At the annual Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) FRAMES conference, industry leaders discussed how to navigate the future of the media and entertainment industry. The Indian media and entertainment industry is witnessing significant changes, with shifting consumer preferences for high-quality content, new broadcasting technologies, pressures on advertising spend, and the advent of AI. Panelists – Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO, Prasar Bharati, Kevin Vaz, CEO – Broadcast Entertainment, Viacom18 Pvt. Ltd, Sandhya Devanathan, Vice President and Head, Meta India, Arjun Nohwar, Senior Vice President and General Manager – India and South Asia, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sushant Sreeram, Country Head, Amazon Prime Video and Shripad Ashtekar, Chairman and Managing Director, Signpost India along with moderator Ashish Pherwani, Partner, Ernst and Young (EY) shared their understandings, experiences and practices on how they’re planning their future in the M&E industry and ensuring that there respective brands get a large piece of the pie.
In 2023, premium content like sports and films were put in front of the paywall and fast products made a massive impact in bringing scale to digital viewership. Kevin Vaz said that sports had always been in front of the paywall prior to 2020, In the last three years, it went behind it and is now back in front of it. “Cricket is one of the biggest reach drivers in this country. It is the only piece of content that covers the length and breadth of this country. Advertisers value this in a big way as it is a form of instant reach. And they are willing to pay the price for such content. Thus, it makes sense to have such content in front of the paywall,” he said.
He added, “Sports has massive reach and its not ideal for us to try and limit that reach when people are so eager to watch it. In terms of fast product, whatever the medium, different forms of content will have different screening windows.”
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As per reports, people spend over 5 hours a day on their phones and most of it on one of Meta’s products. Thus, Meta has a fantastic reach in India. As per Devanathan, India is one of the biggest markets for Meta globally. The company has spent a lot of time building products for India and understanding what appeals to 100 million people and businesses. “There are three key priorities for us. One – AI, using AI to give better returns those who use our platforms as advertisers but also for users to have more engaging experiences on our platforms. That’s one of our biggest growth drivers. Second – video and reels becoming a dominant form of content consumption. Reels is our dominant growth driver in the video consumption space. Third – messaging, which has really taken off on our platforms.”
Davanathan added, “Our AI efforts started way back in the day when news feeds began to look different for each user on early days Facebook. How we use AI on our platforms to keep people safe, show more engaging content, is key. 25 percent of the content consumed on Instagram today is not recommended by friends and family but by AI algorithms. We now, also use AI to cover advertising returns. We’ve also launched large language models like Code Llama, Purple Llama for research, commercial use as well as safety regulations. We’ve also launched live Gen-AI tools for creators to use and experiment with to increase productivity.”
“Reels are our dominant form of consumption. Trends are being formed around reels and how people are sharing them. The recent pre-wedding too saw massive traffic on Instagram with people sharing reels,” she said.
She added, “Business messaging too has taken off. 60 percent Indians message a business on WhatsApp. If you’re thinking of reach to 100’s of million of people, think of short form video and messaging on how you want to communicate with and reach your audience.”
Consumers are heading to smartphone screens. Reports suggest that there are today 750 million screens. Nohwar said that 7 percent of the TV viewing audience is kids and factual content. It will continue to punch above its weight and try and move into the double digit mark. “Success for the kids and factual space is going to predicated on having a deep understanding of changing consumer preferences, understanding who your customer and being able to tailor and make IPs, content and story arcs that are relevant to them.”
He added, “While this is table stakes, success is also going to follow if you have a deep understanding of what is happening out in the ecosystem. There are today, 750 million screens, those are not all big screen. We focus on who is consuming us, what kid of content are they consuming and where do they prefer to consume it.”
“The new dynamic that we’re now focusing on is when. Traditionally linear network television did not focus on that. There are consumption moments happening when you’re waiting to board your flight, when you’re waiting to pick up your child from school. And in that time, do you have a form factor that is engaging that’s not just user generated? It’s going to be important for networks to focus on making derivatives out of their traditional content and figuring out how to create moments of truth with consumers that are increasingly used now on watching content on different platforms that are not TV and make content that’s relevant to them in those bite size, snackable moments. That could possible lead a crumb trail for them to come back to watching long form content on linear television,” Nohwar said.
Amazon is in every business imaginable. Sreeram sees phenomenal growth across sectors. “Video streaming has become a dominant use case for internet as a whole. A lot of this is coming from outside the metros. CTV’s and digital streaming is as large as paid TV these days. Customers sit across the spectrum of affordability and accessibility, language, etc. Thus, we need to focus on bustling ‘and’ solutions rather than ‘this or that’.”
This is why Amazon Prime Video has so many offerings, be it subscriptions, rentals, channels, etc. Each consumer wants something different. Its all about the consumers’ convenience.
Prasar Bharati is the largest broadcaster in the world, as per estimates. They also run Free Dish which is also the largest distribution platform on the planet. 45 million homes is the estimated number. However, where is free television going? What is its future in India? Dwivedi said that despite debates and dwindling numbers, Free Dish has been growing continuously and constantly. “When Free Dish started in 2003, the industry was in a very nascent stage. It set the content for the rest of the industry to grow and develop. In fact, in the first few years, we had to call broadcasters and tell them that slots are available please put your channels in them. In the last three years, the industry has grown to about 210 million TV homes.”
He added, “Our revenues were just under 800 crores and we were looking at ways to grow that without compromising on the number of channels we were offering. We made a tweak in our methodology and in a year’s time, our revenue jumped by about 45-46 percent. The same trend is maintained this year as well.”
“While the other media is growing rapidly, set-up boxes are also here to stay and for the foreseeable future they will continue to grow as well. We see the number growing from 45 million to around 50 to 60 million in the next 4-5 years. Then, depending on how other technologies fare, we’ll take a call then,” Dwivedi said.
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Vaz added saying that Viacom18 is a content company. “Irrespective of the numbers on CTV, paid TV, free TV or even smartphones, we are agnostic to all of that. The good thing is that the number of screens are growing and that’s opportunity for us to create content across these screens.”
“It is important to find out what content consumers want in terms of content But, it is more important to know how they want it, where they want it and when they want it,” he added.