The picture’s changing rapidly

On the surface, it does seem that not much has changed in the last several years except for some incremental growth or decline depending on which vertical you are talking about in the media and entertainment business. Cable TV continues to struggle — to improve its business case, to improve its talent and technology quotient and, above all, to stay relevant in a nrapidly changing world.

DTH, which set out to revolutionise distribution, increasingly seems to be intent on locking its destiny inside an isolated box in a networked world. Even the story of digitalisation that started six years ago remains incomplete.

The advertising revolution of the 90s, when a large number of international and Indian brands were built on television screens, doesn’t seem to be breaking new ground. Content creators, a community that I belong to, generally seem to be caught in a time warp with the same themes playing in a loop again and again — cursed destinies, rebirth and revenge, and deference to elders in public while bickering in private, pretty much sums up what rules national entertainment.

The quality of news, of course, seems to cause only national consternation, with even our friendly neighbour now taking a pot-shot at our news channels! Over all, it seems the more things change the more they remain the same.

Big-time changes But then is the picture really as gloomy as this? Because beneath the surface of entrenched stagnation, quietly — almost stealthily — there is a gigantic disruption playing out.

Very recently, one of the pioneers of television entertainment told me that she was so frustrated by the frozen state of traditional media that she was going to create a digital enterprise to tell the stories that traditional media has been too scared to tell. I am talking about the totally adorable Ekta Kapoor. Think about that for a moment — the person who created the archetype of saas and bahu feels the need to break away from these stifling constraints of the medium that she herself created.

This colossal shift is by no means limited to television. At the risk of earning her disapproval, let me share the story of my daughter — she is always on top of news and opinion articles and yet I have never seen her hold a physical newspaper in her hand. Her daily dose comes exclusively from the digital universe. Fixed schedule programming sounds as bizarre to her as silent movies to us. She is obsessed with music but doesn’t own a single CD. Her near infinite library rests entirely on her iPhone — the same goes for her friends and colleagues who use android devices. This generation makes a large part of our audience.

Hot launch The most talked about launch in Indian M&E last year was not a new channel, or a new newspaper or a new production house — it was a mobile app that had the gall to ask consumers to go solo — Hotstar. Last year, more people watched the English Premier League on Hotstar than on television. The antiquated business models we have painstakingly built over the years are being decimated by technology and the youth like a bulldozer rolling over glass bottles. Almost all the digital successes come from companies that did not exist even a decade ago. This is because these are companies and people who are not chained by their legacy. Just imagine where businesses such as Netflix, Twitter and Facebook were a decade ago and what global empires they have created in this short span of time.

There is a tectonic shift happening in our M&E industry right in front of us. There is one thing, however, that will continue to be the same: the power of stories. For those of us who had imagined a world where the so-called user-generated stories would unseat high quality creativity, the answer comes from the Netflix strategy, so much so that Netflix’s catalogue today represents the absolute best of American television.

Tale-twister However, there is a twist in the tale. No longer is the story enough, within the commoditised consistency of experience. Technology and creativity are coming together to enhance the experience literally, almost daily. Design and engineering can no longer be divorced from the story — this is a radical departure from everything that we were taught all these years. Engineers, designers and storytellers are the three pillars on which we see future M&E companies getting built. We need to change the lens with which we look at talent. Technology going global, talent going global also means adoption of a new tradition. Clearly, in this new world, neither technology nor talent will be limited by geographical boundaries.

Clearly, we are in a battle. In this battle there are only two options — we can either continue living in denial, or we can arm ourselves and venture forth into the battle, sometimes even against the same businesses that we have created. Change or perish.

The writer is the chairman of Ficci’s Media and Entertainment Committee and CEO of Star India

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