Bandra's Bandstand was a hangout during college. Have passed this house long before & after it became Mannat. It is only now, with an insider's understanding of what
@iamsrk
means to the - soft power of India, media ecosystem & me - that am doing the right thing Thank you Mr Khan
It has been a month since
@sreekantafaqs
and I recovered from Covid. A small note of thank you to the our Residents Welfare Association,
@govt_delhi
@CMODelhi
@Saurabh_MLAgk
. You guys did a fantastic job during our quarantine. Thank you.
There was a huge information gap in news media. Of the 642 mn Indian voters in the recent elections, 235 mn voted for the ruling party. However, for long, these were the only consumers who mattered for mainstream media. The remaining 407 mn had been completely ignored. Many media
Indians paid over Rs 1,000 cr to listen to (audio) books, drama series & podcasts in 2022; that is about half the Rs 2,200 cr streaming music earned. My report on the not-so-silent boom in the spoken word led by
@PocketFM_App
@audible_com
@Spotify
& others
#LalSinghChadha
is a lovely, funny, gut wrenching ode to goodness and humanity. We laughed and we cried. Including my 13 year old who is a YouTube kid.. knows nothing of Indian cinema.
Don't be surprised if a couple of the big multiplex chains shut down or sell out. The pandemic has knocked off 62% of the business. Cinema may not die but will take many years to come back to 2019 levels. My column
@akshayerathi
@anuragkashyap72
Do see The Making of Lagaan by
@satyabhatkal
. The sheer scale in people, budget, effort, time is mind boggling. Multiply by 1,600 films a year. Every film/TV show employs 1000s of people. The media &ent industry generates roughly 0.5% of GDP, pays some of the highest taxes.
How on earth did
@SonyLIV
become bigger than
@netflix
and
@PrimeVideo
in India? It is 3 times Netflix & just under half of
@DisneyPlusHS
. My somewhat incomplete analysis, since the piece was cut!
The unbelievable story of Pandit Jasraj and a six-year old boy he never met, as told by the boy's father
@sreekantafaqs
. Had shared this one with you
@durgajasraj
. A big hug to you. Am listening to Rani Tero Chir Jeeyo, in memory of Panditji and my son Kedar.
If the
@IPL
is second only to the American
@NFL
then the Indian media & entertainment market should also be close to the US one in size & profitability. It is not. That is why the economics of the IPL make no sense.
#minnalmurali
#pushpa
& coming soon
#RRR
#KGF2
#RadheyShyam
. The rise of the pan-Indian film, both online & offline, is the single biggest trend shaping the future of India's struggling movie business. How did it happen? Why is Hindi behind? My analysis
Over 25 years
@starindia
has, along with Zee, been the main hero in the story of India's media & entertainment industry.
#MakingOfStarIndia
my (independent) book on its journey, how it shaped & was shaped by the Indian market now available for pre-order
Cinema screens bring in over 60 per cent of the Rs 19,100 crore that Indian films earned in 2019. A film's theatrical performance impacts the price of every other revenue stream; TV, OTT, overseas. OTT cannot substitute what a film makes in its life cycle
Many things are responsible for India turning into a polarised, shrieking country at war with itself. Of these news television must take the biggest blame for actively helping India's slide downwards. It is time to fix the problem
Of India's top 10 OTTs, 7 are from broadcasters & studios. As streaming video moves to the big screen thanks to rising smart TV penetration, broadcast is what will help OTT hit scale. Part 1 of
#StreamingDiaries
, a deep dive into the OTT business
First noticed him in Banegi Apni Baat (Zee TV,1994). Watched his rise from Maqbool & Life in a Metro to The Amazing Spiderman,Namesake & Jurassic World. He made India proud. In range, verstality & entertainment value his filmography is phenomenal RIP
#IrrfanKhan
.You went too soon
Just like Indians are discovering Spanish, German, Turkish or Korean shows/films, others are discovering Paatal Lok, Mirzapur or Scam 1992. Streaming is taking Indian storytelling global like never before. Let it not get caught in regulatory snarls a la TV
Bramayugam
#ManjummelBoys
#Aavesham
#premalu
#Adujeevitham
- The Goat Life. Malayalam films are having a great run at the box-office this year, collecting a gross of Rs 558 crore (till May 5) going by
@OrmaxMedia
data. That is just short of what they collected in all of 2023. What
Telugu cinema ruled, the box-office crashed, average ticket prices fell - That and more from an exclusive look at
@OrmaxMedia
's annual box office report. Thanks
@shaileshkapoor
As a teenager I won awards for fiction; I found my profession in non-fiction. Now over 2 decades later a piece of non-fiction I have written is being used to create a drama series. Life comes full circle. Excited to be industry expert & floating writer on this
@irocksid
@sunderaa
ANNOUNCEMENT: Excited to acquire the screen rights of
@vanitakohlik
βs
#TheMakingOfStar
and get her on board to create a fiction series akin to
#Madmen
meets
#Succession
set in the roaring rah-rah early days of the Indian TV industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s!
#TheStoryInk
A bit nervous and super excited about the launch of my book
#TheMakingofStarIndia
- first launch in Mumbai this evening and the next one in Delhi next week. Fingers crossed.
Interstellar, Oppenheimer, Kalki, Dune, Garfield, Brahmastra & many others.
@PrimeFocusIndia
/
@dneg
have been doing award-winning work for filmmakers for long. With Ramayana it gets into the storytelling itself. What does this mean? Excerpts from a fantastic chat I had with
It has managed a U/A certificate and business seems to be picking up. Will
@anuragkashyap72
's
#Mukkabaaz
turn the tide for the beleaguered Indian film industry?
Have known
@iamgauravgandhi
for over 15 years. He remains one of the first people I go to, to understand tricky structural things about broadcasting/cable/ streaming et al. My lunch with the man who runs
@PrimeVideo
. The food was ok, the chat was great
More than 2/3rd revenues wiped out, 1000s of daily wagers have lost their jobs, about 1500 single screens have shut down & multiplexes are in bad shape. The first of my 2 part series on what the pandemic has done to Indian cinema.
#Pathaan
is a fast, witty, total paisa vasool ride. Enjoyed it thoroughly. And so many of us in the theatre (which was full) hooted every time
@iamsrk
came on the screen in the first 15-20 minutes. Couldn't break out into a dance because the husband stopped me!
By the end of Sept
@SonyPictures
&
@ZEECorporate
will merge into India's 4th largest media firm. It is another in a series of media deals being struck the world over as big-tech with unlimited capital, gains control of audiences, distribution & revenues
It has been a miserable April/May. But
#munjya
&
#KALKI2898AD
ββ have brought cheer in June. The first six months of 2024 will see the Indian box-office at Rs 5,053 crore (Including trade share & taxes: excluding OTT/TV revenues).
@shaileshkapoor
of
@OrmaxMedia
, which shared data
OTTs spend on programming doubled from $260 mn (Rs 1,690 cr) in 2017, to $600 mn (Rs 4,320 cr) in 2019. It is could hit $700 mn (Rs 5,250 cr) in 2020
@MPAupdates
. Can an industry that made Rs 8,000 cr in revenues sustain that? Part 2 of
#StreamingDiaries
In a tough year Indians continued to get their TV, newspaper, OTT, radio etc. The media industry delivered while being pummelled by falling revenues & job losses & news channels hounding a critical component; films. Yet it stares at a 20-30% revenue drop
Increasingly
@TikTok
@WhatsApp
@YouTube
are news providers for the young. On these platforms individual creators matter more, on
@facebook
@X
traditional news outfits & journalists do. The proportion of people paying for news is stuck & news avoidance continues to grow. That &
With Rs 220 crore (gross) at the global box-office within 2 days of release,
#Pathaan
is on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits from India. This without a high-decibel marketing campaign from
@yrf
. That is where
@iamsrk
's fandom stepped in
'The cosmic correctness is startling: the man most identified with getting Kaun Banega Crorepati & Saas-Bahu serials to Indian TV is now applying his mind to bringing the most disruptive shows online.' My rambling lunch with
@nairsameer
@ApplauseSocial
Laughed my guts out at
#veerdiwedding
, total time pass! Wish the background & stories of the 4 girls were better explained. Also over-stylised to the point of distraction.
@ReallySwara
is brilliant as usual, but she is also in grave danger of being typecast
More subscribers, deeper involvement with AI, the Metaverse and more money on short video. Those are among the more interesting takeaways from
@nicnewman
's Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions 2022 for
@risj_oxford
released last week.
How Indian media companies keep growing in print and digital? That is the question I have to answer at the Digital Media Strategies 2019 in London next month. If you are around and can join, please do....
Is this the media merger of the decade?
@Disney
acquires
@20thcenturyfox
. Will be fun to see this merged entity at work? Will Fox become more like Disney or the vice versa? The cultural ramifications fascinate me
Does the rise of subscription-led news make good journalism a privilege for some people? Do audiences reading ad-funded news deserve only fake & inaccurate stuff? As subscription finds favour as a business model some of the questions worth worrying about
At 9.7 mn a month Delhi has the largest OTT audience in; Mumbai (9.3 mn) & Bengaluru (8.7 mn) follow. An Indian OTT sub buys 2.4 brands on an average. That & more in an exclusive peek at the first mapping of India's OTT audience by
@Ormax
@shaileshkapoor
Block, report or worse still ignore them. Whichever way it works for you, in 2018 let us take hate, abuse and negativity out of social media to build a positive, optimistic India. Happy new year everyone.
1,800 films, scores of great live events, a 7 week election, a 10-week IPL. Of the 52 weeks this year barely 30 are probably available to release a film so that it can be discovered and can make money. Ditto for shows or films on OTT? My column today on media's problem of
1)
@ZEECorporate
is the only big broadcaster that talks to media. Will its merger with
@SonyPictures
push it behind the veil a la
@starindia
2)
@BARCIndia
& why metrics are treated like a dirty secret? 3) Why the selective bashing of Hindi cinema?
"YouTube tends to mirror India as it moves into the next million (users). And with every million the reflection is different," says
@satyarags
. My lunch with the head of partnerships
@YouTube
, India's largest OTT at 275 mn unique visitors
@Comscore
Every OTT need not be in a walled garden; broadcast/film the source of programming for streaming, donβt have its freedom on creative/pricing; & a heartening rise in subscription numbers. My observations from a month long deep dive into the OTT market
The internet is no longer growing in India. Its reach has stalled thanks to the rising prices of entry-level smartphones. Note that usage or time spent continues to rise. Will be reporting more on this. Meanwhile here is the headline news.
.
If all of us went off Facebook, Twitter or any other social media just for a week would the hatred and bile online go down? Would the world become a better place, if we weren't so busy reacting all the time...
"For a 100 years advertisers did not have too many choices for reaching audiences, so newspaper & TV had huge (ad) pricing power. It was a piece of luck that lasted for a century," My chat with Mark Thompson who led the successful digital charge
@nytimes
In 2021, a massive 102 mn people subscribed to streaming video services, up from 56 mn in 2020. That & more from
@MPAupdates
signature event APOS. Thank you
@COUTOVVC
& team MPA. You guys do some superb research that informs & enriches my writing.
This is one of the best celebrity ads I have seen in a long time. The brand (
@dubaitourism
) and the celebrity (
@iamsrk
) are weaved into the script perfectly. And the candid expressions are something.
As a rule, all media writers should stop using the word 'content' and use the word 'storytelling.' 'Content' de-humanises the power of creativity. Machines create 'content'. Human beings tell stories.
Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar,
@SrBachchan
@iamsrk
.. it has happened to all of them. Every major male superstar flounders in his fifties. As
#PATHAAN
resurrects king Khan my Saturday musings..
Finished 83 and Iβve been crying copiously. This is the India that we grew up in. Of Antenna twirling TVβs, 60 Over matches and yearning for India to make a mark in the world. Thank you
@RanveerOfficial
@kabirkhankk
@KausarMunir
and the 83 team.
Every govt looks at the media & entertainment industry from a content/influence/control lens, not as a generator of taxes & jobs. Is it time to put everything, print, TV, film, music, radio, digital etc under one independent-of-the govt regulator?An
@Ofcom
After 5 years & an estimated Rs 1,500 cr in revenues,
@NetflixIndia
controls a huge 45% of the SVoD business. On subscribers
@DisneyPlusHS
(26 mn) and
@PrimeVideoIN
(17 mn) look way more impressive than Netflixβs 4.6 mn. Why?
More than 200 million Indians now watch video on a connected TV; this is changing the way any video- streaming, linear, long, short-is viewed & monetised.
@YouTube
is the biggest gainer of the rising penetration of smart TVs. So are
@Samsung
@Xiaomi
et al
Dabangg's Chulbul Pandey is the fourth film character to be animated in 2 years. Singham, Golmaal & Fukrey already have successful animation series on air. Globally the whole shift from live action to animation has never worked? What makes India different?
Can we end the cat and mouse game between
@TRAI
& the TV industry? Have a single metric for digital? Can Indian news channels disappear? Can we become a country that has devastating, well-informed arguments devoid of personal abuse? My 2020 wishlist
At about 3mn subscribers, over 35mn unique visitors & an estimated Rs 750 crore in revenues
@NetflixIndia
is about 10% of the OTT market. Those numbers, however, donβt capture the weird, kaleidoscopic relationship Netflix has with India.
Could
@WaltDisneyCo
's takeover of
@starindia
end up hurting Indiaβs largest media firm? As the Disneyfication of Star begins will it give up/go slow on broadcasting; sell its stake in
@TataSky
? Will it no longer be the swashbuckling market developer?
Programming heads taking money for commissioning shows, over-invoicing on talent costs, media buyers on the take & other creepy crawlies the Indian media &entertainment industry must deal with.
Since taking over as CEO in 2008
@punitgoenka
has built
@ZEECorporate
, the Essel Group's entertainment business, into the cash-spewing, market leader it is today. He spoke to us in the aftermath of the stock crisis which "doesn't weaken us is any way."
Just under half of the Indian media and entertainment industry's revenues come from consumers paying for content. The context exists. And that is why Indians will pay for online content?
The talent agency is no longer a 15% business. As the nature of creativity changes, it is about discovering, handholding creators, influencers, film stars, singers or talent through a bewildering array of platforms, apps, formats, devices & brands
At a time when humanity needs it most where is laughter on the Indian small screen? a la Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. As streaming giants in their land grab phase throw money at content, can we hope to see some funny stuff along with all that edgy angst?
After almost 5 years
@NetflixIndia
has an estimated 5 mn subscribers against 46 mn for
@DisneyPlusHS
& 19 mn for
@PrimeVideoIN
says
@MPAupdates
. So it is not difficult to figure why it cut its price. A look at what the cut could achieve.
Last year
@DangalTV
displaced
@SunTV
to become the most watched television channel across languages & geographies. It is already the most watched in Hindi speaking markets. How on earth did
@Enterr10Tv
an unknown company from Indore force the big 4 (
@starindia
@SonyPictures
This is wonderful! Can't think of anyone more talented and with a firm understanding on both the business and the content/creative side of the business than
@myleeta
. Way to go. Myleeta Aga to lead content for South East Asia and Australia at Netflix
Creatively the film business fits best with OTT. From 20 hrs (2016) original content on the top 10 Indian OTTs will top 1000 hrs (2019). That's 300-500 films or $500 million worth of content. Can the world's largest film producing country scale up?
What this film means to my generation cannot be expressed. Just when
@iamsrk
's star was rising, India was liberalising & I had begun working.
#DDLJ25
is not just a great film, it is inextricably linked with happy times, love & an India that I miss. Thanks
#AdityaChopra
&
@yrf
.
This
@DanielCraig007
fan is happy!!! Finally saw
#NoTimetoDie
at
@_PVRCinemas
Icon in Pune (mandated 50% capacity was full) Wonderful to watch a film on the big screen again; last one was
#TENET
. Loads of good wishes to everyone in the film business as theatres start to re-open
I agree. What makes
@subhashchandra
a good entrepreneur - his ability to take risks & bet big - is the same quality that has led him here. When it worked it created the Essel Group, now it has created this debt crisis. This too shall pass.
Subhash Chandra saw the future of Indian Television & single-handedly created the countryβs first media & entertainment empire. One stumble will not deter him & his entrepreneurial courage has always been admirable. May he steer his ship to safe harbour..