Mumbai, March 12 (IANS): India’s Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is expected to log a 14.2 percent growth to more than Rs.1.78 lakh crore in the next four years, according to a FICCI-KPMG report released here Wednesday.
Driven largely by digitisation, the industry in 2013 grew at 11.8 percent over 2012 and touched Rs.91,800 crore.
“The media and entertainment industry is expected to register a CAGR of 14.2 percent to touch Rs.1,78,580 crore by 2018,” said the report titled "The Stage Is Set".
The report sees digital advertising witnessing the highest compounded average growth rate (CAGR) of 27.7 percent by 2018.
Lauding the healthy growth of the industry amidst slow GDP growth and a weak rupee, Uday Shankar, chairman, FICCI Media & Entertainment Committee, said the real value of the sector is that it remains central to defining the direction of the country's social and economic path.
“The fact that we have been able to deliver this in light of an overall economic growth of 4 percent and a major resetting of exchange rates is a testament to the tenacity of the industry's leaders and stakeholders," Shankar, who is also the CEO of Star India, said at the inaugural session of 15th edition of FICCI Frames.
"But, this is not a sector whose value is measured just by the size of its financial contribution. Media and entertainment remains central to defining the direction of India's social and economic path; its work remains key to the imagination and inspiration of a billion Indians every day; and its health will be central to the ethos and values of the society we collectively shape," he added.
The focus of the three-day event is Media and Entertainment: Transforming Lives. It will have more than 35 in-depth, analytical, power-packed sessions, with more than 200 speakers from the who's who of the media and entertainment industry.
Shankar pointed out that too often, the news media has focused on what is sensational rather than what is important.
“Too often, the point of news seems to be to reduce the extraordinary diversity of the country to the most banal, a contest between extremes that can only be resolved through a shouting match on live television," he said.
"With singular dominant narratives, the trend seems to be of creating heroes on a particular day only to be labelled as thugs and crooks the next."
"Instead, it is now a broken relationship, and one that has dire consequences for both the industry as well as the government," Shankar said.
"The failure to establish credibility and importance has meant the industry perennially stays on a back foot, defending itself against every new wave of regulation aimed only at further curtailing its wings. In return, the government has not been able to leverage either the impact that mass media can have in India or harness the power of media as an economic engine that can create jobs and wealth," he added.
Shankar said that as the country is going into polls from April 7, it is appropriate time to call for “a new contract" between the government and the media, one that reaffirms both stakeholders to the theme of this year's FICCI Frames-- Transforming Lives.
"The next government should recognise that it matters what the agenda of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is. It matters what the ministry sees as its dominant priority."
“Do you see media as a tool for transforming lives, thereby using it in the interest of serving the population or as something so powerful that it needs to be controlled?"
Shankar said the regulatory agenda is one of the most crucial parameters that will shape how this industry will look like in the next 5, 10 and 15 years.