Blurred boundaries

Almost everybody within the film industry,particularly Bollywood,concurs that these are interesting times for...

Almost everybody within the film industry,particularly Bollywood,concurs that these are interesting times for filmmakers. This,despite the fact that both PwC and FICCI reports establish that even with a regular flow of films,the sector has shown a negative growth. The silver lining,as the PwC report points out,is that the industry looks set to grow at a CAGR of 9.3 per cent over the next couple of years till 2015.

The figures in the PwC report bear careful pondering. For starters,why is it that at a time when the industry is experimenting with different kinds of cinema,lack of quality content emerges as the foremost problem?

Among other observations,the two that I found particularly pertinent were that Endhiran Robot turned out to be the biggest hit across India,surpassing the collections of 3 Idiots and that India,second only to US in terms of the number of admissions in movie theatres,is at the bottom of the ladder with a US 0.69 as its average ticket price.

The arrival of multiplexes with ticket prices as high as Rs 450-500 was supposed to address that but it obviously does not,even though plexes contribute more than 60 per cent of the ticket revenues. The prohibitive pricing keeps a chunk of the audience away this segment is now loosely classified as the single-screen audience and to write off their importance simply because they cant afford multiplex tickets would be foolish. And herein come films like Endhiran,which despite its strong local flavour emerged the biggest,all-India hit of the year.

A relevant corollary would be the fact that South India has about 59 per cent of the total single-screen theatres in India! Considering the robust film industry in the South,it is a territory that can be infiltrated only if Hindi films,like Hollywood movies,are dubbed in the local languages. Considering A Wednesday! and 3 Idiots have been among Hindi films lapped up for a Southern makeover,there is cause for cheer. Action movies could easily qualify. Among the present lot,Shah Rukh Khans ambitious Ra.One if it gets the complex compound of action,drama,humour and romance right could find pan-India favour,or perhaps even Don 2 or Dhoom 3! Alternately Rajinis Rana could beat them to it.

However,the most insightful bit in the entertainment jigsaw came from Marcel Fenez,Global Leader,Entertainment and Media Practices,PwC about charting new territories. There are territories outside of the conventional US,UK and Europe that could be tapped into. New growth drivers,it would appear,are countries outside of even the BRIC Brazil,Russia,India and China bloc. These untapped territories include Indonesia,Pakistan,Turkey and Vietnam. Bollywood stars already have a huge following in Pakistan and almost everyone in both hemispheres has heard of Bollywood films even if they havent watched them. Considering our cultural similarities with these countries,capturing eyeballs should not be too difficult a task if legitimate distribution networks are established for appropriate content. These are interesting times indeed if only we choose to ride the tide.