Indian media and entertainment industry should target to reach $100 bn by 2030: MIB Secretary

The Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry is currently at $23 billion and should grow to $100 billion by 2030, said Apurva Chandra, secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) on Tuesday.

Talking at the inaugural session of the two-day media convention, FICCI Frames Fast Track 2022, Chandra said that the government is fully committed to support the sector.

“Currently, the sector is less than 1% of India’s GDP, and while India will be a $10 trillion economy in the next 10 years, we should target that the M&E sector should grow to more than $100 billion by 2030,” said Chandra. “The MIB will do whatever it takes to support the M&E sector and help it grow.”

On the proposed amendments to the Cinematograph Act, he said that all stakeholders supported proposed amendments for introduction of anti-piracy provisions and age classification with UA category. “With the support of the film industry, we hope to table the amended Bill in the winter session of the parliament.”

Stressing on the need of creating more jobs in the sector, he said that the government is working to set up a M&E skill council, which will help prepare a skilled workforce for the industry.

Talking to ET on the side-lines of the conclave, Chandra said that skill remains a major constraint in India. “There are a lot of people who are talented, but they require honing of their skills. It is important to give them proper skill training. The M&E Skills Council has a big role to play in this, since skilling is the most important part in creating more jobs.”

He also said that the government is keen on working with the states to formulate a Model Theatre Policy and facilitate creation of more film screens in the country.

“Over the past 5-6 years, the number of theatres has been on a decline. We need to reverse this trend. We will assign the Film Facilitation Office to work with Invest India to come up with a single-window portal for opening theatres, so that more and more theatres can come up and the public gets more avenues to watch the magic of films in theatres,” he said. “We will also work with the states to create a Model Theatre Policy, so that the states can adopt and work on the same.”

He said that so far, the film facilitation office was not looking at theatres, but as the number of screens has gone down from 12,000 to 8,000 over the last few years, it is important to help increase the number.

“Many large towns, with a population of five to six lakhs in India don't have proper theatres. There is a need… people want to go to theatres, they want to experience the magic of movies, but in the absence of it is not possible.”

He added that on the National Cinema Day, when ticket prices were reduced to Rs 75, all shows were full. “This shows that if price points are right, people can afford theatres. The craving to go to the theatres is there, so we need to work on how we can bring people back to theatres.”

Talking about Prasar Bharati’s planned content policy, he said that the public broadcaster is working on a transparent content acquisition policy, where they would like to partner with creators on a revenue sharing basis, where the creators will also take some responsibility for marketing and will have an interest in the performance of the content.

On BARC India and future of viewership measurement, he said that only some English news channels had issues with the ratings agency and none of the entertainment channels had any problems. However, now that BARC has reintroduced the ratings, which has become a one month rolling average instead of weekly trends, it has diminished the peaks and the troughs which were happening.

“Now it gives a trend and I think the trend is fairly stable and now over the past six months, a lot of people have accepted that the ratings are reasonably good. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but at the same time, we have been working on the return path data and interim report has been submitted by CEO of Prasar Bharati and I'm happy that some of the DTH operators are already in touch with BARC to work out commercially,” he said.

With RPD, the number of homes from which the data will be collected, will increase very substantially, Chandra said.

Talking about the National Centre of Excellence for the AVGC industry, he said it is going to be set up in collaboration with the private sector. “We are proposing a 48% stake for the MIB and 26% each for FICCI and CII, so that it is the private industry and not the government which leads the AVGC transformation. We hope that the Ministry of I&B functions as a catalyst for the upsurge in the media and entertainment industry.”