody around the world to come together and share views, raise issues, debate on growth prospects – all under one roof.”

Talking about the state of Indian media and entertainment sector, he said, "In the last 10-15 years, the media and entertainment industry of India has scripted a tremendous growth story. There is still a gap in our ability to monetise the engagement and use the resources generated to advance both access and content." "The media and entertainment industry has unfortunately, over the past many years, not been a focus point for the government. It fails to see this industry as a driver for economic change, for creating employment opportunities. This is something we will look to work towards starting this year."

Shankar observed that there was still a lot to achieve across domains of the industry - be it television, films, radio, or digital.  “Fifteen years ago, the business of Bollywood was a fraction of what it is today, in terms of size. Today we see a thousand films releasing in a year’s time, but I feel Bollywood as an industry still remains smaller and that there is still a long way to go. Television was a very small business. Radio was very nascent. The newspaper as an industry was small in size terms. There was nothing like new media,” he recalled.

On how the progress of radio has been over the past 15 years, he noted that the medium is more of a phenomenon in the big cities. “From a standpoint of content, radio as a medium has a lot more to offer. It’s still in its infancy as far as content is concerned – even in the big cities.” On TV’s reach, Shankar noted that there were about 125 million households that do not have a TV connection even today, which marks a great opportunity of expanding the medium’s reach in the country.Talking about the challenges, Shankar felt that for an industry with growth rate of 20 per cent, we need professionally trained people, we need world class education and training facilities in Media and entertainment.   

“If we deliver to our promises, this country will see a significant growth as far as media and entertainment is concerned. The opportunity is there in front of us to generate much larger scale of employment and a chance contribute to the country economy in a positive manner,” he observed.

Ramesh Sippy who has been associated with FICCI frames right from its inception was happy to see the way this forum helped the industry, government and other stake holders to sit together and to share the concern. He further added “The media and entertainment industry has the potential to become the catalyst for social change and a force of good for every niche of society. FICCI Frames has been the most eminent platform and its initiatives over the past decade have improved the quality of content generation, skill development and stature of the industry. We believe that our new agenda will be the change agent for social and commercial development, connecting a billion people.”

Didar Singh, Secretary General of FICCI while concluding the inaugural function, pointed out the need to initiate further talks with the Government of India on contribution of the industry in terms of bringing about an economic change. 

For key note address, this year FICCI invited Andy Bird, Chairman of Walt Disney International. In his deliberation, Andy focussed more on his company's foray into entertainment arena of India rather than giving the industry perspective. 

Mainsh Tewari, Minister for Information was supposed inaugurate the event but at the last minute change, Ms. Preneet Kaur Minister for State for External Affair joined the event. It was most appropriate as three SARC Ministers as well as Dr Soon Tac Park, Minister of Culture South Korea were a part of this years' event.  

To me the most important discussion were SARC Region Cooperation issue in Entertainment  where Dr Rambukwella Minister mass Media Srilanka, Shri Yadav Information Minister Nepal, Shri Rashidi Minister Information and Culture Afganistan were present. Biay Khemka, President Film Federation of India raised two serious issues in the discussion. One was that Srilankan Government charges Rs2Lac for each Tamil release in Srilanka, which is a heavy burden on Indian producers and exhibiters and urged him to do away with that fees. Another issue was Bangladesh does not allow release of Indian Bangla movies, if there is proper cooperation is allowed between Indian and Bangla film industry by Bangladesh Government, it may grow into a robust industry.

Another session on Challenges of Film Distribution and Exhibition was thought provoking.Rajesh Mishra, CEO of UFO Moviez said that people have started coming back to theaters, frequency of theatre going is also increased. . Senthil Kumar Founder and CEO of Real Image Media Technology shown the way of success, the future of film distribution is digital, with the help of new technology film can be shown in any number of theatre without actual movement of prints.Vikram Malhotra COO Viacom 18 said that in India there are only 9000 theaters while in China 500 theaters are added every year there is an urgent need of adding more theaters in India to cater growing population.

Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, Publishing Bennet Coleman,Punit Goenka MD ZEE,Sidharth Roy Kapoor, MD Studios Disney UTV, Sudhanshu Vats,CEO Viacom 18 Media, Shailesh Rao, Head Global Operations Twitter Inc and Uday Shankar, CEO Star were in a panel for discussion on 'Engaging A Billion Consumers in the Media and Entertainment Industry'. It was based on premise that the engagement is both a challenge and opportunity. The collective wisdom of stakeholders and policy makers can transform the challenges into opportunities. With the emergence of new technologies and media platforms, the consumernow has a range of choice before him which has taken the media and entertainment sector to a hitherto new territory. Stakeholders from the world of media and entertainment and policy makers share their perspective and vison on how to meet the new challenge. Now reaching consumer is much more easy 1.2 billion people who own Mobile are only SMS away. Shailesh Rao of Twitter said that tools like Twitter are the pulse of people.