The Ficci‘s International Conference on The Business of Entertainment ended today with a concluding speech by Tapan Sikdar, the Minister of Communications.
Earlier in the day, discussions were held on the content aspect of the entertainment industry. The session was headed by the noted film maker Shyam Benegal. The next session covered the film production and marketing, and the international status and presence of Indian films abroad. The internationally acclaimed director and the maker of the Oscar winning film "Elizabeth" spoke about issues involved about Indian films in the international market. Before this Harish Thawani, chief of Nimbus Communications projected his views about the television and film sector. He displayed his views about importance of synergy between the television and the film industry. The session enlightened the audience about the need of marketing of Indian films and globalising the industry.

The post lunch session was about the music industry in India. It covered issues from piracy, internet, IPR, radio and the general scenario of music industry in India. The concluding session was about convergence and the regulatory framework to enable it in India. The session was headed by the Nasscom chief Dewang Mehta and the panel of speakers included Sony Entertainment Television chief Kunal Dasgupta, MTV India chief Alex Kuruvilla, MD Modi Entertainment Network MD Ajay Nijawhan and UTV head Ronnie Screwvala. The session demanded a clear and comprehensive regulatory policy for the success of convergence in India which is a entertainment software heaven.

The effort by the Ficci was quite admirable as it enlightened quite a few and brought the whole entertainment industry together.

"No specific time line has been set to get a broadcasting bill in place. But we are trying our best to get it out at the earliest." Thus spoke Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley at the ‘International Conference on the Business of Entertainment: India - Opportunities in the 21st Century‘ on 30 March in Mumbai.
He was making the inaugural address at the two day seminar. He added that the Broadcasting Draft has been sent to the law ministry. "It will come back to us soon. But I cannot say when it will be sent to Parliament."

"We are trying to link legislation for entertainment with telecom. The Bill would take into consideration issues of convergence, and consultations are on with the Telecom Ministry for this", Jaitley said. "A broad framework for convergence is to be laid down which will help legislate the entetainment industry."

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has compiled a report "The Indian Entertainment Industry: Strategy & Vision" with the assistence of Arthur Anderson. It was officially released at the "International Conference on the Business of Entertainment: India-Opportunities in the 21st Century" held in Mumbai on 30 March, 2000. The report presents very optimistic figures pertaining to the entertainment industry and makes some recommendations to the government to facilitate the growth of the industry. It expects the turnover of the entertainment industry to touch Rs 600 billion. The report says that the future of television broadcasting belongs to the satellite channels. The market of regional channels is huge with more and more players like Zee and Broadcast Worldwide making a foray into the regional channel market. Even the niche channels like Nickelodeon, Maharishi, Cartoon network, Fashion TV, ESPN, Discovery, Channel V etc have a tremendous potential and their huge success indicates the fragmentation of audience. Regarding the Direct-To-Home (DTH) mode of distribution of television channels, the report says that it too has a tremendous potential and if the segment is opened up, there would be 1 million DTH homes in India by 2002.

FICCI recommends that the government should lift the ban on the use of KU Band reception equipments as it will be incongruent in a scenario of freely viewable television channels over the Internet. It also suggests that the government should privatise the terrestrial network along with introduction of DTH which will enable the smaller cities to receive satellite channels as the cable operators ignore that segment. Another important point highlighted is the ammendment in the conditions for the presumptive rate of taxation of foreign companies which stands at the rate of 10% of deemed profits. A legislation clarifying the taxation of foreign telecasting companies is demanded.

Development of about two to three earth stations in India within the next six to seven years would generate revenues between $12 million to $23 million as Indian as well as foreign channels would consider uplinking from India. The Government can generate revenues between $12 million to $23 million by leasing a part of its terrestrial network. The level of employment can double from the existing 2,50,000 people in the next three to five years. The growth in the broadcasting industry will simulate a similar trend in industries such as the television software industry, film industry, the music industry and even the equipment and hardware manufacturing industry which directly depend on the broadcasting sector.

In the cable television sector, FICCI has requested the government to rectify the hinderences in the growth of the cable television market due to restrictions on foreign equity participation and the short-sightedness of the Cable Television (Networks) Act, 1995 and the archaic Indian Telegraphs Act, 1885. The growth of the cable television industry would help the government in generating more revenues in the form of taxes. The penetration of Internet to the common man can also increase with the growth of the cable television industry. Employment in this sector stands at 2,50,000 people. Additional 4,00,000 peaple can be employed in the next three to five years.

On the television software side, FICCI has requested the government to nominate a representative who would be an active member and assist in industry issues like hardware insurance, copyright protection, etc. The government should also facilitate the growth of training institutions focussing on software development that would help the students learn modern techniques on up-to-date equipment and be aware of the dynamic trends in the entertainment industry. The television software and entertainment companies should also benefit similarly from the 10% listing criterion currently enjoyed by infotech companies as it would help in giving adequate ESOPs. Another benefit of utilising 100% proceedings of funds raised through ADR/GDR issues to acquire overseas companies is enjoyed only by IT industries and this benefit should also be made available to other companies.

Owing to the increase in revenues in this segment to $2,093 million by 2005, the government‘s tax collections will rise to $318 million. If proper and adequate incentives are provided by the government, the export earnings from this segment will rise to $233 million within the next two years, from the current $81 million. The industry expects this figure to touch $1.356 billion by the year 2005. Direct and indirect employment will rise from the current level of 1 million to 2 million by the year 2005.

Yahoo! Inc is all set to set its foot in India. The portal had earlier announced its plans for creating a India-centric portal. It will commence its operations in India within three months. The Santa Clara based company is setting up offices in Bangalore and Mumbai.

Yahoo!‘s Indian model will be on the lines of Rediff.com and Indiainfo.com. The company has advertised in local newspapers to recruit technical and management professionals for its India operations.

Portals like Indiainfo.com, Rediff.com and Satyamonline.com will have to roll up their sleeves as the biggest international player is entering the Indian web space. In a recent report, Yahoo.com was the portal with the largest recall value. With all the resources, goodwill, popularity and the experience, Yahoo! is all set rule the portal market in India.

ESPN-Star Sports has denied that it has any immediate plans to launch sports bars and theme restaurants in India. An ESPN-Star TV spokesperson said that the company was examining ways to move forward in the Indian market."We have sports bars in other parts of the world," he said. "But we have no plans of replicating the same model immediately he said. Everything is in the scouting for opportunities phase."

A local newspaper has reported that ESPN would be launching sports bars and theme restaurants.

Is Disney getting into the Indian market? We have been hearing reports that the company is in conversation with Star TV to distribute the channel in India. Star TV is believed to be open to even holding back the launch of FoxKids in the Indian market for Disney‘s sake.
Apparently, Sony has also thrown its lot into the fray though senior officials within Sony deny it. Sony is looking to create a bouquet which will rival the offerings of Star TV and Zee TV and is hence hungry to strike a deal. But what could queer the pitch for Sony is the partnership between ESPN - owned by Disney - and Star for their sports channels in India, ESPN and Star Sports. On that record, Star TV looks set to get the mandate to distribute the channel in India.

Disney has been known to blow hot and cold on India. In the mid-1990s it was all ready to storm Indian TV screens but decided against it as it felt that pay television revenues were not worth the effort and that the market had not matured enough for tiered television. Then a year ago it announced that it would not like to miss out on the Indian market which was growing rapidly. And hence dialogue commenced once again. Disney has a cursory presence in India with branded programming blocks on DD, Zee TV, among others. Disney is looking hot once again. But who knows when it will rurn cold.