Cover story
CORPORATE ECLIPSE Over Liberalised economy tethered several indegenous businesses with sure money to huge corporate players . Now Film industry is taking the essential (fated) step causing the opening up of a multi million and multi level native film industry to big time players . K R Ranjith and KP Jaykumar on its pros and cons.
They are already here, the corporates! Gangster guys who muscle in on to the happy home of the native film industry or just the benevolent aliens who posses' a magic touch. Opinion differs, but smack of scepticism is rather strong . Will there be a sunny finish? Enter the corporates and the scenario reaches a turbulent peak. Fear grips the older pack; some see a sea of opportunities while the others Indian AGE
remain confused. The house is divided and the chinks in the wall are there for every one to see. Everything started with the big corporations began pumping money in to the South Indian Film industry. With Pyramid Saimira, Adlabs, Ayngaran, Eros, UTV, Moser Baer, Eros Entertainment, Ashtavinayak and Warner Bros venturing out in to the South, the largely unorganised film industry with its own rules, conventions, precedence and hierar-
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chy evolved over decades, was initiated in to the new era of corporate control of film making, distribution and exhibition. When they come, they come with that killer instinct which the home industry fears would tear down the whole fabric of the existing industry relations and culture. Just as in the case of corporatisation of retail sector, the traditional film industry is apprehensive of the fallout of the corporate interventions in the segment. The Tamil-
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COVER STROY nadu Film Producers Council President S Ramanarayan has come out in the open criticising the initial tendencies of corporate culture of film making. He said the entry of the Mumbai corporate world had rendered star prices beyond the reach of hardworking entertainment companies of the state. He alleged that the companies are offering 20 percent commission to the stars to get a foothold in the industry. It is not just Mumbai corporates or the North eyeing on the South, the stakes go further as Warner Bros and Walt Disney enter the fray tying up with Superstars Rajni Kant and Kamal Hasan. The traditional producers would be the first victims of the new corporate wave. They would be forced to pursue their careers as line producers under the bigger production companies. This change is
already visible in the Kollywood. The other language industries would follow suit.
billion US$ in to producing regional Indian films with in a time span of 15 months. (At present the whole film industry in India put together is only
Global net, local catch The corporate interest in the South Indian screens were fuelled by the box office success of the tamil flicks like Sivaji that bagged more than 180 crores in India and abroad, cutting across language barriers. Seven hundred films out of the 1,200 films made in India, are regional language films. “If you look at the overseas audience for regional language films, their recovery is huge and they do good business,� says Rajesh Sawhney, president Reliance Big Entertainment. During the Cannes Film festival this year the company formally announced its plans to pump in a whopping one
During the Cannes Film festival this year the company formally announced its plans to pump in a whopping one billion US$ in to producing regional Indian films with in a time span of 15 months.
US$ 1.5 billion ) The Indian corporate interests in the entertainment industry are not restricted to the subcontinent only. Times have changed since Amit Khanna introduced the first corporate production venture Plus Channel in
The SUNSHINE INDUSTRY
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Bollywood, a flawed beginning with Big B's ABCL towing the same line. But the big fall of these two ventures, to go by the clichĂŠ, were the stepping stones for the bigger ones followed. With Bollywood and Kollywood films releasing all over the world and with Indian companies joining the Hollywood league, business interests have now gone truly global. Wall Street Journal recently reported that Reliance would invest $500 million and provide another $700 million in debt through JPMorgan Chase & Co for production of about half a dozen Hollywood films. The journal also said that the company has inked a deal with the famous director Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks SKG to produce films jointly. The Indian corporate interests are leaving nothing unturned. They have expressed their motive loud and clear: they are going global even as they intensify the trawl in the local market. Net the maximum profit, no matter how big/small the market is. The entry of the corporate players have had its repercussions in the Malayalam industry with a significant section of the Malayalam Cine Technicians Association (MACTA) calling for a boycott of directors and stars who they alleged to have signed up with Reliance Entertainments. 'Some corporate Indian AGE
houses have signed up at least three top actors,' they said 'including Mamooty and Mohanlal, besides 10 reputed film directors, for their upcoming films.' They were also apprehensive of the entry of the corporates which they thought would destroy the regional cinema. The directors and actors have been 'bought' by the top companies, they said, to direct/act exclusively for the companies for the next five years. This will hit the ordinary film industry worker and destroy the trade union
The south Indian film economy with its status quoits approach and practices, cut off from the changes in the other industries will have to think anew and take a few tough lessons with the changing times and demands.
Leaving the mudslinging aside, it's anybody's reading that corporate affiliation has already become despicable in the Malayalam industry. Though protests are aimed at all corporate interventions in general, one could see the main target is the Reliance Entertainments which has started filming in Malayalam with renowned director Shaji N Karun and super star Mammooty onboard. It is interesting to note that many Reliance Fresh outlets had to down shutters due to stiff anti-corporate protests in the state. In this political context, any move to intervene in the film segment would also attract protests in the state. The film industry in Kerala, still debating the significance of a trade union, has many concerns about the corporate interests in the sector and any aggressive corporate move will have to face stiff opposition at many levels. The problems in the MACTA Federation, a confederation of 18 trade unions and the formal announcement of AITUC (All India Trade Union Congress) of its intentions to float its own platform in the industry would fuel the debate on corporatisation live and contentious for long. In a largely unorganised industry, the corporate control will bring in a new sheen of meticulous corporate planning, behavioural changes, prompt proper planning and confer the standards the corporate culture would boast of. The traditional ways and practices would be at risk. The south Indian film economy with its status quoits approach and practices, cut off from the changes in the other industries will have to think anew and take a few tough lessons with the changing times and demands.
Monopoly and 'Monoculture' movement, the activists of MACTA said. However the other section of the MACTA was quick to deny the allegations and to distance them from any corporate complicity. Famous south Indian director, Siddique speaking on behalf of the directors said neither he nor any other film directors had signed any such agreement.
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The corporates would be aiming at the larger piece of the pie they could rip away. Integration vertical and horizontal- is the name of the game: different segments with in the industry- production, distribution and projection- would be integrated and centrally controlled. And the very corporates would own or control other
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Big Money Shall Have No Dominion
Multinationals like Reliance Big are eyeing on Malayalam film industry. Will this in anyway help directors like you? How will they affect the relatively small film industry of Kerala? They are already here. Well
Small film makers like you before we started worrying about their imminent entry, finds it difficult to get the theatres to t h e y h a v e h a d t h e i r show your films. Wouldn't it be spadework finis-hed. It is like grimmer once the big multinationals buying your vegetables from enter the fray and bring the entire a super market with a flashy theatre network under their control? In that case, we'll have other display of things; where as the local vendor would have alternatives. We can go directly to the the same for a lesser price people with our films. For instance, but with an uninviting when my first film was rejected by the display. They both sell the theatres here, we conducted public same things grown by the shows in schools, play-grounds and same farmer. The branded community centres and the public s e l l i n g m a k e s a l l t h e response was tremendous. I could difference, leaving the poor even manage to retrieve the money s p e n t o n i ts m a k i n g local vendor a run for through the tiny little his money. Just contributions The branded selling makes as it is famous told, we all the difference, leaving the poor from the comcan afford to sit local vendor a run for his money. mon people. If leisurely till the day Just as it is famously told, the theatres they come for us! We can afford to sit leisurely till the a n d t h e But still I day they come for us! distribution nethope we'll overcome works deny you, the onslaught at the end you should see to it that of the day, just as in the case of the British. They can never go people get a chance to watch your unchallenged. Somebody will rise in films. Alternatives ought to emerge, protest and will leave their dominion in against all odds. shatters.
media in a process of systematic monopolisation. The corporates have coined wonderful euphemisms to describe their monopolistic intentions. Pyramid Saimira for example claims itself 'a holistic Indian multinational entertainment c o m pa n y ' w h o s e ' d i v e r s i f i e d businesses' include exhibition, film and television content production, distribution, hospitality, food & beverage, animation and gaming, cine advertising, etc., which the company claims to have 'propelled it to take the entertainment industry to the next level.' Just as in the case of cross media ownerships, the entire industry would be controlled by the corporates.
The big new players know well that the control of the distribution network and theatres are the key to the domination of the whole industry and are going all out to buy theatres across the country. South India becomes the focal point because 60% of 12,000 theatres in the country are in the South. In the exhibition sector Pyramid Saimira Theatres ltd. has 800 plus screens with 5,50,000 plus seats across India, Malaysia, Singapore and North America spread over 5 million sq.ft. By 2010, the Group plans to operate 2,000 screens in India alone (with 175 multiplexes and stand alone theatres). The other majors are also in the fray busy fixing their own theatre chains. Reliance
Priyanandanan, Director of the National award winning Pulijanmam (Life as a Tiger)
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Entertainment's Adlabs Cinemas, which claims the first cinema chain to cross 100 theatres in India, has a sizeable presence in the overseas too. The company also boasts of pioneering the concept of Megaplexes in the country. Multiplex theatres have come to stay and are spreading fast in to the semi-urban areas too. Kerala, a smaller market compared to the other South Indian states, is expected to have 40 multiplex theatres in two years from now. While the B and Cclass theatres run for their money, multiplexes would bring in a change in the very class and nature of audiences. The change in the class character of the audience who would
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COVER STROY throng these small cosy multiplex theatres would definitely have an affect on the themes and narration of the films we will have in future. Most of these corporate giants have high stakes in the small screen segment which would greatly complement the investments and interests in the big screen. The mainstream print and visual media is, predictably, gung ho about the corporatisation of film industry. There are clear indications that it is not going to stop at with the monopolisation of the film industry. The corporate invasion would be a pan media phenomenon which will see a vertical and horizontal integration of the whole entertainment industry. Observers fear that the infamous Hollywood rat race of the twenties would be repeated in the largest film industry on earth. The fierce competition between big Hollywood studio companies and their attempt to win the theatre chains saw some of the worst ever market wars. It was with the intervention of Supreme Court in 1948 that the foul drive for monopolisation subsided. In India things will be even worse as we have only a tooth-less Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969, to deal with such practices. With out a proper regulatory mechanism put in place in advance, to check the onslaught of corporate competition, the local industry will have no time left to breathe before they find themselves ghettoized. It would be interesting to watch how the local industry which showed remarkable survival instinct resisting the Hollywood marketing strategies that wiped out mainstream cinema in most of the South American countries, would respond to the latest threat from within. “In the absence of crossmedia ownership laws, the corporatisation wave is only bound to cause waves of unfair and monopolistic trade practices in the days to come. The emerging scenarios of corporatisation of Tamil film industry attest to the same.” Writes Gopalan Ravindran,Professor, Department of Mass Media and Indian AGE
Communication, University of Madras. Famous director Shekhar Kapoor was one of the early birds who cried foul of the corporatisation of the film making on the ground that it would kill the very soul of it. Film making, he said, is 'the management of individuality,' and warned against 'going for models that are consistently associated with a culture very different from ours.' Film as a cultural product, has greater significance in what goes in to the making of it too. When the culture of making films change, there is every reason to believe that the change will be reflected in the themes and presentation as well. In South India, especially in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, where the tinsel world have
With out a proper regulatory mechanism put in place in advance, to check the onslaught of corporate competition, the local industry will have no time left to breathe before they find themselves ghettoized.
umbilical relation with politics, this cultural change would be even more complex a phenomenon. Thematic and symbolic changes in the corporate era will effect serious changes in the popular culture too.
Convergence in the age of confusion The pundits have long been thinking over the possible changes the era of media convergence would usher in. The effects of convergence are already visible in different segments of entertainment industry redrawing and extending the traditional boundary lines. This will effect changes in the size, character and tastes of the audience as well.
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The traditional players in the industry have not yet woken up to the potential challenges and opportunities of it. Remaining ignorant of the changes on the ground would sway things in favour of the corporate players and gradually decimate the relatively small local players. Reliance Entertainment, for instance, promotes its films through its video on demand and DVD rental format on Bigflicks.com. All the films produced by RE would go on Bigflicks.com. It is a pity to watch the local film industry still crying for more stringent action a g a i n s t v i d e o p i r a c y, P 2 P transmissions etc, which they consider as the severest threats to the industry. According to a FICCI - Price Waterhouse Coopers' report on the Indian entertainment and media sector, the industry would out perform the country's GDP growth each year till 2010 and would be worth Rs.83,740 crore by the end of this decade. Currently it hovers around Rs.35, 300 crores. Film sector alone, with an 18% growth rate is expected become a Rs.15, 300 crore segment by 2010 as against the present Rs.6,800 crore business. With the other media work in tandem and add up the revenue, the stakes would go further high. “We have observed that as people start to earn more, entertainment actually goes local, rather than turning towards the global English language.” Rajesh Sawhney of Reliance Big reveals. “So the economics of regional cinema business has become viable. We have even seen that 95% of the mobile phone downloads is regional.” There go the calculations. In a largely speculative business, the corporates have come with clear convictions and better mode of calculating things. If desi capitalists come, can foreign biggies be far behind? With the 100 % FDI permitted in to the media and entertainment segment and our doors thrown open to the foreign capital, the local industry is better be well informed of the flashfloods and hurricanes in the years to come. September November 2008