The Hindu Business Line : `Content export is next big thing for entertainment sector'

CONTENT export will give new direction to the Indian entertainment industry, positioned in economic stability and a growing advertisement market, according to Mr Marcel Fenez, Asia-Pacific Leader (Entertainment & Media Practice), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

"Export of Indian content is not big now but it is an important trend," Mr Fenez said. With the growing interest in Indian content worldwide, domestic media companies can increase their earnings through export, he told Business Line.

His prediction for the Indian entertainment industry is that broad-based economic growth will improve ad spends. During 2003, ad spend grew by 9.5 per cent and is expected to repeat that in 2004. Mr Fenez believes that for an industry which is largely dependent on advertising revenue, the overall growth in the economy will be crucial. "Advertising and GDP are pretty closely co-related. If you are looking at trends, you need to solidly look at GDP for advertising growth," he said.

Globally, 2001 and 2002 were slow years for advertising revenue. Global uncertainty brought on by the September 11 terror attacks has resulted in reallocation of resources towards security and defence. "If a government is a big spender and if it channels a lot into defence spend, it could take away from advertising spend," he said.

"In many countries, ad spending is beginning to drop behind GDP. This is probably not true for Asia. In Asia, ad spending is generally slightly ahead of GDP growth because an advertiser would like to be ahead of the curve so that when the economy picks up he is there with his products," Mr Fenez said.

Technology, according to him, will have an important role to play in the media and entertainment industry globally. "No doubt there is an entire generation of consumers that is quite content to be pushed into decisions rather than be pro-active. But there is an increasing number of consumers who are part of the changing technology in most economies," he said. This change is driven through the Internet. "There is a whole new generation that looks at entertainment and information quite differently from the passive consumers. This has caused fragmentation in the market."

It takes a while to educate a generation that has remained passive about new technology. "To educate a generation that is already used to change is going to be much easier," Mr Fenez said.

Yet the euphoria about the media-savvy generation is largely misplaced, the official said. "The media-savvy generation may not kick in big dollars in the next five years but they might in 10 years," he said.

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