The Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is set to occupy a shining spot in the economy in 2017. The industry has registered strong growth supported by consumer demand, growing revenues and a bright digital future ahead. The M & E sector is expected to grow at 13.9 % and is likely to reach a total evaluation of 37.7 Billion US dollars by 2021.
The growth of M&E sector is sweet news to the global economy as well. Many developed countries are seeing a fall in the demand for newspapers as well as advertising revenues. Currently, the global average rate of growth in the sector is 4.2%.
The internet unsurprisingly is becoming more important every day for business communication. According to latest figure, most people now use the internet as opposed to mainstream media to access entertainment.
One of the most important beneficiaries of this development is Youtube, which currently has an active base of 800 million subscribers in India. With an increased penetration of digitization in rural areas, this user baser is likely to increase in the upcoming future.
Aside from the larger market trends, India is also witnessing a small rising of various companies. For example, PVR is gearing up to launch another 75 screens in 2017-18 in India. PVR aims to set up 1000 screens by the end of 2020.
In a similar up scaling in the digital world, Hotstar app will partner with a media tech firm in Bangalore to personalize their communication and messages for the audience.
The media sector in India is undoubtedly doing well due to the desire of the country to unite and have a meaningful conversation about the future. However, it is also backed by Government initiatives like digitizing the cable distribution sector to attract greater institutional funding, increasing FDI limit from 74 percent to 100 percent in cable and conferring the status of industry to film business to allow easy access to finance.
The development in the M& E is positive on many levels. However, it remains to be seen whether many people would ultimately switch to social media to completely disregard mainstream media and block an important platform for businesses as well as advertisers.
Indian Media and Entertainment sector becomes a bright spot for the global economy
