A roller coaster quarter for the media industry

It's a tough analysis. By the end of 2023, there was a small light that shimmered across the darkness of the media industry. But alas - year 2024 started with a bad news in the very first month, the Zee-Sony deal was called off. Unable to stomach, the decision was indeed unexpected.

As a combined entity, they both have a distinct identity and they could have piggy-backed on each other’s capabilities, and efficiency would have been far superior. But with both of them deciding not to merge, it is good for consumers as both will currently work towards rebuilding themselves independently, thus giving consumers a choice and they will continue to build on their brand identity with complete autonomy.

The breakdown of this deal is a major blow for our industry. The road ahead for Zee is turbulent amidst this tempestuous marketing weather (talks about frugality and job loss within the system) till it finds another suitor which will probably be after the general elections. On the other hand, by calling off the merger, Sony also lost its competitive positioning, raising questions about how it will build its dream scale in India.

But in a world of volatile instabilities, it so happened that a month after the former merger melted into nothingness, the big news that India Inc. was waiting for was announced. Viacom18 and Disney announced merger in India, creating a media behemoth in the country. The industry is now closely watching the announcement of the new management team that will chart its journey operationally. This is likely to happen post the clearance from the Competition Commission of India (reports indicate by early 2025). But yet questions remain - will that team be empowered to drive this business operationally (creative business is more about empowerment than money). The other big questions are: will they chase EBITDA or market share, what is their business model for their OTT business - SVOD or AVOD, will they invest in premium shows/big movies or will it be a hybrid model (TV+Digital). It is well assured that before signing a pact - all such queries would have been discussed, until such discussions finally pave their way to a space where answers are derived. When the clarification mode is set in, both teams will currently get into a maintenance mode.

While reasons for Disney India's valuation taking a hit has been attributed to IPL, giving IPL itself a miss, the management of Disney India would have been criticised. Going forward it is best for both entities to run their business as they are. In the merged entity, the topline of the minority stakeholder is higher than the majority stakeholder. So, it is in their best interest that the minority player gets to run its business without much creative interference except for some back end operational efficiency and synergies for improving topline growth.

While these two happenings made headlines in the media landscape, there is another industry, which took away all the laurels for the first quarter, the Malayalam film industry. In February, the top five films in India featured three Malayalam films - Manjummel Boys, Premalu and Bramayugam. The quarter also ended with another masterpiece from the industry, Aadujeevitham - The Goat Life.

All these films had different themes and genres. While Manjummel Boys and Aadujeevitham - The Goat Life (adapted from a novel that has been one of the best-selling novels translated to Tamil) fall into the category of survival drama, Premalu is in the romance genre and Bramayugam is in the black magic horror space. Malayalam film industry has always strived to push boundaries and it is standing out to be the epitome of India's creative asset. These films have also demonstrated that strong content will bring footfalls into the theatres. The success of Manjummel Boys in Tamil Nadu has also proven that content in any language has no linguistic or geographical boundaries. Based on a true story, Manjummel Boys excels in the space where it connects every human heart to their teenage era. There is a connection with every viewer, which gives them an internalized travel within themselves enroute their childhood. The myth that theatrical audiences are consumers of mass movies only and star-driven formula works is erased with the performances of these films. We are once again told clearly that the magical formula in our business is telling the right and good stories and nothing else. There have been good films like Kida in Tamil but unnoticed and unspoken about. It has something to tell upon the psyche of the Tamil audience to welcome alternate/parallel films in other languages rather than their own. My reflection on this has been an unsolved discourse within myself, unable to unravel the dialectics.

Two other content pieces that had my attention last quarter were the Hindi feature film Fighter and the docu series about Indrani Mukerjea. Fighter was a visual gravitas that we have always associated Hollywood films with but, of course, the last half hour of the film transformed itself into yet another Bollywood masala. A visually spectacular treat nothing less than a Hollywood cinema but gets liquidated by an overdose of India-Pakistan outcry. It’s better that creative minds are enfranchised from such typical Indo-Pakistan fanatical bias.

The documentary series on Indrani Mukerjea was another highlight of the last quarter, in terms of its treatment narrative as a docu series. It was indeed an intriguing series as it had its twists and turns and the subject had to be handled sensitively as it is sub-judice. It was definitely a one-sided point of view and the platform should make effort to do a sequel covering Peter Mukerjea’s point of view. The streaming platform should be given full credit for opening the docu series market in India and it is indeed pioneering. It is also a new revenue stream that news channels in India should exploit with steaming platforms both nationally and regionally.

The other consolation last quarter was the E&Y report about the M&E industry that was published in March predicting the industry to grow at 10%. The report predicts active screens in India will grow to 1 billion by 2030 out of which 240 million will be large screens and 750 million will be small phone screens. The big play will also be in Connected TVs, which will be 100 million by 2030.The other highlight was also the growth of digital media to Rs 65,400 crore with advertising contributing Rs. 57,600 cr and subscription at Rs 7,800 cr and the sector is expected to touch Rs 95,000 cr by 2026.

While the future is hopeful, the present is cautious but we will keep playing with optimism. The market depends on the collateral mixture of creative minds and money. To win, the market is to triumph the tabled mass applause. Hope every creative mastermind excels in it.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.)