The Hindu Business Line : Pune institute FLAME plans MBA in mass media

Mr Achyut Vase, Dean of FLAME School of Business, said that the course has been designed keeping in view the demands of the growing mass media industry.

Media managers

According to a FICCI-PricewaterhouseCoopers study, the media is expected to be a Rs 83,700-crore industry in 2010, growing at 19 per cent annually for the last few years.

"There is no management training in India that equips one to handle the business demands of the media," Mr Vase told Business Line in an e-mail interview.

In recent years, TV channels, film production houses, advertising agencies and publishing houses have shown interest in recruiting MBAs with a media background, he said.

Usually, students of mass communication, visual communication and communication management are hired for jobs in the media.

Management training

FLAME's Rs 5.5 lakh-a-year course will provide students with managerial and business skills, besides creative and technical skills.

Management training will dwell on subjects such as marketing, market research, advertising, managerial accounting, finance, organisational behaviour and production management.

Creative training will cover mass communication subjects such as cinema, television, advertising and journalism.

But will such a course see demand from the industry? According to Mr E. Balaji, Chief Operating Officer, Ma Foi Management Consultants, it is doubtful if the media today requires such managerial skills.

"For all media jobs, the functional requirement is a mass communications degree. One has to see how media houses would assess and use managerial skills that this niche course would offer."

Further, merely positioning a mass media course, as an M.B.A may not cater to the industry, he said. "Until at least two batches of students pass out, it is difficult to comment if such courses would be successful and create demand in the industry."

Mr Vase said that students graduating from this course could earn about 40 per cent more than competing MBA graduates without a media background.

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