The satellite promotion

In the late 60's and early 70's, there was a new wave sweeping Hollywood, eliminating the previous generation of musicals and studio pictu...

In the late 608217;s and early 708217;s, there was a new wave sweeping Hollywood, eliminating the previous generation of musicals and studio pictures. Films like Easy Rider, Mean Streets and Harold and Maude, among many others came out of this period. But they were themselves swept aside by the Hollywood blockbuster films like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars. A major part of the marketing success of these latter films was the heavy use of television advertising to promote a widespread national release.

In India, satellite television has had a similar impact on films. Now a major part of the promotional campaign depends on plugging songs on various music channels and countdown shows. The utility of these songs is that they perform the function of advertisements, but do it for free, or a fraction of the cost that ad airtime would normally cost. So today anyone even planning a film without songs is at a major disadvantage 8211; not only is there a lost opportunity in terms of the sales of musicrights, but a handicap in terms of promoting the film.

This means in effect the penetration of technology, and its corresponding effect on the market, is now determining the playing field, implicitly providing an advantage to a certain kind of film over another.

This is a natural trend, and in a sense is also healthy 8211; because once a pattern is established, an audience is looking for something new, and that gives a filmmaker an opportunity to make something new. But there are two factors in India that make this particular trend disturbing, if not dangerous.

The first is that unlike the West, so far films here are being produced by individuals, not by corporations. Most of the time, individuals are concentrating on producing one film at a time. It is rarely within the individual8217;s scope to take a risk on the only film he is working on. On the other hand, a corporation can develop a portfolio of several projects, each with a varying perceived risk factor associated with it. And secondly, a large share ofthe industry8217;s revenue comes from urban and NRI audiences.

These audiences also have access to Hollywood movies, so Hindi films become one of many choices that they have 8211; almost ghettoizing them, ie at the risk of gross exaggeration from Bollywood you need only your fix of songs and romance, because Sixth Sense will scare you and There8217;s Something About Mary will have you in splits. In this context, Hindi films have to not only compete with the technical standards of those films, but set themselves apart from other Hindi films using the same marketing tools.

Next month will see several big releases hit screens. Hindi films like Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and Pukaar are being eagerly awaited for one reason: the innovative music and song promotion that has gone into each of them.

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But there are several Hollywood films releasing next month as well. One look at them reveals a much wider range of film genre from the action appeal of Schwarzenegger8217;s End of Days, the animated ToyStory 2, thrillers like The Bone Collector, the acclaimed war film Three Kings and a number of romantic films as well. These films use everything from blood and gore, to technological wizardry, to conventional drama to appeal to an audience.

Hindi films, which have always had to generalize rather than localize their appeal, face the paradoxical danger that while striving for a promotional edge relying on music and TV, may start feeling generic to the more discerning audience which is of greater importance to producers today as a constituency than ever before.