FICCI Frames 2023: India can be one of the epicentres of the global media and entertainment industry

The first session of the 23rd edition of the FICCI Frames 2023 analysed the media and entertainment industry’s potential to grow. It also anticipated the industry’s future growth and gave out numbers to make it more concrete. 

 

The speakers in the inaugural session comprised Subhrakant Panda, president, FICCI and managing director, Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys; Jyoti Deshpande, chair, FICCI M&E Committee and CEO, Viacom18 Media and president, media and content business, Reliance Industries; actor Ayushmann Khurrana; Ashish Pherwani, leader – media and entertainment, EY and Shailesh K Pathak, secretary general, FICCI. 

 

The speakers stated that India is one of the countries that has managed to revive itself in the past two years, unlike most other markets that were hit during the pandemic. 

 

The speakers also unveiled the report and spoke a little each, about the findings from the report. FICCI Frames has collaborated with EY for the launch of this report. 

 

 

Subhrakant Panda, president, FICCI and managing director, Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys: 

 

"Digital media is emerging a clear winner, contributing to 130 plus billion rupees to the industry’s overall revenue. The striking part is that it has moved up from 16% in 2019 to 27% in 2022 and the trajectory is on an upwards. 

 

Digital online gaming and television is leading the charge in contributing to 65% of growth. Animation, VFX, live events and films make up the balance, resulting in a diverse range of factors and trends. The sector’s growth underscores the crucial growth in shaping the cultural landscape. 

 

India is uniquely positioned to be a global leader, with a rich cultural heritage and a vibrant storytelling capable of captivating global audiences. One of the reasons we’re moving towards the epicentre of the industry is because of favourable demographics, including in industries like media and entertainment. It’s not only driving consumption and consumption patterns, but if we impart the right skill sets, India can also be one of the epicentres of the global media and entertainment industry.

 

Advertising has reached the one trillion mark in 2022, in terms of revenue for the first time, and is contributing to 0.4% of the country’s GDP. 65% of the Indian population comprises millennials, who are not just changing media consumption patterns, but also driving the rush to online gaming - which is expected to be the fourth largest segment by 2025, with more than half a billion people actively engaged. 

 

Monetisation models are evolving and both premium and mass as well as regionals content is seeing a huge surge. 

 

There’s a need to be innovative and agile for all the industry participants to really respond to the changing trends and strategic foresight, with the ability to be in the right place as to where this industry is headed. 

 

Besides glamour, jobs are being created today, which is very important." 

 

Jyoti Deshpande, chair, FICCI M&E Committee and CEO, Viacom18 Media and president, media and content business, Reliance Industries: 

 

"In 2015, Jio started a digital revolution to connect everyone and everything, everywhere. This ducktails with Digital India, the flagship event of the government with a vision to transform India into a digitally powered economy and knowledge economy. 

 

With disruptions such as free IPL on JioCinema and an imminent equally disruptive entertainment launch, we have already seen content and data consumption levels reach monumental levels by global standards. Indians now consume nearly 20 GB of data per month on an average - number one in the world already and is expected to reach 46 GB by 2027. 

 

No one innovates like India and no one implements to scale like India. We are set to become a 2.83 trillion industry." 

 

Ayushman Khurranna: 

 

"The more local we go, the more global we reach. The film industry is at the cusp of global greatness and I’m fortunate to live in a time where the world is becoming a creative melting board of culture. India is being looked at as a creative juggernaut and our industry is well-tuned globally. I always aspire to contribute to the world of cinema through my craft, choices I make and the stories I tell." 

 

Ashish Pherwani, leader – media and entertainment, EY: 

 

"As an industry, we crossed the two trillion super size for the first time. In covid, we fell by 23% and we’ve revived ourselves in these two years. Many industries have still not managed to reach the pre-covid levels. 90000 crores of detailed data is consumed in India. 

 

Advertising crossed one lakh crores in the country, with 48% digital. This year, we’re at the tipping point. 50% of the industry is digital and we’re one of the seven to eight economies which have reached that level. Half the growth came from new-media and 40% came from sectors that were hurt real badly by covid. Cinemas, events, OOH. Traditional media also grew. All except television where advertising grew but distribution did not. Our growth ahead is mainly going to be driven by new media. 

 

TV: There are about 2 million cord cutters today which will probably grow to 10 million households by 2025. Free TV is growing too, from 45 million homes to 50 million homes by 2025. What will come down is pay TV, by a few million. However, we still will have 140 million TV-dark homes in the country. TV is just aching for a good PPP (pay-per-view) model to balance these homes in the country. Overall, television use will increase and won’t come down, but we will need a lot of regulatory support. 

 

OTT SVOD: OTT is in about 42 million households today, which will probably grow to 45 million in 2022. Hoping to see a lot of aggregation of products like Tata Binge coming in and at a better price point, we can see the sector grow to even 100 million homes in the next three years. 

 

Online gaming: 90-100 million Indians play games every single day and that’s expected to double in three years. One of our fastest growing segments will come from real money gaming, but even casual gaming will grow at 15%.

 

Animation and VFX: The entire M&E industry in India is 26 billion. At least 26% of it would be animation, VFX and production, if not higher. That’s still 35%. This is a huge opportunity for Make in India and create in India. 

 

The industry is 2.1 lakh crores to 2.8 lakh crores in three years. Advertising is growing strongly at 11% driven by an increasing per capita income. Our per capita income is going to be 3000 dollars by 2025 and that is the most important finding in this report." 

 

Apurva Chandra, secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt of India: 

 

"Manpower and infrastructure is extremely important for our industry to grow. Animation and VFX is growing by 20% every year. We are going to come with the AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic) policy to take the thing forward into skilling our children and make animation and visual effects courses available since school times. We came up with the self-regulatory system in 2021. However, today we only ask for intimation and not permission. We believe that the system is working well. However, self regulation should be exercised since there are always complaints about the quality and language of content that come in. Nevertheless, we would like this section to grow fast and not get bogged down by regulations. The government and industry need to collaborate."